Tips for You As Parents to Help with your Child's READING COMPREHENSION

Hi,

One of you emailed me yesterday about extra maths help for her child and in email chat we also talked about Reading Comprehension.

In an email I just sent her I detailed for her the various specific Reading Strategies that your children have been taught to help them more easily understand what they read.

It's important because, of course, the less they understand of what they read, then the less use it is to them. And likewise the more they understand of what they read, the more use it is to them.

So the question is... just what are those Reading Strategies?

Well, here's bits of the email I sent. I hope you find it useful for YOUR child too. 

"All it is is helping her understand what she's reading. 

The current internationally-accepted way of teaching it is to help the kids try to consciously use specific 'strategies' when reading. 

... has been taught these strategies directly over the course of the year, and indeed over the last few years. 

By using them consciously, she will soon use them unconsciously. While we, as adults, might assume that all readers do these naturally, they don't. And so we need to actively teach them.

I can, if you would like, copy some sheets for you, which I think would be very helpful to you and indeed as a reminder to her.

Meanwhile, I will list here the strategies, together with a brief description of each.

BEFORE READING

1. Predicting   --- helps activate prior knowledge. It is based on clues in the text (pictures, subtitles, etc)
2. Self-questioning: Providing a framework for active learning as students engage with the text to find answers (basically this means to ask yourself one or more questions BEFORE you begin reading -- that way, you are concentrating more on understanding what you are reading.)
3. Skimming -- glancing quickly through material to gain an overall view of a text
4. Scanning -- glancing through a text to locate specific details, e.g. names, dates, etc

WHILE READING

1. Inferring -- THIS IS CRUCIAL -- taking information from a text and creating their own interpretation beyond the literal level. e.g. John looked to make sure the shopkeeper wasn't looking. Then he quickly put a Mars bar into his bag and walked out. (Infer: John was stealing the Mars bar.)
2. Connecting -- connecting prior knowledge to the new information. 
3. Comparing -- thinking more specifically about connections they are making, e.g. How is this different to...?
4. Synthesising: Piecing information together as students read a text, to keep track of what is happening.
5. Creating Images -- Creating sensory images to assist with overall comprehension of a text (the more senses you employ the better -- imagine the taste, smell, touch...)

AFTER READING

1. Determining Importance -- Prioritising the most important information, be it from a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, or the whole text. Being able to do this really helps with the next strategy, summarising...
2. Summarising -- Re-writing or re-stating in your own words the text, using key words to capture the MAIN focus. Focus on the most important bits only. If something is not all that important, don't include it in a summary. You are reducing the size of the text. You are capturing the main idea(s)/point(s)."

If any of you would like me to photocopy for you some sheets that give more detail on this, I will gladly do so. 

All the best to you,

Martin