Children with poor reading comprehension make more errors on questions that can only be answered if a pronoun has been correctly resolved. It is helpful for teachers to draw attention to this kind of text structure, especially for students who have difficulty comprehending a series of sentences that include cohesive ties. Many students, even skilled readers, never consciously think about authors’ use of cohesive devices.

The pronoun, synonym, or transition word is tied to a previous word, phrase or clause (the antecedent). Mary was late because she took the bus.Ĭohesive devices affect comprehension because they help readers integrate information between sentences in a text. Example: Mary was late, so she took the bus.

Transition words and inter-clausal connectors such as so or because.Example: There was a lot of food, but she only ate the bread.Substitution of a synonym for a previously mentioned noun.Example: Jim went out to the playground.Pronouns that refer back to a previously mentioned noun.There are three main types of cohesive devices:

I thought I’d devote this post to explaining cohesive ties and how they might affect reading comprehension, especially for younger students or English language learners.Ĭohesive devices are words or phrases used to connect ideas between different parts of text. One of the related topics that is unfamiliar to many teachers was Cohesive Devices (sometimes called Cohesive Ties, and also known as anaphors). I was recently developing some PowerPoints and activities for a comprehension training session about the role that text structure plays in reading comprehension.

What is a synonym for