Reading comprehension plays a role in just about every subject in school. Students need to have strong reading comprehension skills to excel in science, social studies, language arts, and even math. Help your child develop stronger reading comprehension skills with the ideas detailed below:
Reading with your child
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 those characters?” and “Where and 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 in that chapter.
Visualizing
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, choose or create a short story that’s 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 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? You can then have your child draw a picture of the image they created from that sentence. Then 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.
Highlighting
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 through 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.
If your child continues to struggle with reading comprehension, reading tutoring may be helpful for them and can teach them strategies individualized to their needs.
