Reading: Developing comprehension and inference

We know that the use of phonics is hugely important, but passing the phonics check does not automatically lead to great scores in reading. Learners also need to develop skills in comprehension and inference. So, how do we move on from decoding so that learners can understand the text, picking up on what is happening along with the underlying themes?   What does it mean? Comprehension, in short, is the ability to understand something. This becomes a useful skill when learners have to pick out key information from a passage of text in order to answer questions. The challenge is using approaches that will help us to find out if our learners are just decoding when reading, or whether they are picking up on what is actually happening in the text. To check for comprehension, teacher can ask the following questions: What is happening in the story so far? Who is the main character in the story? How are they behaving? How do you think X is feeling right now? Why do yo