comprehension. They are comfortable repeating what they’ve heard/read but less experienced in articulating what a text “means.” The “close reading” featured in standardized reading assessments doesn’t help much, as those questions often ask students to zoom in on individual bits and pieces at the sentence level and the effects or meaning of those bits and pieces independent of the larger argument. Put another way, they’ve spent a lot of time examining trees without being required to describe the forest.
