Tips to srengthen reading comprehension

Whether your elementary school student is an avid reader or avoids reading at all costs, it is essential that you promote reading comprehension skills. The best way to monitor and develop your child's ability to understand text is to be a part of his reading experience. It can be as simple as sitting down with your child and talking about what she is reading.


"The whole purpose for reading is to understand what you read, and comprehension is one of the most important skills that we can help children develop," says Richard E. Bavaria, Ph.D., vice president of education for Sylvan Learning Center.


Discussion actively engages young readers and encourages them to pay close attention to what they are reading. While your child is still in the beginning stages of developing her reading comprehension skills, being present and involved gives you the opportunity to answer any questions she may have.


In order to encourage reading comprehension, it is important that your child think about what he is reading before, during and after he actually reads a specific passage.


Before Reading

Prompting a discussion before your child starts reading a particular book can warm up her critical thinking skills and spark her interest in the text. The discussion largely will be based on predictions, assumptions and opinions in order to get her thinking and talking about what she is about to read. Here are a few suggestions for what to ask your child:


What do you already know about the reading's topic?
What other books remind you of this one?
What questions do you have about this book before reading it?
What would you like the book to talk about?
What do you think is going to happen in the book?


During Reading

Reading comprehension involves knowing how to approach and handle challenges in a text. Beginning readers often give up quickly if they are faced with a book's unknown features or unfamiliar words. When reading with your child, encourage him to ask questions and be willing to explore the things that are posing difficulties.
Here are a few tips:
Be sure to point out the structural features of a book or an article. Describe their purposes and answer any questions your child may have. Structural features include chapter headings, photographs or illustrations and captions.

Encourage your child to skip unknown words and infer their meanings based on the context of the passage. By doing this, students avoid getting stuck on one word and continue reading in order to understand the whole body of text.

Once your child has grasped the main themes of the reading, have her go back and identify any unknown words. Help her use a dictionary to learn their meanings, and encourage her to use these new words in conversation.

After Reading

Having your child discuss something he has just read will help him internalize and retain the information. The process of discussion and review will improve your child's ability to remember the broad concepts of the text including theme and structure. After repeated post-reading discussions, your child will be more confident about his reading comprehension skills and will be comfortable having reading conversations with his teachers and peers.


"When we talk about stories and books, we are showing our children through example that reading is very important to us as adults," Dr. Bavaria says. "We do them a double favor when we discuss the books with them." Here are possible questions you can ask once she has finished reading:


Can you tell me about what you just read? Can you draw a picture about the story?
What were the major themes of the book?
How was this reading different from those in the past?
What did you like about this reading? What did you dislike?
"It is also a good idea to have the child ask the questions after reading a story," Dr. Bavaria says. "We can tell how well the student understands the story by the quality of questions they ask."
By Renee Sarnowski


Reading Comprehension Worksheet (K-3)She represents the United States. But the world-famous Statue of Liberty standing in New York Harbor was built in France. The statue was presented to the U.S., taken apart, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in crates and rebuilt in the U.S. It was France's gift to the American people.
It all started at dinner one night near Paris in 1865. A group of Frenchmen were discussing their dictator-like emperor and the democratic government of the U.S. They decided to build a monument to American freedom--and perhaps even strengthen French demands for democracy in their own country.
At that dinner was the sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (bar-TOLE-dee). He imagined a statue of a woman holding a torch burning with the light of freedom.
Turning Bartholdi's idea into reality took 21 years. French supporters raised money to build the statue, and Americans paid for the pedestal it would stand on. Finally, in 1886, the statue was dedicated.
Source: Text by Peter Winkler at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/.

Questions
1. Why did France give the Statue of Liberty to the United States?
A) Because the French respected America's democracy and freedom.
B) Because the French thought the United States didn't have enough statues.
C) Because the United States bought the statue from France.
D) Because the French decided they didn't like the statue so they gave it away.
2. What did America pay for?
A) The whole statue.
B) Bartholdi's dinner.
C) The statue's pedestal.
D) The statue's torch.
3. Where is the Statue of Liberty located?
A) Paris, France.
B) Washington, D.C.
C) The Atlantic Ocean.
D) New York Harbor in New York City.
4. What does a sculptor do?
A) Paints landscapes with oil paints.
B) Recites plays in front of large audiences.
C) Creates three-dimensional art.
D) Sings as loud as she can.
5. How did the French get the Statue of Liberty to America?
A) They shipped pieces of it in crates across the ocean and reassembled it in New York.
B) They drove it to the United States in a really big truck.
C) They built it in New York.
D) They hired people to carry it from France to New York in one piece.
6. Who imagined a statue of a woman holding a torch?
A) A group of Frenchmen.
B) A dictator-like emperor.
C) French supporters.
D) Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi
7. What is the "light of freedom"?
A) A really bright light.
B) A symbol.
C) A light that allows ships to see their way to New York Harbor.
D) A kind of fuel.
8. What does the word dedicated mean in the last sentence of the article?
A) Created by a sculptor.
B) Committed to a specific task.
C) Given in honor of someone or something.
D) Buried.
Answers
1. A2. C3. D4. C5. A6. D7. B8. C