RICA Competency 12, Comprehension: Concepts and Factors Affecting Reading

Comprehension. Comprehension refers to the readers understanding of what is being read

(Zarrillo, 2011, pg. 90). This section focuses on the basic concepts and factors that affect reading
comprehension. RICA Competency 13, Comprehension: Instruction and Assessment-Before
Children Read, While Children Read, After Children Read. This looks like the instruction before
children read, asking questions and clarifying answers. (Zarrillo, 2011, pg. 95).
Three experiences I have had with this competency include encounters with my tutees,
observations in the classroom, and witnessing it being modeled. With my tutees I have had the
privilege to read a variety of text including informational, fiction, non-fiction, and etc. Each time
we finish reading, and even during the story time I ask questions about the text and I hope each
time they answer it relates to what has been read. In my master teachers classroom each time
they read any type of text, weather it is for enjoyment, learning something new, or for their
accelerated reader the students are asked to make text to self, text to text, or text to world
connections using a post it note. The teacher then has the students place their post it under the
right category on the board once they made a connection. The teacher uses this to check for
comprehension, seeing if the students are understanding what is being read.
This relates to TPE 2.1, Candidates use progress monitoring at key points during
instruction to determine whether students are progressing adequately toward achieving the
frameworks and state-adopted academic content standards for students. (California Teaching
Performance Expectations, 2013). By asking questions and having students make text to self,
text to text, or text to world connections, it checks for comprehension.

I can apply RICA Competency 12, and RICA Competency 13 by being intentional in
what I read, and how I get the text to be comprehended by each individual in my class. This
looks like questions pre- set aside to ask, defining familiar that the students may not have an
existing schema of, and providing the students to make connections. This can be done in shared
reading or even guided reading lesson plans. Shared reading is an instructional approach in
which the teacher explicitly models the strategies and skills of proficient readers, and guided
reading is small-group reading instruction designed to provide differentiated teaching that
supports students in developing reading proficiency (Vacca, et al., 2015). Both of these strategies
provide a chance for students to dive even deeper into the text, providing them a higher chance to
comprehend the meaning, ultimately leading to reading success!

Works Cited
Commission on Teacher Credentialing. (2013). California teaching performance
Expectations. Retrieved from http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educatorprep/TPA-files/TPEs-Full Version.pdf
Vacca, J. A., Vacca, R. T., Gove, M. K., Burkey, L. C., Lenhart, L. A., & McKeon, C. A.
(2015). Reading & Learning to Read. Upper Saddle River : Pearson .
Zarrillo, J. J. (2011). Third Edition Ready for Revised RICA. Boston : Pearson .

Works Cited
Commission on Teacher Credentialing. (2013). California teaching performance
Expectations. Retrieved from http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educatorprep/TPA-files/TPEs-Full Version.pdf
Vacca, J. A., Vacca, R. T., Gove, M. K., Burkey, L. C., Lenhart, L. A., & McKeon, C. A.
(2015). Reading & Learning to Read. Upper Saddle River : Pearson .
Zarrillo, J. J. (2011). Third Edition Ready for Revised RICA. Boston : Pearson .