Teaching Reading Comprehension in Portuguese Primary and Middle Schools

Abstract

Reading comprehension is an important skill throughout all stages of education. However, Portuguese pupils still demonstrate difficulties in understanding what they read. In addition to cognitive and psychological factors, it is important to understand how this skill is addressed in textbooks. Here, we examined how reading comprehension is targeted in Portuguese and Science textbooks in Grades 4 and 6. Regarding Portuguese textbooks, we found a higher focus on orality than on reading comprehension in Grade 4 and a more distributed focus regarding literacy-related skills in Grade 6. In both grades, most of the questions related to reading comprehension involved retrieval of factual information using open questions. This pattern was also observed for Science textbooks. These findings seem crucial to shed light on the articulation between the educational system, subjects’ curriculum and educational actors, which is critical to effectively develop pupils’ reading comprehension skills.