Year 2 - reading/comprehension

[Lily27]

Does anyone know a good reading comprehension app. My DS is good at decoding words but doesn't enjoy the Q&A on the RML books set by the school. He made a lot of progress and was really motivated by Doodle Maths, and I am looking for something similar for English - he likes rewards, badges, and would respond well to an app for reading comprehension. However, Doodle English is not what i am looking for - very focused on grammar. I need to get him moving on his comprehension - he's two terms behind at school. Thanks!

I don't know about an app - sorry - but for reading comprehension, the best way forward is probably to have him read to you (or take turns) and talk about the story. See if he can recall certain facts, or describe a character.

It's really important that you (or someone) reads to him most days, modelling a good reading style, with lots of expression. Put on some silly accents for the different characters. Make him laugh! See if he wants to be the voice of a character and speak their speech in the story.

When you are reading, you could comment frequently about what you're reading - "Gosh - do you think Tom will get in trouble?" - or ask questions in between paragraphs to see if your DS has picked up the story.

If you want to have something a bit more 'formal' there are reading comprehension workbooks for Y2 by various publishers, which will have short passages of text and questions. Some might have stickers/rewards. If you go to a large bookshop you can browse and find something that is in a format that your DS likes.

Thank you so much! All very helpful suggestions and I will try them out.

What I noticed with my ds, once he found books he really loved reading his comprehension really took off. Once he learned how to read, I kind of left him to it. My dc prefer to read to themselves as soon as they learned how to read fluently. I would sometimes get them to read out loud a page to me. I would ask them questions sometimes or of course they would do comprehension hw they got from school. My dd is year 6 now and ds year 4 and they are both doing really well for interpreting texts (according to their school reports/teachers). When they were younger we never used any aps or extra learning books for this. However, when my dd decided to do the 11+ we did use Atom learning a few months from end of year 5 and that helped a lot with the exams. This includes comprehension. But I think the earliest you can do is year 3? Or it may be year 4.

thanks. I looked up Atom, I think not before year 4 but I’ll try to get a trial from them

accelerated reader
many school uses it

Looks like what I had in
mind. It seems to be a US based app? Not that it matters - I will check if a home subscription is possible. Thank you!😊

Literacy Planet covers a bit of everything. Very fun.

Not apps but online:

Reading Eggs
Oxford owl
Bug club

Another one to say how important you reading to him every day is. I think there is so much focus on them reading now but actually they learn about stories and characters and how fun reading can be from being read to. One of mine topped out the reading age test on accelerated reader when she was 9 but still loves being read to to this day (now 12). Other dc also had excellent comprehension and was read to until nearly 11. Both also read widely for their own pleasure.

That would be wonderful, you are lucky! My DS doesn’t like being read to, I can’t figure out why. He used to like it as a young child but not any more. Hence the search for apps to incentivise him!