How to Teach Reading Comprehension Strategies to Your Struggling Reader

Reading strategies help children improve comprehension.

Reading comprehension strategies support struggling readers by helping them to understand the text as a whole rather than word for word. Students become more independent in reading when taught these simple tactics for better comprehension. As a result, the child will be less frustrated with reading and may come to enjoy literature.

Things You'll Need

• Literature

Instructions

1. Pre-read the literature with the student. Help the child look at the cover of the story, flip through the book and look at pictures to make predictions. It is fine if the reader makes incorrect predictions. This gives the child an overall idea of what he will be reading.

2. Provide the child with a list of new vocabulary in the story and discuss each term. This will help with overall comprehension of the story.

3. Cue the student to begin reading the text. Encourage the child to make new predictions based on what he is reading after every couple of pages. This gives the student the chance to revise previous predictions and apply new vocabulary.

4. Discuss the story with the student after she finishes reading. Help her to identify the main idea and details of the narrative. Help her compare her first predictions with the outcome of the story.

5. 

   Discussing literature with a peer reinforces the main idea of the story.

   Pair the struggling reader with another student. Instruct the children to discuss the story, including the main idea, details, characters and predictions that each made. This encourages the child to come up with ideas and communicate with peers and reinforces the important attributes of the literature.

6. Reflect on the reading with the student. Ask the student what he already knew about the topic and what he learned after reading the story. How does the information fit into what he already knew? Ask the child to retell the story to you without reading through the material. Help the reader to make connections between past experience and what he read in the text.

References

• All About Adolescent Literacy: Concept Sorts
• All About Adolescent Literacy: First Lines
• All About Adolescent Literacy: Listen-Read-Discuss
• All About Adolescent Literacy: Think-Pair-Share
• Choice Literacy: What are the Seven Reading Comprehension Strategies?
• Scholastic.com: Reading Comprehension Strategies