Reading Comprehension Strategies

The other day I was approached by a friend who told me that her son is reading well. His reading fluency is a year ahead, but he doesn’t understand anything he is reading. She asked if I had strategies that her son could use to improve his comprehension.

Growing up dyslexic, teachers spent hours working with me each week on reading strategies. In college, I decided to become a teacher and specialize in reading, so I could help others who struggled.  Here are the strategies that worked best for me, and I use in my classroom:

1. Ask questions- Teach your child to think about what they are reading. To do this, the child needs to take breaks from reading to ask questions. Main questions to ask: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

·         Who is the story about? (characters)

·         What happened in the story? (plot)

·         Where did the story take place? (setting)

·         When did this happen? (setting)

·         Why did the event happen? (plot)

·         How did the story end? (plot)

2. Annotating- Have the child highlight important information from the questions above. The child should also highlight main ideas in the paragraphs to show they are keeping track of what they are reading. If they have additional questions, they can write it in the margin of their page.

If the story comes with questions, have the child also highlight important words in the question along with the answers (or write paragraph numbers by the questions to show that they went back to the text to find the answer).

3. Re-read your annotations and form a summary- After reading the text, have the child go back through their notes to write a short summary on what they read.

I hope these strategies help improve your child’s reading. The best way to get a child to think about the text, and what they are reading is to model. I model at home by reading children’s books to my kids. After each page, I will ask a question. Showing them how to ask questions teaches them how to form questions when they are reading. This will help them learn how to think about what they read, so they will better comprehend the text.

So today, pick out a favorite book, snuggle close to your kiddo, and explore the fun world of reading and thinking about the text.