Teaching Your Child to Read Using Reading Comprehension Support
It’s worrying to see your child unable to understand what they’re reading. Your child may be a fluent reader but can’t understand contexts. Or perhaps the struggle stems from the fact that he is a poor reader.
His foundational reading skills may be underdeveloped. That’s why advanced skills are troubling him. This ultimately leads to difficulty in reading and comprehension.
If not dealt with at an early age, this challenge will go on for the entire school years.
These effective reading comprehension support steps will set him on the right path and ensure future success:
- Build on basic skills
Learning to read is a systematic process. Jumbling concepts can be confusing and will easily put off your child. It is critical that your child understands each basic aspect of reading before proceeding to the complex steps.
Before reading comprehension, ensure your child deeply understands phonological skills, phonics, spelling patterns, decoding, vocabulary and fluency.
A stable foundation will see your child conquering reading comprehension, grammar, figurative language, critical thinking and other advanced reading skills with less effort. This will build mental strength and stamina in reading.
- Cognitive enhancement
Does your child have cognitive skills expected of his age? Cognitive impairment is detrimental to reading progress. This is directly related to thinking, reasoning and memory.
As they read, kids should store information in their memory and retrieve most of it when need be. They should be able to reason about some aspects of reading encountered and use critical thinking to infer the context meaning. If one of these skills is not well developed, reading comprehension will be a tremendous challenge.
Focus on improving the cognitive skills in your child. Doing this will enhance their focus and attention spans and they will not miss any important detail as they read.
- Shared reading
Take turns as you read. You can read aloud as they listen. They will pick up new words as you read. Tell them to question as you read. Explain any unclear concepts.
Let them also read back to you as you note some troubling aspects. Give support where necessary. Remember to use books that match their reading level. Consult with teachers or use good reading programs and assistive technology.
- Ask questions
It’s good to pause and check if your child has understood a sentence or paragraph. Prompt them to use imagery if need be. Use comparisons and give context clues.
Ask about the theme of the story. Ask if the story is interesting and if they can relate to any other. Have they learnt any lessons they can relate to real-life aspects? Can they summarize the story? Are there any challenging stylistic features?
- Multisensory strategies
Using a variety of approaches is crucial to rid monotony and bring fun. Children learn to read differently. For some, they can just read texts and understand.
Others will need to summon all possible senses to understand what they are reading. Multisensory approaches use more than one sense to teach reading. The tactile, kinesthetic, auditory and visual senses are used. Use games, puzzles, pictures, signs and physical objects to foster comprehension.
Conclusion
Grappling with many concepts of reading can be discouraging to kids. Don’t give up on your child. The above reading strategies will change your child’s reading comprehension within no time. Whether your child is a poor reader or hates reading, these methods will be very helpful.
FAQs
How do I teach my child to read comprehension?
Provide reading resources, use assistive technology
What are the 5 reading comprehension strategies?
Ask questions, read level books, vocabulary, and basic reading skills.
How do you explain comprehension to a child?
Use imagery and comparisons.
