Keys to Meaning

Keys to Meaning: What Teachers and Tutors Can Do to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills is an education and teaching book by Carmen Y. Reyes, The Psycho-Educational Teacher. To grasp the meaning of what they are reading, one reading style does not fit all children all the time. Children need to be aware that each kind of reading (fiction and nonfiction) requires a different approach using a different key to grasp meaning. Weaker readers in particular benefit from knowing several reading comprehension strategies simultaneously, and in understanding which specific key to meaning helps in resolving the particular reading comprehension problem that they are having. When one approach is not fixing the problem, the child does not need to feel frustrated in doing inefficient things that do not target the problem, being able to switch to a different key to meaning or to try an alternative reading approach. There are 43 keys to meaning on this book, listed under the categories: word meanings, literal or factual, and inferential or interpretive. These three main categories are analyzed from both the fiction and the nonfiction perspective. With over twenty years teaching students who are struggling academically, Carmen understands well the pains and frustrations of our learners with special needs. She delivers an instructional guide filled with modified teaching techniques and alternative strategies that fits the needs of both average learners as well as learners in need of modified teaching approaches.