The Reader: A number of factors related to readers affect their comprehension, including their schemata, sensory and perceptual abilities, thinking abilities, word recognition strategies, and affective aspects.

The Reading Situation: Comprehension is also affected by the situation in which the reading takes place. Purposeful reading results in better comprehension, and comprehension is better when the task is important to the student.

The Text: The nature of the text affects comprehension. Sentence complexity, organization of material, and type of text all must be considered by a teacher when assessing the difficulty of the material for a group of students.

Interaction of the Reader, the Reading Situation, and the Text: Factors related to the reader, the reading situation, and the text all interact as the student reads. Teachers can use prereading, during-reading, postreading, and general strategies and activities to enhance comprehension of particular texts.