Improving Reading Comprehension

 

Read to Grow and Grow to Read Series

Improving Reading Comprehension

 by Jennifer Benoit

 

Reading is foundational to the academic success of your child…plus it can be great fun!  Introducing your young child to reading is giving them the gift of adventure, mystery, and excitement.  This series is designed to help you and your young reader to flourish in their reading ability.  Read on!

 

Comprehension is how your child understands what she reads, but also how she can apply it to other situations.  Here are some ways you can work on comprehension as you read with your child or after you child has read silently.  Keep in mind that you are going to have to know the answers too!

 

Retelling – Have them retell the highlights of the story.  Think of it as a roller coaster where the high parts are the exciting and story-changing parts of the story.  Tell who the characters are and what parts they play in the story.

 

Talk about parts of story – Beginning, middle and end are the most basic parts of a story.  Even if the story is a paragraph or a picture book, all stories have a beginning middle and end.  As they get older, the terms change to introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion.  Usually, a chapter book has all of these parts in one chapter so you can easily talk about that as you read together.

 

When,Where, How – Pretend you are a reporter and are reporting on the book.  When did this happen?  What time of day and what period of time?  Where did the story happen – if several places, why did it have to have several places?  How did the story unfold?  Was it a slow unfolding or fast paced?

 

What happened on this page? – Sometimes the entire story is simply too overwhelming for the child to put into words.  Break it down into smaller parts such as what happened on this page or in this chapter then talk together about how it fits into the bigger picture.

 

What was your favorite or least favorite part and why? – Any question to help the child interact with a story is a good one.  This is particularly helpful to a child that has a hard time with comprehension because, in general, there is no right or wrong answer to the question.  Of course, their favorite part has to be IN the story, but they can give one sentence if they want and be done with the questions.

 

Does my child have a comprehension issue?

Children can get mis-identified as having a comprehension problem, when it is really a reading problem.  One way to tell the difference is to have a child read aloud to you and then ask questions about the reading.  Then you read to him another passage and ask similar questions.  If a child can successfully answer the questions after hearing the story aloud, there is most likely a reading problem, not a comprehension problem.  Because the child is so focused on reading the words, he can lose the meaning of the story or passage and it looks like he has comprehension problems. 

Another issue that is not a comprehension issue is vocabulary.  The child may understand the idea behind the passage, but has missing pieces because there are words in the passage that do not make sense to her.  Because of this, just ask if there are any words that she doesn’t know or understand.  Then explain them and see if that helps with comprehension.

In both of the above scenarios, there is a lag in skills the child possesses that need to be built up.  Make sure that if you suspect either of these issues or a comprehension issue that you talk to your child’s teacher and ask for school testing.

Top Ten Questions to Ask Your Child After Daily Reading

1. Did you like the story?

2. What would you change if you wrote the story?

3. Who was your favorite character in the story?

4. Was it a true story or not?

5. Could this story happen now?

6. Who do you know that might like to read this story?

7. Which of the characters do you feel you are most like?

8. Do any of the characters in the story remind you of someone you know and who?

9. Rate this story on a scale of one to ten (ten being the best and one the worst)?  Why?

10. What age would you recommend this story for?