ReadingPlus / Reading Comprehension

[tammyw]

I have two things on this topic :)

 

1. My daughter is 13, grade 8, and goes to a charter full-time as of this year (3 full days a week there, 2 days at home). They implemented a mandatory ReadingPlus requirement (3 times per week) just recently, and yet last year she tested OUT of ReadingPlus because her reading skills are so fast and high. The school is saying doesn't matter, she still has to do it. I'm so frustrated!

 

2. The other question I have is regarding my son. He is 10, grade 5, and homeschooling but we are also under the charter this year for the first time. He tested a little low on his reading comprehension test (MAPS test -- the first test he ever took). So we started ReadingPlus for him, but I'm not convinced it's the best option. Any recommendations for upping his reading comprehension in a better way?

[Hypatia.]

I'm wondering the same thing for my 5th grader, I was just searching the threads for idea for reading comprehension. 

[Farrar]

I've never actually used Reading Plus, but isn't it really canned? How does it assess understanding? Is it multiple choice questions? I'd be pretty frustrated by a kid being forced to do it who they acknowledge doesn't need to at all. Like, they're saying to you straight up that it's busy work. Bah.

 

I looked but didn't find it, but wasn't there a thread, maybe on the Logic board, about using National Geographic articles for close reading of nonfiction skills? Around the end of fourth grade/start of fifth, we started doing more reading comprehension of nonfiction. But I didn't use a program. I had a blog post about what we did. But I'm guessing it was also largely just developmental. I mean, I just glanced back at that post from less than a year ago, and BalletBoy is already reading adult nonfiction pretty regularly now for school assignments, which means that in less than two years he went from struggling with children's nonfiction to a much, much higher level reading. I think some of it was instruction, but most of it was just a little practice and a lot of growth.

[SarahW]

I use Reading and Reasoning for my kid who has reading comp issues. There's not a lot of reading in it, but it teaches how written content is structured, and the exercises teach how to identify and do those skills. I've found it more effective (and interesting) than program which throw a bunch of text and (seemingly) random questions at the student and expect them to figure it out.

 

I also extend our poetry work to include defining vocab and apply some of the things learned in R&R (why did this happen? what does this mean?). Poems have a nice confined text and clear presentation, so I've found it easier to work on these things with poems instead of having to hunt through a long text. We also sometimes do this with a prose text (since that's a necessary skill), but the principle of only one hard thing at a time especially applies to reading comp.

 

Does the MAPS test break down his reading comp score? Vocab, inference, sequence? That would help see where, specifically, he had trouble. 

[ElizabethB]

Reasoning and Reading is good.

 

Also, the 1879 McGuffeys start comprehension questions at 3 or 4th reader, I like to do the questions before and after for a few weeks, do one passage a day, then questions after, going back to the story if they need, and talking about the answers and how to get to them.  Free online, most libraries have them.