Comprehension and reading, how do you check and help your child?

[Naicecuppatea]

Just after some tips really. My Y1 child can read almost anything without difficulty but her vocabulary and understanding of what she is reading is lagging behind. I have been checking with her at the end of each page that she is understanding the text.

But it is getting tedious! She is sometimes in tears because I am getting a little frustrated as she has read a line on a page but not assimilated it/unable to recall what she's read. Which is not helping either of us, and her love of reading is now starting to wane, shall I just give up on the questions for a little while?

Any tips very welcome! She has been given book reports to do by her teacher which are helpful.

It depends what you mean by 'can read almost anything'. For example, are they still reading scheme books, or chapter books?

Also where is your child's love of reading coming from if not from understanding the story?

You mention the skills of recall and understanding the vocabulary.

Vocab is the easiest to improve - DDs school provided each child with a blank book to be their own personal glossary. With DD I worked on the idea that it was positive if she asked me if she didn't know / understand a word - not knowing something is an opportunity to learn. Having a personal glossary means you can go back over previously unknown words to check if the meaning has been retained. It's also easy to make fun/special and to have rewards as it get's filled (to encourage asking 'what does this mean?')

Recall is trickier as everyone is blessed with their own personal level of memory (which for little children is increasing all the time). You can choose between your child reading less complex books, so aiding recall and understanding, or sticking with more complex stories but only asking for the key events, working up towards greater detail over time.

Another option would be to let your child read their books for pleasure but have some comprehension work books if you would like to work on those skills at home. Comprehension work books use relatively short passages and work on specific skills, such as vocab, inference and the ability to find information in a text. There are lots available, check Amazon or WHSmith.

The advice from DDs school is that it is better to read less and discuss more!

HTH

Diamond, that is incredibly helpful. Thank you! Her current reading level is 11 (ORT) and while she doesn't struggle with any words she does sometimes have difficulty with understanding and recall. We will work on some easier books to get her confidence back and the idea of a glossary is great. I have a comprehension book that she can go through as well. 'Read less and discuss more' makes a lot of sense.

DS2 is in year 2, and is a free reader. I know he wouldn't understand everything he read. He is reading Beast quest at the moment. I just let him read, and encourage him to skip the bit he doesn't understand, as long as he get the flow of the story. But we read together for a few pages eveyday, I would question if he understand and explain it to him, and we check dictionary for the word we don't know. As my vocabulary is not good either. This works well for us.

Is perfectly normal for comprehension to lag behind reading ability according to my dd's teacher!

Although this is for KS 2 it might help to use PEE or point, evidence, explain - more here (you might have to copy link into browser) www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/english/reading/character/revision/6/

I don't do this every time she reads to me as this definitely annoys her and breaks up the story!

Sorry just realised that's a KS 3 link but you get the idea! They start using this in yr3 but as your lo is already a good reader it will be helpful when checking her understanding and when moving up the reading levels.