by Tahmina Sattar

Created on: August 08, 2009   Last Updated: August 09, 2009

If you are a homeschooling parent and you are looking for a good lesson plan for reading comprehension than this is the article for you. Of course there are several course books and lesson plans available online, but maybe you just want to keep it simple and within your affordability. Depending on the age group and size of your homeschooling class, you could adapt the following quick techniques for standard reading comprehension lessons.

1. Choose a text. It could be the advert on the back of the cereal box. It could be your child's favourite story or even nursery rhyme. Maybe you have written a story or article for your child. Newspapers and magazines are a great place to find interesting and topical text to use for your reading comprehension lesson.

2. Read the text first. Decide which parts of the text you wish to concentrate on for your particular lesson and your child. It could be that you are looking for meanings of certain words. For older students it may be that you are trying to teach them meaning from context. Whatever you choose to be the focus - take the time to understand the answers to possible questions from your student.

3. Sit down with your child in a quiet area of the house or garden and listen to them read. There are different techniques. Some parents choose to stay silent throughout, allowing the child to read continuously. Others give a gentle guiding push to help their child to grasp difficult words. Some parents allow the child to read silently on their own. Again the technique you choose is up to you and your child and ideally should be the one you both feel comfortable with.

4. Ask your child for a brief summary of the text to see if the overall message of the chosen text was understood. Have a discussion about areas that the child failed to pick up on.

5. Ask your child to underline the words they did not understand. This needs to be followed up with dictionary work and perhaps a vocabulary book is used to add new words.

6. Have a set of questions about the events in the story or text that you can give your child in the form of a worksheet. Discuss the answers with your child.

7. Use the final part of your reading comprehension lesson to highlight any important facts, historical information, etc., related to the text that can make the lesson more meaningful to the child. It's a good idea to see how the lesson can be extended into an artistic expression of what the child understood of the text.

Reading comprehension can be a great time for the homeschooling parent/teacher to bring up social issues, themes or topical news and engage in a meaningful discussion with their child. These steps can be adapted as suited for the individual according to different factors. Once you start a few lessons you will be surprised how your own creativity will produce excellent lesson plans for teaching comprehension.

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