How to Increase Your Child's Reading Comprehension Skills

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By StacyP
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Reading

Reading comprehension is a crucial learning skill for children to master. One proven technique to teach reading is to have them make connections with the text. There are three categories involved in making connections during or after reading: text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world.

At home, there is a fun and informal way to increase your child’s learning of what they read. All that's needed to teach reading is your child’s favorite book and some open ears.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A Book Your Child Likes

Step 1

When doing an activity to teach reading, have your child choose a book that he or she finds interesting and can read with minimal difficulty. If possible, prepare yourself for this learning activity by skimming over the story beforehand. Mentally make note of important parts in the story and questions you'll want to ask your child.

For this article, I'll use The Three Little Pigs as an example of how to use a book to make connections.
Step 2

Text-to-Self Connections:

This type of questioning helps to personalize the story for the reader, thus giving more incentive to finish reading it. An example of a text-to-self question could be: "Does the wolf remind you of anyone in your own life?" You could then expand on your child's answer to start a learning discussion about bullies at school.
Step 3

Text-to-Text Connections:

Relating one story to another provides the reader with a learning opportunity to reflect on past readings and to compare and contrast the two. An example of a text-to-text question might be: "Can you think of any other book that has a scary wolf character in it?" This question could easily lead into a comparison of The Three Little Pigs to Little Red Riding Hood.
Step 4

Text-to-World Connections:

This type of connection encourages your child to relate stories to real life occurrences. An example question could be: "Does the damage to the first two houses remind you of any natural disasters?" This text-to-world question could turn into a science discussion about tornadoes or hurricanes.

These questions help activate your child’s prior knowledge and encourage active thinking while reading. The best part about this reading comprehension activity is that it’s a powerful learning tool cleverly disguised as something fun!