What is a critical skill for developing reading comprehension?

Critical thinking is an essential skill for developing reading comprehension because it enables readers to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information from texts. When students engage critically with a text, they are not merely absorbing information; they are questioning the author's intentions, making connections to prior knowledge, and interpreting meaning. This deep engagement allows for a more profound understanding of the text, leading to improved comprehension.

Through critical thinking, readers learn to identify the main ideas, recognize implicit messages, and draw inferences, which are crucial for grasping complex materials. It also empowers them to distinguish between facts and opinions, evaluate arguments, and reflect on the implications of what they read. In contrast, skills like memorization, while useful in certain contexts, do not promote the analytical engagement required for true comprehension of texts. Similarly, listening skills and handwriting are important in their own right but do not directly facilitate the deep understanding of written content as critical thinking does.