I would love to know how you have taught reading comprehension? Have you used any programme or do you just ask questions about the text you just read? I would love to know as I would like to teach miss S how to understand what she is reading…
Kimba
I just ask questions about the text we have read. I also sometimes ask her if she’s read something similar and how they are the same and I ask her in the middle of reading what she thinks might happen next. When reading non fiction I try to relate it to things she has seen around her or other experiences we have had together. So if we are reading about plants I’ll ask her how plants in our garden are similar/different to the ones she is reading about or if she has seen any of the plants we are reading about on movies or at a nursery ir wherever we have been.
I do some of what Tanikit does too–sometimes I ask H. what something means, or why someone said/did something, etc. Such questions mainly tell me whether he’s paying attention, or in some cases if the text is too difficult. He reads an hour a day by himself, and after that I usually ask at least a few, sometimes many questions about what he’s read. With fiction, sometimes I ask him to tell me what happened in the story. If you just bear in mind that you can ask some questions, plenty will occur to you.
The other thing I do is to explain every word, phrase, or name we come across with a definition, sometimes an example, and not infrequently we look up pronunciations (especially in history and geography) and look for pictures and videos online. Although this multimedia might sound like “gravy” or “enrichment,” I think it’s just basic comprehension–if you don’t have the slighted idea of what the Buddhist cliff monasteries of India might look like, you can’t do without a picture. Without one, you really won’t have nearly as good an idea of what the text is talking about.
Frankly, though, I think the notion of “reading comprehension” as a separate facility, as a subject as it were, has been more or less invented by schools which have to test whether the children have done the reading. If you’re a school teacher, it’s a bad idea simply to trust that the children have done the reading, because the reading is frequently boring to a lot of the kids (that’s no fault of their own) and they won’t do it if they don’t feel they have to. How can you “make” a child do the reading? Have reading comprehension homework or a quiz. Does this significantly help the child to learn stuff? Marginally, I’m sure. If the student could be guaranteed to have done the reading without the homework or quiz, would the time be better spent doing more reading? I think so. Would H. learn to “comprehend” the text more if he did homework or quizzes, or if my oral questions afterward were more high-pressure? I don’t think so. What gives him the ability to comprehend the text is (1) attention, and (2) knowing the meaning of the words. I don’t think that comprehension homework & quizzes would improve those, at this point anyway. So this is why I don’t spend time on that stuff.
We go through the Story of the World quiz book (just finished the Vol. 1 quizzes) orally over meals. This isn’t to test his knowledge but to review the salient facts, and because it’s kind of fun if there’s no pressure at all.
Reading comprehension isn’t just asking questions. The type of questions you ask make all the difference. So this is what I was taught as a teacher. First question should be something that has a simple answer that is directly stated in the book. Eg, what is johns sisters name? Your child should always get this question correct. The second question should be hinted at in the book in words or pictures Was the king angry? why do you think that? The third question should be inferred in the story but the answer not given directly. This one is harder to think up but it gives an excellent indication as to whether your child is reading above their conprehention level, as often happens with children taught to read early. It’s not a bad thing but you need to be aware of it to ensure that you can provide books that gently step up your child’s knowledge base. This question could be about linking the story line back to your child’s life experiences or even a discussion about the characters personalities.
It seems like the most difficult part of reading is going from a written code to the word you already know in speech.
Once you are there, all the rest of reading is more similar to speech than different.
Language same, grammar same.
If you could understand comprehension of speech, comprehension of reading would be at least very similar.
Therefore, i second dad dude.