Hi all,
As my boy gets older, we are trying to read more actively, asking questions about what we see in the pages of books, etc.
What are some of your best techniques for “active” reading to improve comprehension and make connections?
TIA
mom2ross
Curious as that to question myself. Can’t wait to see the answers.
I know at the moment I have my daughter read and we talk about what is going on in the picture.
I’ve worked with children who had trouble with comprehension. What we did that was extremely effective: Have the child read the passage aloud 3 times - after the end of each read, have your child give you a summary, and ask them 5 questions relating to the passage. Their confidence will grow as their accuracy goes up and they will pay more attention each of the 3 times.
I often ask cause and effect questions. For example 3 monkeys jumping on the bed one fell off… I ask why did the monkey fall off the bed. Another day I ask what happened to the monkey who jumped on the bed? Of course my son is too young right now to answer me but I have always done this with my younger cousins. I would also read to them without showing them the pictures and ask them to think about what they are reading and to create a movie in their head so after the story is done they can draw some pictures from their mind from the story they heard. I encouraged them to ask questions while I was reading to them because if something I read sparked a thought in their head I was happy to take a minute and make the connection from their thought to what was happening in the story.
Good thread.
Nice tips for me too, thank you.
Andrea
I usually ask my daughter questions about what she thinks may happen next, and try to relate the story to something she has seen/experienced lately (as in remember when we did that/saw that) Sometimes after reading a short story we’ll act it out - she loves doing that. And sometimes I get her to retell the story herself. If there are a lot of pictures then we examine them and talk about the fine details too.