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Reading Comprehension for Primary Grades?


Canadianmumof5
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Any separate reading comp. programs/workbooks/other that will help with reading comprehension? DS6 is a very strong reader (he was starting to read his older brother's Alex Rider books until I took it away!). He decodes very well, reads aloud with good intonation & fluency but I've just realized that he isn't remembering a lot of what he is reading? Is this normal?

 

His literature selection this past week has been Tippy Lemmey (McKissack) and I started asking him questions after each chapter and honestly, he did not know many of the answers to general questions about characters, setting, who did what,etc.

 

Anyone do a separate comprehension program or should I just relax and let him just enjoy reading even if he isn't remembering what he reads?

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Anyone do a separate comprehension program or should I just relax and let him just enjoy reading even if he isn't remembering what he reads?

 

You want reading to be fun. So, let him have a book that isn't for school and is just his to read when he wants to. Don't do anything with that.

 

For a reading exercise get something that is at his level and have him read a sentence/paragraph/page (whatever level he can be successful). Have him tell you about what he just read. Ask him questions, see if you can get him to describe what is going on. Ask him inference questions. Once he can do that section, read more and have him retell/describe what is going on. Then have him sequence the story from the beginning.

 

As he gets better at this you can change from having him reading 1 paragraph to 3 paragraphs and go through the same process.

 

If he's getting stressed with this go to an easier book/passage. This should not be stressful.

 

Overtime you can build the difficulty of the books so that his comprehension matches his decoding ability.

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Writing With Ease (WWE) Level I would be a gentle, effective introduction to "active" listening. It includes both narrations and copywork. Sounds like it might be something to consider for your son. :-)

 

Yep, we are pretty much following TWTM recos for all of them so he is working through the rest of WWE1 now. I am a big fan of all things by SWB :001_smile: I just feel like this is one area that is a gap for us.

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You want reading to be fun. So, let him have a book that isn't for school and is just his to read when he wants to. Don't do anything with that.

 

For a reading exercise get something that is at his level and have him read a sentence/paragraph/page (whatever level he can be successful). Have him tell you about what he just read. Ask him questions, see if you can get him to describe what is going on. Ask him inference questions. Once he can do that section, read more and have him retell/describe what is going on. Then have him sequence the story from the beginning.

 

As he gets better at this you can change from having him reading 1 paragraph to 3 paragraphs and go through the same process.

 

If he's getting stressed with this go to an easier book/passage. This should not be stressful.

 

Overtime you can build the difficulty of the books so that his comprehension matches his decoding ability.

 

Thanks. I think I have to remember his age (just turned 6 last week) and that reading, although assigned, is still meant to be fun.

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I use these for reading comprehension:

 

WWE

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Reading workbook

Blackbird & Company literature guides

 

I think it is important to do more than just let the child read. Some kids who like to read very difficult books (above their general reading levels) skip a lot that they don't understand and therefore don't end up comprehending significant amounts of the story. If you do reading comprehension exercises, you can figure out if this is happening and work on fixing it.

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We use McCall-Harby and McCall-Crabbs for reading comprehension. I also ask them the. Questions from their reading, but the MCall series are where more instruction takes place. Starting in McCall-Crabbs, they are graded so that helps me know where they are.

 

Ds6 is about a quarter of the way through McCall-Harby and ds8 is about to start McCall-Crabbs Book B. The boys love the little 3 minute tests.

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I use these for reading comprehension:

 

WWE

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Reading workbook

Blackbird & Company literature guides

 

I think it is important to do more than just let the child read. Some kids who like to read very difficult books (above their general reading levels) skip a lot that they don't understand and therefore don't end up comprehending significant amounts of the story. If you do reading comprehension exercises, you can figure out if this is happening and work on fixing it.

 

Thanks - I will check those out.

 

We use McCall-Harby and McCall-Crabbs for reading comprehension. I also ask them the. Questions from their reading, but the MCall series are where more instruction takes place. Starting in McCall-Crabbs, they are graded so that helps me know where they are.

 

Ds6 is about a quarter of the way through McCall-Harby and ds8 is about to start McCall-Crabbs Book B. The boys love the little 3 minute tests.

 

Looking into these as well. Thanks!

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Writing With Ease (WWE) Level I would be a gentle, effective introduction to "active" listening. It includes both narrations and copywork. Sounds like it might be something to consider for your son. :-)

 

 

:iagree: You can also do a little informal work yourself. I started with read alouds: What just happened?

 

Then have him read to you, and ask a question or two at the end to help him learn the kind of things he needs to "hang onto". (E.g. not that the couch was brown but that the dog chewed it up.)

 

Then you can have him read something silently, and do the same.

 

For a workbook, we have had good success with Jane Ervin's Books, which I think are a good deal for what you get. Early Reading Comprehension is the first series. It may still be ahead of your child.

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If you are familiar with the ETC series, there is also the "Beyond the Code" series that allegedly works on comprehension.

 

Disclaimer: we have not used this series yet. I bought the books for this year, but I'm not sure how we will fit them in.

 

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We also do a similar suggestion as a pp stated, especially for nonfiction. We read one page. Sometimes I have dd read the first sentence of the page (She is an emerging reader). Before we turn the page, I ask ONE question on comprehension to see how well she understood the material. This works well as long as she is not too tired.

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