Just like word-reading skills, early assessment of listening comprehension skills is key to understand student progress and identify areas for targeted instruction. A study of North Carolina’s state-level formative reading assessments published by the Institute for Education Sciences in 2020 recommended inclusion of K-3 screening and progress monitoring assessments of “vocabulary, syntax, and listening comprehension skills” in addition to assessments of word-reading skills in order to more reliably identify students at risk of not achieving reading proficiency at the end of third grade (Koon, Foorman, & Galloway, 2020).
Children who did not show difficulties in word reading or its underlying skills, but had unidentified weaknesses in listening comprehension, are those who often struggle with reading comprehension at a later grade
It is important to keep in mind that assessment of listening comprehension skills involves children listening to oral text. If an assessment involves children reading written text, this is an assessment of reading comprehension. Screening and progress monitoring of students in both word-reading and listening comprehension skills logically yields four potential profiles of students with distinct needs.
Here are some principles to keep in mind for listening comprehension assessment:
Cloze or Maze tests in which students are asked to complete missing words are assessments of shallow comprehension. In fact, researchers suggest that these tests are more associated with code-focused skills than language skills (Kim, 2023). Assessments in which students hear or read a passage and are asked to answer questions based upon text clues and prior knowledge (often going beyond what is explicitly stated in the text) are assessments of deep comprehension. Remember that the ultimate goal is to help students develop deep comprehension skills.
The ideal listening comprehension assessment involves responses to questions regarding a passage that is read orally to a student. The questions should engage both lower- and higher-level listening comprehension skills. Good listening comprehension assessments tap both literal and inferential comprehension. Again, the ultimate goal is to help students develop deep comprehension skills.
Vocabulary is a lower-level listening comprehension skill. It interacts with word-reading skills (especially morphology), reading comprehension, and higher-level listening comprehension skills. (Kim, 2020b; Duke and Cartwright, 2021). However, as children move out of early phases of reading development and develop word recognition skills, vocabulary becomes a less reliable proxy for higher-level listening comprehension skills.
Researchers find clear distinctions between listening comprehension subcomponents in upper elementary and middle school. Thus, for struggling readers these skills need to be individually assessed to understand students’ strengths and areas of growth. But findings for younger children are mixed. Some researchers find it hard to distinguish subcomponents in children at this age, and suggest language in the youngest children is productively regarded as a single construct (a cluster of closely related skills) (Pearson et al, 2020). Other researchers find distinctions as early as second grade (Kim, 2020a). For children in Pre-K through first grade, language assessments can be used to get a grasp on children’s listening comprehension skills.
There are multiple existing assessments that could potentially be used to screen and progress monitor listening comprehension. Assessments we have identified to date are included in the Materials Directory. Some of these assessments can be used to screen students in the early grades, identifying which students need extra support early. Other assessments can be used as a progress monitoring tool to track student progress during an intervention.
One challenge of assessing listening comprehension is the additional time and effort that may be required compared to the relative quickness and ease to assess word-reading skills. As noted above, vocabulary assessments can be used as a proxy for listening comprehension – especially for younger children. However, as students get older, assessing individual component skills of listening comprehension will provide a more comprehensive representation of students’ listening comprehension abilities.
When we teach comprehension skills with written text, where children are asked to also use their word recognition skills, we are teaching reading comprehension. When we teach comprehension with oral text, where children are required to process the information they hear, we are teaching listening comprehension. In other words, the major difference between providing reading comprehension instruction and listening comprehension instruction is the use of written text (reading comprehension) or oral text (listening comprehension) (Kim, 2020b). Examples of oral text include read alouds, podcasts, and audiobooks. Activities, such as peer-to-peer conversations, that students can engage with through listening and speaking are also examples of oral text. Listening comprehension instruction allows children to focus their brain power on building their language and higher-order thinking skills and allows the educator to target specific skills, like inferencing, perspective-taking, or comprehension monitoring. These are the same skills that are applied in the presence of written text (reading comprehension).
The skills we expect students to apply to reading comprehension tasks can and should be taught in an oral context. Developing strong listening comprehension skills during, and beyond, the early elementary grades will support students’ reading comprehension ability. By teaching these listening comprehension skills early and intentionally, we can develop reading comprehension skills long before students can lift words off a page. Rather than waiting for a student to read proficiently to develop reading comprehension, the skills can be taught concurrently. In a 2023 interview, Dr. Tiffany Hogan, a professor at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston and the director of its Speech and Language Literacy Lab, noted, “Listening comprehension is primarily underpinned by the content, form, and use of language. So the knowledge of form, use, and content that children are developing from utero and across the lifespan–that’s setting the foundation for comprehension through supporting both word reading and language comprehension” (Loftus and Sappington, 2023). That said, while comprehension of oral text is a pathway toward comprehension of written text, instruction in listening comprehension cannot be a substitute for comprehension of written text. There are specific and distinct evidence-based instructional strategies for reading comprehension (Duke, Ward, Pearson, 2021). Children need both.
