When reading difficulties are not due to decoding, what should teachers address?

• A. Language comprehension, working memory, and higher-order reasoning; adjust instruction to target vocabulary, background knowledge, and cognitive strategies.
• B. Phonemic awareness and decoding only.
• C. Spelling and handwriting precision.
• D. Motivation only.

Answer: (A)

When decoding isn’t the problem, focus shifts to understanding language and using thinking skills to make meaning from text. Reading ability relies on decoding and language comprehension; if decoding is solid, the bottleneck lies in comprehending and integrating ideas. Teach vocabulary explicitly, build students’ background knowledge through rich content, and develop cognitive strategies that support understanding—such as predicting, questioning, summarizing, and monitoring comprehension. Also support working memory by guiding students to chunk information, use graphic organizers, and connect new ideas to what they already know. This approach helps students unlock meaning in texts they read and improves overall comprehension, rather than only trying to fix decoding or other isolated skills.