Someone just told me that early readers don’t read with comprehension. My daughter has been reading phonetically since she was 2 years 2 months. I’ve never tried to test her to see if she’s comprehending when she reads her storybooks, and I’m not sure how I would do that anyway. Has anyone heard this and is it true?
People who don’t agree with early reading will tell you a lot of things. What kind of books does she read? If they are children’s books, then I’m sure she has a very good idea about what she is reading. My son is 2.5, and I know he comprehends a whole lot. If you read with her, or look through the book first, then you can define any words you think might be confusing.
What would you take as reasonable evidence that your child understands a book that is read to her? At that age, I guess things like paying close attention, asking or answering a few simple questions, or wanting to play with toys related to the content of the book would all be relevant. But basically, I had some notion of what my boy could definitely understand when he was 2.5. Well, I maintain that if he can read to you a book that he would understand when read to him, then he’s reading with comprehension.
What’s wrong with that argument?
I would say, any word that a child reads, if it is used outside of a book, in everyday life appropriately, then there is comprehension. My son doesn’t read yet, but when he hears me read something, he relates it to real life. He can say all the words in the book, repeat anything i say, fill in the blanks when I read a line but leave out a word, but hasn’t demonstrated to me that he can actually read outloud by himself. When I read the word “moon” in a book, he’ll say “moon, outside” and he’ll point up to the sky. I’m very confident that once he sees the word “moon” and actually says it without me prompting him, he’ll say the very same thing.
When you talk to a baby, language is being input into their brains. The output will come much later, because they can’t talk yet. I’ve heard an interview done with an autistic child who later came to be much more verbal, told someone, I learned to read by watching the captions on TV and hearing the words being said. Pictures in books will reinforce their learning, I would watch for some of the things that daddude mentioned too.
You could find a word in a book and just point to it, have her say the word, and then go find the object or picture somewhere else in the room. Without you prompting or a picture prompting, that would be a good indicator that she is comprehending what she reads. Obviously sight words, like “a, an, the, with” etc. she’s not going to know. The main nouns, verbs, adjectives are going to be key.
Keep your faith because they do understand. After reading a book with my little one, I would ask questions about the story that we read and she would answer me correctly. I would rephrase the questions just to make sure she’s not just remembering the order of words but still she would not be confused. However, it might be true that some children may learn to read first and understand later.
I think the problem comes when they are slow reading a sentence, sounding out each word, just reading one word at a time, that they don’t then put it all together to make it into something meaningful. I’m not up to that stage yet with DD, but that’s what I’m thinking the issue is.
Fludo, that makes sense. That never happened to us because if he was able to (or willing to) read something at all, he was reading fairly quickly and fluently.
My experience with my little boy is that I would normally ask questions before, during, after reading a particular book. I would sometimes even ask the next day or even a few days/weeks after and he would remember all about the story or stories he read. Sometimes I would forget some things about the story but my chid would remember and let me know. I find it helpful to ask him to re-tell the story and then we would role play or act out the story and the lines or do some activities relating to it and this further enhances his memory and comprehension as a whole.