Madlin Schmelzer’s scientific contributions

A profound level of reading comprehension is essential for solving modelling problems, as a problem solver has to understand the real-life situation presented in the task in order to construct an adequate situation model, real model, and mathematical model. The aim of this paper is to present the theoretical grounds and a sample learning environment for fostering reading comprehension. In the first part of this article, we summarise research on reading comprehension while solving modelling problems, report on research on two strategies (text highlighting and self-generated drawing) that can help learners comprehend a modelling problem, and describe ways to implement both strategies in the classroom. In the second part, we present a learning environment that can be implemented to foster reading comprehension in the lower secondary classroom .