The key is to intentionally target specific listening comprehension component skills, such as inference-making, reasoning, and vocabulary, simultaneously through intentional questioning and rich conversations with students about a text they have just heard. ‘Why’ questions can be especially impactful for developing students’ vocabulary knowledge. By preplanning open-ended questions and responding to students with scaffolded support or challenges, aiming for several back-and-forth exchanges, teachers are thereby directly teaching and reinforcing listening comprehension skills. Simply asking literal questions before and after completing a read-aloud, however, is insufficient when developing students’ listening comprehension skills (Zucker et al, 2020).
Here is an example of an effective back-and-forth exchange where the teacher intentionally targets perspective-taking through an open-ended question about the text. The teacher provides an upward scaffold to challenge the student, encouraging deeper conversation.
The impact of specific subskills often occurs partially through other subskills. This suggests that educators should target multiple skills at once (Kim, 2023; Duke, Lindsey & Wise, 2023; Pearson et al, 2020; Duke, Ward & Pearson, 2021). While the skills need to be practiced and taught in tandem, instructional awareness of individual skills is equally important. It’s not practical to try to cover all skills in each lesson or activity. However, children should regularly get practice across both lower-level language skills (vocabulary and grammar) and higher-level language skills (inferencing, perspective-taking, reasoning, comprehension monitoring, and text structure awareness). It’s also important to build their background knowledge. Researchers recommend the integration of content with literacy instruction (Cabell & Hwang, 2020; Kim et al, 2021; Kim et al, 2023; Hwang, Cabell and Joyner, 2021; Cabell and Passalacqua, 2022; Hwang & Cabell, 2021; Cabell & Hwang, 2023). Researchers also find that explicitly building students’ knowledge about text structure (for both narrative and informational text) also supports listening comprehension skills.
In a first-grade classroom, the following are a few examples of listening comprehension activities and routines that could be woven throughout the day in the literacy block and beyond. Some activities target multiple skills in tandem, while others focus on individual skills
Some students will need additional support in the area of listening comprehension beyond core instruction. The use of a systematic approach (such as RTI or MTSS) should interweave the cycle of assessment and instruction (Carta and Greenwood, 2023). Screening, diagnostic assessment, and explicit instruction based on the identified needs, along with progress monitoring, and modification of instruction are essential to addressing each students’ needs. Depending on the students’ strengths and areas of need, instructional needs will vary in dosage and intensity.
For students with word reading skills at benchmark and listening comprehension skills below benchmark, core instruction plus intervention is needed to target background knowledge and both lower and higher-level language skills. For students proficient at benchmark in word reading and listening comprehension skills, core instruction to support the development of both domains is sufficient, with the amount of word reading instruction beginning to wean as students progress through the grades and no longer need instruction in word reading (third grade and beyond if the student is proficiently decoding). For students that fall below word reading and listening comprehension benchmarks, core instruction plus targeted interventions for word reading, background knowledge, and both lower and higher-level language skill instruction is necessary. Finally, students with word reading skills below benchmark and listening comprehension skills at benchmark require core instruction plus word reading interventions. As students receive targeted instruction, frequent assessment is necessary for teachers to observe changing areas of strength and need.
Educators considering incorporating explicit assessment and instruction of listening comprehension face limitations of how much can be fit into the instructional day. A key consideration is how to add listening comprehension into what educators are already doing (e.g. core curriculum, interventions, etc.). We suggest consideration of two possible tiers of activity.
These are immediate steps educators can take to begin to explicitly focus on building students’ listening comprehension skills without changing how their instructional minutes are currently distributed or (financial) resources are allocated.
Infuse child-facing listening comprehension platforms like Inference Galaxy into current small group and individual work.
These steps include incorporating updated assessments and allocating additional financial resources.
Resources for both tiers can be identified in the Materials Directory.
Cabell, S. Q., & Hwang, H. (2020). Building content knowledge to boost comprehension in the primary grades. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), S99-S107.
Cabell, S. Q., & Passalacqua, J. (2022). Packed with potential: Content-rich classroom conversations in the early grades. Literacy Today, 40(2), 52-54. Available online here.
