How to help improve children’s reading comprehension skills

People who are good at reading are also good at thinking. It is difficult for children to understand what they are reading. At this time, the guidance of parents can inspire children to think carefully about the content of reading and help them improve their reading comprehension skills/ability. So what should parents do? That’s why in this article I show you some effective tips which can improve your children’s reading comprehension skills. And you can also check out our article “5 Tips to Improve Children’s Reading Ability”.

1. Establish association

Let the child associate the content she is reading with the knowledge or experience she has learned before. This will increase her concentration and deepen her understanding. Parents can read aloud by themselves and then share with their children how they do this. For example, maybe the book mentions places where you used to vacation together. Talk about your memories of that place, and then it’s your child’s turn to speak for themselves. Remind children that people who are good at reading will organically combine actual experience with the book’s content.

2. Ask questions to improve comprehension skills

Asking a child a question will prompt him to look for clues in the book. When you read aloud, the questions asked will stimulate your child’s curiosity. Ask your child often, “What do you want to know?” Write down the child’s questions, and then see what will happen in the end. Remind children that people who are good at thinking always read with questions.

3. Read aloud books from early childhood

Storytelling eliminates lack of communication with children!
It will be a memory for parents and children, so it is difficult but recommended.

The first training in reading comprehension is reading aloud from early childhood!

It is developed in a unique style in which parents read picture books and children listen to them. Various psychological research results have reported the effects of storytelling.

Effects obtained by reading aloud

• Increase creativity
• Improvement of language ability
• Parent-child communication UP
• Improving imagination
• Improving self-affirmation
• Parental voice stabilizes the child’s mental state

Storytelling is one of the valuable gifts parents can send to their children.

Your child’s reading comprehension will improve by consciously reading a book, such as before going to bed. Especially in early childhood, the effect of training is excellent and effective.

This will change the initial starting line, resulting in less effort later and a great benefit for the child.

When my son was small, I read aloud dozens of books, and I have very difficult memories, but now I think about it, it’s a good memory.

In addition to improving reading comprehension, it is also recommended as a father because it is a communication between parents and children.

4. Continue reading and get used to reading sentences

Due to the improved performance of tablet devices, children are more likely to watch videos on iPad and tablet devices from an early age and have become accustomed to being informed since childhood.

Since the time of the day is limited, it is also a big problem that the time to read is relatively less than in the past.

Having enough time to read a book will reduce your resistance to reading and eliminate negative emotions about your writing.

By reducing resistance to reading sentences, if you can become a habit of reading books, your reading comprehension will improve by yourself.

5. Lookup unknown words in a dictionary

Knowledge of words is required to understand what is written in the text. If you come across a word you don’t know, get in the habit of looking it up in a dictionary!

By taking the trouble of looking up a dictionary, also makes it easier to remember. At first, the order of AIUEO is not perfect, so I think it will take some time, but it is very important to search for that word from many words.

If a word or sentence that you do not understand appears somewhere, it won’t be easy to understand the story correctly in the content of the subsequent story.

Although it is a steady process, it is an important process, so we recommend that you practice it. 

6. Create “Movies in the Heart”

Creating a visual image will bring the text to life, and such a “movie” will make the story more memorable. Parents can help their children do this by reading aloud and then describing the images they have imagined. Using all the senses and emotions, invite the child to share her “movie” with the parents. At this time, the parents should pay attention to that the child’s “movie” will be different from yours, and the parent can even ask the child to draw the image she imagined.

7. Inference

We can use all the knowledge and experience we have to combine with the clues in the story to make an “inference” about the ending. For example, when we read “Her eyes are red and runny nose,” we can conclude that she has a cold or an allergy. When reading a story aloud, increase your comprehension by predicting what might happen. Parents help children master this kind of reading skills and then inspire children to do the same.

8. Find out the important elements

The core of reading is to figure out what is most important. When parents and children read the story together, they can download the “Story Elements” organization chart. Parents can use it to track the main characters, the location of the story, and the problems and solutions.

9. Follow up the process of understanding

The “detailed reading” method can help children when they don’t understand certain content. The parent reads with the child and asks her to “tap” with one finger when she understands the content and to “tap” with two fingers when she does not understand the content. When the “thump” appears, you can try to read it again, read it aloud, slow down the reading, look at the illustrations, or find confusing words to solve the problem.