Teaching reading comprehension

[Shelydon]

I am tutoring a few kids with writing using IEW and I am seeing they the primary problem is they do not understand what they are reading.  We can work through some of this during our time together, but I would like to recommend a curriculum, workbook or something similar to parents for at home use.  Any suggestions?

Edited January 22, 2022 by Shelydon

[lulalu]

There are loads of workbooks that have a short excerpt followed by questions. 

However, I have found over the years that the best way to work on comprehension is by reading aloud from a wide variety of topics and orally asking questions as you go. So pausing to ask a question while reading. And then narrating back at the end. Many kids (not all by any means) who struggle in the area of comprehension have a few common factors, not hearing stories in increasing complexity over the years, too much short media intake (think videos that are only a minute or so), or not enough discussion and talking with adults about ideas. Sometimes even just working on taking directions orally helps; starting with giving one step directions moving up to five or more steps given all at once. Now of course there are some kids who just struggle in this area for other reasons, some have auditory processing disorders or something else blocking the ability. Some kids just daydream and have a hard time concentrating long enough to remember and know what they have just read. So some kids need to hear it at the same time too, then have them read aloud. 

Anyways those are just some rambling ideas that you can take or leave. It isn't an area with a quick fix in my opinion. It takes time and effort to really work through it. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by lulalu

[kbutton]

This goes along with narrating, but it breaks down the process for struggling students and has multi-sensory supports for teaching places where kids commonly bog down. It can be used with a variety of ages. It can be overkill for kids who do not have language issues, but because it has a structured method, there are a lot of supports available for you to send home. It starts with narrative stuff, but then you transition to using the same symbols in a new context with expository text.

https://mindwingconcepts.com/ 

Younger students would use Story Grammar, and the older students would use Thememaker as the starting point. The Critical Thinking Triangle set is nice also.

All of the resources have things you can print, but you can also buy sticker sets, magnets, etc. to make things more interactive. 

It's not a curriculum; it's a resource for teaching concepts that you adapt to any resource. The take home part would probably be finding a way to have the kids do retellings at home using the supports they learn with you or to read a short story and identify the parts of the story with their parents. Something like these stickers could be used with a text you select and send home: https://mindwingconcepts.com/collections/for-parents/products/sgm-removable-adhesive-stickers 

[ElizabethB]

First, I would test their word level decoding with word lists and the MWIA. I've had several students over my 28 years as a volunteer literacy tutor where the students actually had a slight decoding problem. They need to be 1 grade above grade level and reading no errors on the MWIA 3 word lists and no slowdown. If not, work through my syllables program until they are, the tests are linked at the end of my syllables page, do the MWIA 3 and the 40L quick screen reading grade level test.

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

If they're reading well, then I have suggestions but nothing will work until that's fixed if they are not reading at grade level with good accuracy.

[WalterRitchie]

I had a similar problem concentrating on assignments and was very helped by an article about problems of millennial generation on a resource with free essay samples https://eduzaurus.com/free-essay-samples/millennial-generation/, there were notes on how to approach reading assignments but applicable to any issue. These materials helped me a lot, so I advise you to read them.

[prairiewindmomma]

Try the Spectrum Reading workbooks. They are inexpensive. The reading passage is a handful of paragraphs followed by comprehension questions. Usually this material together has been helpful.