Help Your Child Develop Comprehension Skills

Your child needs to understand that good readers think about what they are reading as they read!  They predict, visualize, draw conclusions, question, personalize, and reread when they don’t understand.  We call these skills “think-along” strategies.

Encourage your child to predict what he/she thinks will happen in the story.  Remember predictions should take place at the beginning and continue throughout the story.  It would be helpful to participate in discussions with your child until he/she understands what is expected.

Periodically check you child’s understanding, predicting, as well as, retelling of what is happening.  It is a good idea to start checking their story knowledge after each page.  If information is incorrect check his/ her understanding more frequently.

The following strategies should be developed gradually.  It will take lots of practice and patience for your child to feel confident with his/her think-along strategies.  It may be helpful to practice these skills together when watching a movie on television!

Direct your child to go through the following steps:

·                    Make a picture in your mind as you read.  Pretend you are an invisible observer in the story.  (This encourages visualization strategies.)

·                    Predict from pictures and titles at the beginning.  Continue to predict and draw conclusions throughout the story.

·                    Ask yourself questions as you read.

“Who?”   “What?”   “Where?”   “When?”  “Why?”  “How?”

·                    Go back and reread when it doesn’t make sense.

·                    Make comments as you read the story.

         “I really can’t understand…”                   “I noticed….”

         “I love the way…”                                  “I thought…”

         “I was surprised…”                                 “I can’t believe…”

         “I never thought about…”                       “I think the author…”

          “I wonder what would happen if…”          “What if…”

·                    Personalize the story events for yourself.

“This reminds me of…”                            “I know the feeling…”

·                    Guess the meaning of a word from the other words in the

Sentence.