Cabell, S. Q., & Hwang, H. (2023). Leveraging content-rich English language arts instruction in the early grades to improve children’s language comprehension. Handbook on the Science of Early Literacy, 175.
Carta, J. J., & Greenwood, C. R. (2023). Multi-tiered systems of support: An approach for reducing disparities in school readiness and increasing equity in early literacy and learning opportunities for young children. Handbook on the Science of Early Literacy, 347-358.
Connor, C. M. (2014). Individualizing teaching in beginning reading. Better: Evidence-based Education, Autumn, 4-7. Available online here.
Connor, C., Morrison, F. and Slominski, L. (2006). Preschool Instruction and Children’s Emergent Literacy Growth, Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(4): 665-689. Available online here.
Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). The science of reading progresses: Communicating advances beyond the simple view of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 56, S25-S44. Available online here.
Duke, N. K., Lindsey, J. B., & Wise, C. N. (2023). Feeding Two Birds with One Hand. Handbook on the Science of Early Literacy, 186.
Duke, N.K., Ward, A.E., & Pearson, P.D. (2021). The science of reading comprehension instruction. The Reading Teacher, 74(6), 663–672. Available online here.
Hwang, H., and Cabell, S. Q. (2021) Latent profiles of vocabulary and domain knowledge and their relation to listening comprehension in kindergarten. Journal of Research in Reading, 44: 636–653.
Hwang, H., Cabell, S. Q., & Joyner, R. E. (2022). Effects of integrated literacy and content-area instruction on vocabulary and comprehension in the elementary years: A meta-analysis. Scientific Studies of Reading, 26(3), 223-249.
Kim, J. S., Burkhauser, M. A., Mesite, L. M., Asher, C. A., Relyea, J. E., Fitzgerald, J., & Elmore, J. (2021). Improving reading comprehension, science domain knowledge, and reading engagement through a first-grade content literacy intervention. Journal of Educational Psychology, 113(1), 3. Available online here.
Kim, J. S., Burkhauser, M. A., Relyea, J. E., Gilbert, J. B., Scherer, E., Fitzgerald, J., ... & McIntyre, J. (2023). A longitudinal randomized trial of a sustained content literacy intervention from first to second grade: Transfer effects on students’ reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 115(1), 73.
Kim, Y.S.G. (2020a). Hierarchical and dynamic relations of language and cognitive skills to reading comprehension: Testing the direct and indirect effects model of reading (DIER). Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(4), 667. Available online here.
Kim, Y.S. (2020b). Simple but not simplistic: The simple view of reading unpacked and expanded. The Reading League, May/June, 15-22. Available online here.
Kim, Y. S. G. (2023). Simplicity Meets Complexity. Handbook on the Science of Early Literacy, 9-22. Available online here.
Koon, S., Foorman, B., & Galloway, T. (2020). Identifying North Carolina Students at Risk of Scoring below Proficient in Reading at the End of Grade 3. REL 2020-030. Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast. Available online here.
Loftus, M. and Sappington, L. (Hosts.) (2023, November 3). The relationship between phonics and language comprehension with Tiffany Hogan. [Audio podcast episode].In Melissa and Lori Love Literacy. Available online here.
Pearson, P. D., Palincsar, A. S., Biancarosa, G., & Berman, A. I. (Eds.). (2020). Reaping the Rewards of the Reading for Understanding Initiative. Washington, DC: National Academy of Education. Available online here.
Zucker, T.A., Cabell, S.Q., Oh, Y., & Wang, X. (2020). Asking questions is just the first step: Using upward and downward scaffolds. The Reading Teacher, 74(00), 275–283.
Search the directory for instructional resources such as activities, strategies, practices, student platforms, supplemental curricula, and interventions as well as assessments to target listening comprehension in the classroom.
Sign up and we’ll update you as we add new resources to support your classroom listening comprehension instruction.
Read Charlotte is a community initiative that unites educators, community partners, and families to improve children’s reading from birth to third grade. We don’t run programs. We are a capacity-building intermediary that supports local partners to apply evidence-based knowledge about effective reading instruction and interventions, high-quality execution, continuous improvement, and data analysis to improve reading outcomes.
Read Charlotte is a civic initiative of Foundation For The Carolinas.
Reference in this website to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm, or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the public and does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by Read Charlotte or the Foundation For The Carolinas. Our office is not responsible for and does not in any way guarantee the accuracy of information in other sites accessible through links herein. Read Charlotte and/or the Foundation For The Carolinas may supplement this list with other services and products that meet the specified criteria. For more information contact: charlotte@readcharlotte.org.