Reading comprehension is an important skill for excelling in school. It plays a key role in essentially all subjects, including language arts, social studies, science, and even math. Many parents look for academic tutoring when their child is struggling with reading comprehension, including summarizing, answering comprehension questions, making predictions, and drawing conclusions. Students with learning challenges such as dyslexia, ADHD, autism, or other learning disabilities often struggle even more with reading comprehension.
The tips below can help your child strengthen their reading comprehension skills and overall performance at school. If your child continues to struggle despite trying these strategies at home, they may benefit from specialized one-on-one reading tutoring, which can be covered through Florida’s Step Up For Students funding.
Reading with your child to Improve Reading Comprehension
Reading with your child is a great way to build their comprehension skills. As you read aloud, stop after every few pages and ask your child to summarize what you just read. Ask specific questions about the story, like
- “Which new characters were introduced?”
- “What kind of characteristics describe these characters?”
- “Where does the story take place?”
- “When does the story take place?”
You can also ask your child to make predictions, like “What do you think will happen to Morgan when she gets home from school?” and work on inferencing with questions like, “Why do you think Brody felt sad?” Older students reading a book on their own can stop after every three pages or so and write a 1-2 line summary describing what happened on a Post-it note and stick it inside their book. They can also write summaries at the end of each chapter describing the events that occurred in that chapter.
How Visualization Improves Reading Comprehension for Students
Learning to visualize information is another great way to help your child build stronger reading skills. Some students naturally visualize as they read but others need to be taught how to do so. To help your child learn to visualize, perform the following steps:
- Choose a short story that is about 4-5 sentences in length.
- Read the story aloud to your child one sentence at a time.
- After each sentence, stop and ask them questions to help them form a visual image in their mind of that sentence. For example, the first sentence of the story might be, “Ellie woke up and went for a walk.”
- After reading that sentence aloud to your child, ask them questions such as: How old do you think Ellie is? What color hair does she have? Is she tall or short? What is the weather outside like? Hot or cold? Rainy or sunny?
- Have your child draw a picture of the image they created from that sentence.
- Move onto the next line of the story and follow the same process.
- Once you have finished the story, ask your child to retell the story by looking at the images they drew for each sentence. Later they can skip the drawing step and try to visualize the information in their minds line by line, then retell the story in their own words.
Using Highlighting to Identify Topics, Main Ideas, and Important Details
Highlighting is another great strategy for building stronger reading comprehension and active reading skills. To use this technique, explain to your child that there are three elements we look for when we read: the topic is one, two, or three words describing the passage, like dogs, tornadoes, or school. We highlight the topic in blue. The next element we look for is the main idea, which is what the author is saying about the topic. We highlight the main idea in green. Finally, the important details are important pieces of information found throughout the passage. We highlight the important details in yellow. After you teach these concepts to your child, select a passage. Have them read the passage first, then go back and highlight the topic in blue, main idea in green, and important details in yellow. You can also have them write a 1-2 line summary at the end of the passage describing what they read.
Signs Your Child May Be Struggling with Reading Comprehension
If your child is showing any of the struggles below, they may have reading comprehension difficulties and would likely benefit from specialized reading tutoring:
- Trouble identifying the main idea of passages
- Difficulty retelling passages in their own words
- Challenges with answering oral or written questions about what they read
- Difficulty remembering characters and traits
- Challenges with making inferences or predictions
When Should You Consider Reading Comprehension Tutoring for Your Child?
Many students benefit from extra individualized support to build their reading comprehension skills. If your child struggles to retell passages and stories, has challenges identifying the main idea, has difficulty answering comprehension questions about a passage, or struggles with making predictions or drawing conclusions, specialized reading tutoring may be very helpful for them.
Students with learning challenges such as dyslexia, ADHD, autism, or other learning disabilities may truly benefit from specialized reading remediation. These students often need individualized, scaffolded strategies to help build their reading comprehension skills that a reading tutor can teach them, and that they may not receive in a classroom environment.
Many parents in Palm Beach County and Broward County look for tutoring services when their child struggles with reading or has poor self-esteem. Reading comprehension tutoring can help your child immensely with their overall school performance.
Using Step Up Funding for Reading Tutoring
Families throughout Florida may be able to use Step Up For Students scholarship funds to pay for one-one-one reading tutoring services. For students who struggle with reading comprehension or other academic skills, Step Up funding can likely pay for individualized academic tutoring from tutoring programs that specialize in reading intervention using research-based, multi-sensory techniques. During these one-on-one tutoring sessions, your child can learn key skills such as identifying the topic, main idea, and important details from passages; creating summaries; making predications; answering explicit and implicit questions; and making inferences.
Reading Comprehension Tutoring in Palm Beach County
Many students benefit from one-on-one tutoring to strengthen their reading comprehension skills. When looking for a reading tutor for your child, try to find a tutor or tutoring program that uses research-based, multi-sensory techniques that are catered to your child’s needs and reading level. Parents throughout Palm Beach County, including Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach, as well as throughout Broward County, often look for specialized one-on-one tutoring when their child struggles with reading or other academic skills.
Frequently Ased Questions
When should I hire a reading comprehension tutor for my child?
If you notice your child struggling with key reading comprehension skills, including summarizing, identifying the main idea, answering questions about a passage, or making inferences, they may benefit from a specialized reading comprehension tutor.
Can I use Step Up funds to pay for tutoring?
Yes! If your child qualifies for Step Up funding, you may be able to use these funds for one-on-one reading tutoring for them. Knowledge Plus Tutoring offers specialized one-on-one reading tutoring and we accept Step Up funding for these services.
How can I find a reading tutor near me?
If your child is struggling with reading comprehension, try to find a tutor or tutoring program that specializes in working with students who have reading comprehension challenges using research-based, multi-sensory techniques. If your child has a learning disability such as dyslexia or dysgraphia; ADHD; autism; or another learning challenges, look for a tutoring program that specializes in providing reading remediation to students with these profiles.
If your child continues to struggle with reading comprehension despite support at home, individualized one-on-one tutoring can help them develop this skill and improve their overall academic performance and self-confidence. Many parents in Palm Beach County and Broward County use tutoring to help their child with reading comprehension. In some cases, parents can use their Step Up For Students funds to pay for these tutoring services. At Knowledge Plus Tutoring, we help students build their reading comprehension skills through in-person or virtual one-on-one tutoring using evidence-based, multi-sensory techniques.
Dr. Emily Levy, the executive director of Knowledge Plus Tutoring, has been helping students build their reading comprehension skills through specialized reading remediation for over twenty years.
