Below are explanations of various comprehension skills and strategies, students use to make sense of text. Along with each explanation are suggestions for families to help their children practice using these skills and strategies when reading at home.
Making Predictions:
Readers make predictions, or tell what they think is going to happen next in the story, by using details from the story and linking it to information they already know (Duffy, 2003; Fountas & Pinnell, 2001).
Tips for Making Predictions:
Before reading, talk to your child about what he/she thinks will happen next in the story. While reading, have him/her think about whether or not the prediction would change based on new information. After reading, have him/her discuss if the predictions were confirmed, or if he/she still has to read to find out more information. Encourage your child to make new predictions.
Monitoring/Questioning:
Readers monitor their reading by asking questions before, during, and after reading to stay focused, check their understanding of the story (i.e. does my prediction continue to make sense), and actively construct meaning (Duffy, 2003).
Encourage your child to ask the following questions:
Before Reading: What do I think this book is going to be about? (Look at the title and cover of the book before asking this question.)
During Reading: Stop to check: Do I understand what I have read? Is this part important? What will happen next? How do I think this will end? Is my prediction correct? Do I need to make a new prediction?
After Reading: Did what I think come true? Did the author do a good job in telling his/her story? What could have been different?
Discuss your child's questions and answers as he or she reads.
It is easier to stop often during a story and ask questions, rather than wait until the end. This way, if your child has trouble answering a question they can go back through a shorter portion of the story, slow down, and focus to reread the part that is causing trouble.
Summarizing the Story:
When readers summarize, they demonstrate their understanding of the story and continue to construct meaning by reflecting on key characters, events, and details. Readers summarize by recalling what they remember from the text (Duffy, 2003).
Key elements to look for when your child is summarizing a story:
The Beginning:
Setting: Where does the story take place?
Characters: Who are the main characters?
Problem: What is one important problem in the story?
The Middle:
What happened as the characters tried to solve the problem?
The End:
How is the problem solved? How does the story end?
When having your child summarize a story make sure he or she touches upon each part of the story and includes the important characters, events (in the order they happen), and details. If your child has difficulty remembering a particular part of a story have him or her reread that part and then retell it again. It is a good idea to have your child retell a story after every few pages before summarizing at the end.
Use the READ, COVER, REMEMBER and RETELL strategy with your child.
* READ only as much as your hand can cover
* COVER the words with your hand
* REMEMBER what you have just read (look back if you need to)
* RETELL what you just read inside your head or to a partner
This is a great strategy to use with your child when reading fiction or nonfiction!
Making Connections:
Readers make connections to the stories they are reading by connecting these stories to their own lives, to other books, and to the world around them. This helps readers understand the characters and how they feel better (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001).
Encourage your child to ask the following questions:
Visualizing:
“Readers see what the characters see, hear what the characters hear, and feel what the characters feel” (Duffy, 2003). Readers use descriptive language to create pictures or images in their mind of what they are reading. Visualizing is what "hooks" and can help motivate readers to enjoy the process of reading because of an increased emotional involvement in the stories they read (Duffy, 2003).
Making Inferences:
Authors do not always tell us everything directly. Often they leave us clues that good readers have to piece together to really see what the author is trying to say. For example, readers will often have to use clues from the story to understand character traits or emotions (Duffy, 2003).
To make an inference your child should use what they already know about the story and the clues the author gives them to figure out the meaning of the story.
Inferences can be based on clues from:
Main Idea or Theme
“To determine the main idea, readers must understand that authors write because they have some important ideas to convey” (Duffy, 2003) The main idea or theme is the most important thing an author wants readers to know or learn from reading a fiction or non-fiction text. In most cases, the author does not explicitly tell the reader what the main idea or theme is, and readers must use information from the story and prior knowledge to predict what it might be (Duffy, 2003).
Encourage your child ask the following questions during and after reading: