Things You'll Need:
- access to public transportation or a car
- children's reading books
- paper
- pencils
- crayons
- textbooks for older students
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Step 1
Connect a child's learning to something she is interested in. Children will be more involved in their learning if they can do more than just read about it. Take a child that is interested in animals to the Sacramento Zoo. Read about the animals first. Ask the child to tell you what she read about in her own words to gauge reading comprehension. Model the skill for the student too, where you read and tell her what you read about. The Sacramento zoo is open every day from 9am to 4 pm. There is free on-street parking. They have a resource library and Zoo animal fact sheets in their Education Office.
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Step 2
Draw pictures of the beginning, middle and end of the story to assess reading comprehension. If a child is interested in trains, take him to the California State Railroad museum. Read stories about trains before your visit. Have him draw pictures of the different trains in the book and ask him questions about each train. This will help you see how much of the reading he is comprehending.The railroad museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Exhibits include toy trains and a Polar Express ride.
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Step 3
Make history come alive with a visit to Sutter's Fort - Gold Country. For students who love history, read about the Overland Trail and the Gold Rush and then take the student to Sutter's Fort where they can experience it for themselves. Sutter's Fort State Historic Park is located at 2701 L Street, Sacramento, CA 95816. Metered car parking is also available on site.
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Step 4
Note-taking is an easy way to assess reading comprehension for older students. Have the student write out the 8 to 10 main ideas in a chapter to see how well he understood and can recall the events in the chapter. This can be done with fiction or a specific section of textbook reading. Make sure that the student puts the information in his own words and is not copying words directly from the text. Also, check to see if older students are able to tell back what they read about after a few minutes of reading. If not, they need to re-read the section.
