Communication and Comprehension

Our ability to communicate is one of the most important life skills we can develop. As we all know, we can communicate in many ways, and all of them are important from body language to the written word.  If we are not effective, it can lead to misunderstandings or worse, even confrontation. This is why communication skills are essential.

In order to improve our communication skills, we have to work on the details of good communication.  Primarily, being a good listener.  It is the most important of any skill and basic to good communication.  Add to that the body language and eye contact.  If you are interested in what someone is saying, look them in the eye, and watch your body language.  A message can be conveyed in your body language and your eye contact, so be careful.  

Additionally, the best communicators are concise.  They can get to the point quite quickly. Making the point clear and avoiding rambling will keep the listener's attention.  It also makes the speaker sound like they know what they are talking about. To be a good communicator you need to avoid speaking too much and use words that will not confuse the audience. An aspect of good communication is confidence in your message, open-mindedness, and respect.  The best communicators have confidence but respect others around them. By extending respect to others, the communicator looks even more confident and in control.

All that being said, developing good communication skills is only one part of good communication. The ability to increase the comprehension of the audience is vital. Communication is nothing without comprehension.  When we think about comprehension, our minds drift to reading comprehension tests from back in grade school.  Though that is also comprehension, we are simply talking about understanding.  As a good communicator, if our audience does not understand or comprehend the words or concepts, then we have done our job.  Communication takes the words, the presentation medium, and adds to it the comprehension level of the audience.  

As advocates for ourselves, our students, and our families we all need to work on comprehension.  Yes, communication is important, but the key is comprehension. With good communication skills and even better comprehension, we can be empowered to make decisions to positively change our lives and world.

The bottom line is that communication without comprehension is worthless. 

Until next time...