Reading comprehension 8th grade

[mom@shiloh]

I'm searching for something that will improve my dd (13) reading comprehension. Recommendations?

[ElizabethB]

First, make sure she is reading at least at the 10th grade level, I've had several students who were thought to have comprehension problems who just needed help with decoding accuracy, give my quick screen reading test and my nonsense word test to see if she is decoding accurately and fluently, tests are at the end of my syllables page.

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

Then, there are various things to use depending on what component of comprehension needs work, there are a lot of factors that go into comprehension, but take those tests first.  

 

 

[ElizabethB]

So, here are the levels of things to look at after you've made sure she is fluently reading at grade level:

Basics of comprehension, elementary level but good for students who struggle, in both Spanish and English, keep reading, it will switch back to English.

http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/gonzalez_materials.pdf

Evaluate comprehension when read to vs. when reading silently, if silently not good but oral is, is wandering attention problem, focus on paying attention, may need to take notes while reading to help. 

If both are poor, the lowest level of problem to address is visualizing, the visualizing and verbalizing by Lindamood Bell is good:

https://lindamoodbell.com/program/visualizing-and-verbalizing-program

Next level up is looking at how comprehension compares across different types of reading, each area, science, history, fiction, sports, etc. has its own vocabulary and background knowledge that needs to be addressed up for comprehension to occur.  You need to read across a wide variety of genres, and those that the vocabulary and background knowledge is low, you need to start with simple material at a lower grade level and build up to high school level.  The 1879 McGuffey readers have short passages across a variety of types of reading, and incrementally increase in difficulty over each book and within each book, they are free online and also have difficult vocabulary and words diacritically marked and defined. You need the PDF versions, start slightly below reading level, and their reading levels are higher than current norms, so you may have to start with the 2nd or 3rd reader. The later readers also include comprehension questions.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5671

You can also get the whole set at Amazon, you want the 1879 Blue and Orange version, not the older brown Mott Media edition.

https://www.amazon.com/McGuffeys-Eclectic-Readers-Set-Through/dp/0471294284/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1547668537&sr=8-4&keywords=mcguffey+readers

Then, within each type of reading, you need to assess which skills are lacking.  Are fact based questions good but inferential reasoning needs help?  The CAP reasoning and reading curriculum is good to assess and fix each level, see samples to know what level to buy to start out with, you may need the whole series or you might be able to start out at level 1 or level 2.

https://classicalacademicpress.com/product/beginning-reasoning-reading/

I have had scores of students who were thought to have comprehension problems but were actually just not fluent readers at the advanced word level, but homeschoolers are more likely to have used a good phonics and spelling program and have good reading skills. I've had a few homeschool students who had trouble with multi-syllable words, some phonics programs do not teach multi-syllable words. 

 

 

 

 

[prairiewindmomma]

The SPED teachers at ds's jr. high use reading comprehension workbooks from Carson Dellarosa.  The students all have the basic vocabulary and decoding abilities; the struggle was in pulling out key details, summarizing, inferring, and sequencing.

ETA: Spectrum reading has similar materials, but the style in writing is a bit different. The Carson Dellarosa website has multipage samples of each if you think this is the type of material that you need.

Edited January 16, 2019 by prairiewindmomma

[mom@shiloh]

Thanks so much!  I will look into those things.