Parents can Help Their Children Improve Reading Comprehension

How can a parent improve a child's reading comprehension?

Clip Art from Phillip Martin

1. Provide books and other reading material.

2. Value reading time .

3. Read together with children of all ages.

4. Show that reading is about getting meaning.

1. Providing books and other reading material does not have to cost a lot or take a lot of time.

Ideas:

Go to the library and ask a librarian for help choosing books.

Order a magazine.

Check out an online news site for kids. Watch videos and read articles together. DOGO News

Go to used stores to find books for you and your kids at a huge discount!

Have books at home that your kids want to reread. Reading books more than once is good for early readers.

Read books for free online.

One of my favorite sites with free online books for kids is We Give Books.

Trade books with friends and family.

Listen to some audio books together in the car on road trips.

2. Value reading time for yourself and your children.

Ideas:

Find a good book for yourself. Have your kids see you reading.

Read some news stories aloud to your children or share the highlights.

Provide a quiet place and time in a busy schedule for reading.

Turn off the TV and computer and make time to be entertained by a book instead. 

3. Read together with children of all ages.

Ideas:

Check out a page from my business website with advice by age for reading with children.

Skip a weekend movie and read an exciting chapter book instead.

Find a good book your entire family will enjoy and try to read it often until it's finished. I go through spurts of reading aloud to my family. When we have a book we like, we get together and read as much as possible. Then we take a break, and everyone reads their own books.

Listen to your child read to you or read to your child. I try to visit each of my three children when they are reading their chapter books in bed in the evening. I sometimes listen to them, or I read a chapter or so aloud to them from whatever book they are reading.

4. Show that reading is about getting meaning.

This is very important to me. I did not read for meaning as a child. Something was missing. I could read the words fine, but couldn't remember what I read.  I wasn't a good reader and usually got to the end of a page without knowing what I read and would have to start over trying hard to concentrate. I didn't read for enjoyment until my late twenties. I couldn't connect or pay attention while reading. I avoided most assigned reading all through school. Attending college and my desire to be a teacher forced me to learn to connect to what I read.

Ideas:

Have conversations while reading books together. Make pictures in your heads. Talk about the meanings of confusing words. Words and their subtle meanings add the most to pictures in your heads and your understanding of what is happening in a story.

7 Keys to Reading Comprehension is my favorite book for parents and teachers to find ways to help readers of all ages read for meaning and understanding.

How Do You Help Older Children Learn to Read?

Books with simple text that interest an older reader are sometimes hard to find. It's important to find these books and teach the reading skills an older reader is missing.

Reading is a complicated process that requires a combination of skills and thinking to come together. Challenges in learning to read happen to children of all intelligence levels, all economic situations, and even to children with strong educational experiences.

Once a reading problem is discovered it is important to look for solutions.

Here's a story about some challenges my daughter faced.
My Daughter's Path to Reading
The inspiration for this post came from an email I received today from a mom in Australia. If you read My Daughter's Path to Reading, you'll understand my personal need to help this mom. My children are now 9, 9, and 11. My boy/girl twins were six years old when I wrote that post. The mom who wrote me has boy/girl twins who are 9 years old. Her daughter is falling behind in reading just like my daughter was at six years old. The frustration this mom and little girl have is where I'd be if I didn't focus my career around teaching reading and knew what to do to help my daughter.

Most parents aren't reading teachers.

Here are steps to help a child who is behind in reading.

1. Find the problem.

2. Find effective solutions. What will work for our situation?

3. Take action. Be consistent. Celebrate success.

4. Do something different if your first choice isn't working.


Here are resources to help you find the problem.
*Is it dyslexia or a vision problem?
*You may want to explore some visual exercises.
*Reading Rockets Target the Problem is a helpful site.

Here are some ideas for solutions.
*Read aloud to your child. Find interesting picture books, non-fiction books, chapter books, and magazines. Read for enjoyment often. Take the frustration out of reading and bring back the joy.
*Find an eye doctor or reading tutor if needed.

A few extra tips:
*Understanding what is read is most important!
*Teach reading comprehension during read alouds.
*Allow children time to monitor their own reading and stop and fix or reread when something doesn't make sense. Have a child read aloud to you. After a sentence or a page is finished, you can say that something didn't make sense as you were listening. Ask your child if he or she could read that sentence or page over. Praise a child for fixing his or her reading. Give a child time to do this. If a child is making a mistake on more than one in ten words, the book is too hard. You may choose to share the reading or read the book to your child.