by aggieteacher

Created on: July 26, 2009   Last Updated: July 27, 2009

Reading comprehension is simply defined as understanding what you have read. Obviously, this is a critical skill, and sadly, many children have not developed the skill.

Of course, there are a myriad of workbooks on the market that present a paragraph or a page-long story and then ask the student reading comprehension questions to supposedly increase their skill level in this area. Unfortunately, they do not help very much and they are very boring!

Over my 10 years of homeschooling my children, I found the most effective tool to be "read aloud" time. Now, this can be done many different ways, and a combination is the best way. We always had one piece of classic literature that I read aloud from during our school day. If you have young ones, this can just be for 5 to 10 minutes per day. As the children get older and more patient, you can increase the time. It may sound strange, but even when my son was high school aged, we still did this on a daily basis. (Be sure to stop reading at a cliff hanger point if possible to keep them excited about reading the next day).

Another method for read aloud time that should be incorporated into the day is for each of your student's to have a chance to read out loud to everyone. If your children are close in age, this could be from the same book. If they are to spread out in age, each could have their own level of book to read from.

The key to all of the reading aloud is to have the students, from youngest to oldest, narrate what you have been reading. At first, you may want to stop after every paragraph or two and have them tell you what has just happened. Then, spread it out to every page or two, and eventually to every chapter. You will be amazed at the detail your children put into their narrations after some practice!

Encourage details such as names, intricate descriptions, etc... Also, ask them how they feel. Did the reading make them excited, sad, happy, etc.? Remember to always let the younger ones go first so that they do not get details from the older ones that they don't actually remember from the reading. Another fun activity is to do an art project based on what was read. The students could draw or paint a scene from the reading. Of course, silent reading is important also, and that time should be built into the school day as well.

As students get a little older (4th grade and up), a good tool is to teach them to outline their reading from textbooks and classics. This helps them learn to study for tests as well.

A really fun thing to do to increase reading comprehension involves the use of Aesop's Fables. Read a fable aloud with your children. Show them the illustration. Then, write the first sentence down on the chalk/dry erase board. Now, work together to reword the sentence, changing nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Continue with each sentence until you have a new fable to read. Gradually, over the course of the year, stop writing down the sentences for them, and have them reword things on their own. This is a creative way for them to compare the meaning of the original fable to their own to see if/how it changed!

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