January 2017

SCHOOLS
Teaching
a child to
for Maximum Comprehension
Reading comprehension is one of the most important
aptitudes a student needs to succeed in school
and in life. Put simply, this skill allows your child to
understand what he or she reads and analyze its meaning.
This active process doesn’t always come naturally—
comprehension instruction at home and in the classroom can
help significantly. Here are few tips to help your child hone
this skill and become a better student:
Encourage your child to set a goal
before beginning.
Previewing a text before reading helps readers develop goals
for their reading session. For example, if your child needs to
answer a series of questions about a passage or textbook
chapter, encourage him or her to look at its organization to
note where the most relevant information might be based on
what he or she needs or wants to learn. Because textbooks
are dense with information, this process will help your child
navigate content more effectively and retain what he or she
reads in class and as homework.
“Check in” after every page. Self-monitoring is essential to
comprehension, so encourage your child to pause after
each page (or more frequently if needed) to glance over its
contents and make sure he or she understood what it said.
It is helpful when reading a textbook to jot down important
notes or main points on notecards (or sticky notes to place
within the book’s pages). If reading together, ask your child
periodically what a passage said and what didn’t make sense
(if applicable).
Use the text to answer questions. Part of effective
comprehension monitoring is knowing when to seek further
information. If a text references an unfamiliar or confusing
topic, encourage your child to flip through the chapter to see
if the topic will be discussed later. If reading a textbook with
an index, your child should look up unfamiliar terms.
Take notes or map it out. Visual aids are very helpful as
students attempt to follow a plot of a story, organize ideas
and make connections. Talk with your child’s teacher about
story maps, cause and effect charts, or other visual tools that
might aid your child’s comprehension as he or she reads.
Also, remind your child not to gloss over graphics within a
textbook. These are meant to summarize information and
can help make complicated information more digestible.
Summarize at the end of a section. After each natural
section or chapter, encourage your child to take a moment
to confirm his or her understanding of the main takeaway,
supporting information, extraneous information, and anything
unexpected that he or she
learned.
Take time to reflect. When your
child finishes reading, reflection
is a beneficial exercise. After
reading a textbook chapter, your
child should refer back to the
note cards or sticky notes on
which he or she wrote important
points. Also, encourage your
child to consider doing additional
research on lingering questions.
For example, a famous baseball
player whose name is mentioned
in an article about baseball, might
spark your child’s interest to learn more by searching online
or at the library.
If your continued efforts to build your child’s reading
comprehension do not seem to yield positive results, there
might be something else going on. Factors such as a lack
of basic reading skills like decoding and fluency can make it
difficult, if not impossible, for your child to grasp what he or
she reads. If your child is struggling with reading in general,
you might want to try a learning center. It can help get to
the root of the problem and help your child become a more
capable, confident reader.
Huntington Learning Center offers these tips based on
its experience with reading instruction and drew from
suggestions provided by Reading Rockets, a national
organization that offers research-based strategies and
resources for raising strong readers. Learn how Huntington
can help at huntingtonhelps.com.
76
JANUARY 2017