The ultimate goal in reading is of course, comprehension - the memory and understanding of what has been read. It is not a given that a person who can read words gets meaning from those words. Comprehension involves many factors.

Decoding

The reader must be able to decode effortlessly. The ability to decode requires good visual memory of the letters and their corresponding sounds, as well as the ability to put them together correctly into the correct word. If this process is laborious, the brain has little energy and attention left over for remembering what was read.

I worked with one little girl in fourth grade who could remember very well all concepts in the history chapter when it was read to her. There was one instance where I had her go through a chapter stopping to decode the words she did not know. At the end of the chapter, I read the first comprehension question to her. She asked to see the book, and I asked why. "Because I read the chapter, but I don't remember it". 

Some things that may contribute to poor decoding skills may be low working memory, poor auditory memory, or poor visual memory.

Fluency

A reader may be able to decode words well, yet still may not be fluent and able to remember what was read. Some of the contributing factors to poor fluency may be slow processing speed, poor rapid automatic naming (RAN) and poor vision. Working memory is at play here as well, since the reader must be able to hold the beginning of the sentence in memory while reading to the end of the sentence in order to fully comprehend it.

Visualization

Most people remember what they read by creating a movie in their head. If they are good at visualizing, that movie might also be in vibrant colors and have wonderful sound. Other people remember the words, the story, the feelings attached, but don't have a movie. I do not know how to teach the second type of memory, but visualization can be easily taught.

Vocabulary

Many people do not have the vocabulary to understand the passages they are required to read, leading to poor comprehension. I was working with a 6th grade girl who had had poor auditory abilities all of her life. We corrected this, as well as helping on the other issues in this book. Because of the auditory problems, she did not acquire an age-appropriate vocabulary, so I told her to ask someone safe (not her peers) for the definition anytime she did not know a word. I was not going to ask her to look it up in a dictionary and write it down, as she was 12 years old and probably would never do it! besides, she had a lot of vocabulary to catch up on and we needed to fill that bucket as quickly as we could.

One day we were reading along and she came across the word, "irrigation". She sounded it out, and said "irrigation". I asked her if she knew what it meant and she said "yes". She continued to read and stopped at the word "ditch" and asked what it meant. 

Although I was surprised at how rudimentary her vocabulary was, I immediately told her, and knew that she needed to learn as much new vocabulary as possible in a short time, now that she had good auditory processing and good auditory memory.

Logic and Reasoning

A person who does not have good logic and reasoning is also called a "concrete thinker". They only know the exact information that they are given and cannot deduce beyond it. If you give them comprehension questions after a paragraph, the wording must be the same, because they cannot interpret into different language.

In fourth grade we introduce metaphors, similes, and symbolism which means nothing to the concrete thinker. In order to comprehend and understand, this cognitive skill must be present. Thankfully, it is teachable.

Auditory learner

Some people remember better when they read out loud versus reading silently. Unfortunately, testing is done silently, putting this person at a disadvantage.

Once all of the various issues mentioned above have been dealt with, the reader has excellent abilities!! The ability to read, remember and understand articles, books and other fine literature makes for a rich experience, not just in school, but also in life.