Year two teachers/parents - reading comprehension

[noncomprehende]

My DS is in year one and is apparently ahead of his class in literacy. The teacher has given us Focus in Comprehension - Introductory to do each week with him at home to extend him. I think this is a year two book.

I'm a bit unsure about what I am doing. How long would your year twos normally take to complete a unit? How much support would you give them? Would you do it all in one sitting? Would you explain the questions to the child, or get them to work it out themselves?

Also, we have been asked to make sure that all the answers are complete sentences. Do you normally expect this of your year twos even if the question doesn't lend itself to a full sentence answer (e.g. true/false questions)?

At our school you are only supposed to allow them twenty minutes for any piece of homework and Yes its supposed to be in one sitting. Complete sentences are expected for every answer.

My year 1 son has been answering 6 - 8 comprehension questions on his reading book since September ( school policy once children reach a certain reading level .
We typically ask him to read the question to us and check his understanding of it. Then he finds the answer himself. He often needs help turning this into a sentence, but this is getting better over time as he gets used to it.
DS usually has his reading book for 3-4 days so we complete 2 questions a day. Any more and he becomes frustrated :-) Each question ranges from 5 minutes to 20 minutes depending on his mood!

It all depends on ur childs threshold, I suppose. If he is happy doing 2 questions try pushing him to do 3, if 3 then 4. The idea is to make it a lil challenging but not to frustrate them so they do not want to do it at all.
We tend to let our son attempt the comprehension by himself first while we are sat with him & try & answer the questions and then if he needs our help with the answers we do so. It helps guage how much is he understanding & grasping about the story & what is needed of him.
At any time if he seems cranky tired or just not interested in doing it, we leave it & try again later. Now he is in yr 2 & finishes the entire comp in 30 mins & is off to play as he knows once its done no more home work & nagging :)

Thank you all. Had you all been doing comprehension questions since Year One? I feel a bit like we have gone in at the deep end. That said, he does seem to be enjoying it.

Can someone explain this book/any other comprehension materials to me? I am looking for something for my DS, also Y1 who now reads longer books, but I need to check how well he is following the story etc rather than skipping through. Are you making up the questions to the books yourselves (hard work ) or is there a good resource for this? Thanks!

Tgger - me too!!

I can ask DD questions which she answers fine, but not sure if I am asking the correct ones iyswim. I think she would love to do comprehension questions (to write - she is an odd child!!)

I am just lazy . I have no particular desire to read "Mr Majeika and the Ghost Train", but I would like to find out if DS has really read it as he claims or has "skipped through" reading some and looking at the pictures . We listen to him read every night, but he is reading a broad range of books and not always the school ones that we have heard some of.

I know what you mean

DD had The Litter Queen tonight

I had forgotten how dull it was (from hearing it the first time with DS).

Even DD who will read most things got to page 14 before asking if she had nearly finished (there were 32 pages altogether IIRC)...But still wanted to finish it

I just think doing a "quiz" might make the dull books more exciting (as her older brother does lots of quizzes and she has to do what he does ).

Oo, think I got off that one simpson , don't remember The Litter Queen. An inspiring ORT read eh.......

I remember an old post from someone saying their child who was ahead in reading was given some sort of computer comprehension test on set books. This would be ideal for DS as he is very into computer and reading .

DD would love that too...

The litter queen is totally dullsville ORT at its worst best

Although I have to say in fairness to DD's school on the whole her books have been pretty good, she had a Wallace and Gromit one last week...