How to Improve Your Child's Reading Comprehension: Understanding Inferencing
Reading comprehension is something many parents hear about around parent-teacher conference time. If your child's teacher suggests that help is needed with reading comprehension, what she means is that your child is not understanding what he's reading. Don't confuse this with DECODING, which refers to reading a particular word. Think of decoding as what a child does when he's reading flashcards. Comprehension, on the other hand, is simply understanding what he's read. Understanding the story or the article.
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Things You'll Need
- Something to read - preferably a storybook or nonfiction book appropriate to your child's reading level.
Instructions
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READING IS DIFFERENT HEADNG INTO 3RD GRADE AND UP
When a child is in the primary grades, K-1-2, what he is reading is very literal. For example, the book might say something like, "Tony was sad." (notice how it is flat-out telling the reader how the character is feeling. Or "Mary wanted to get even with her friend so she took her notebook." (which is similarly flat-out telling the reader the character's motives.)
But as your child approaches the intermediate level of elementary school, 3-4-5, the text is less direct, and only HINTS at things like motive, emotion, etc. This is known as INFERENCING. You might think of inferencing as "reading between the lines." It's one of the most important skills your young reader will need to master to be succesful and confident in the world of literature.
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ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Often times a well-intended and rather unsuspecting parent will read aloud with their child (kudos to them), and believe their child is understanding. But how can you be more sure? Ask a lot of questions.
What kind of questions?
Here's an illustration . . . Suppose you and your 3rd grade daughter are reading Cinderella together. These questions do NOT help you determine if your child is making good inferences:1. Who helped Cinderella get her beautiful dress?
2. What time did Cinderella have to be back home by?
3. Where was the ball?These kinds of questions rely on LITERAL information. In other words, your child simply needs to spit back what's on the page. BUT . . . . ! Asking the following types of questions really tells you something . . .
4. Why do you think Cinderella was running so fast down the stairs when the clock began to chime?
5. Why do you think the Stepmother locked Cinderella in her room when the prince came around with the glass slipper?
6. How do you think the little mice felt about Cinderella? -
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READ BETWEEN THE LINES
All of these questions require your child to make an INFERENCE. To read between the lines. I've used the example of Cinderella because everyone knows that story. So, to continue that example, if your child does not know the answer to question 5, then they are not truly comprehending the story. So they might give an answer like, "I think she might have been mad at her. Maybe she was mean to her before, or maybe she didn't eat her dinner."
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ASK HIM TO EXPLAIN HIS REASONING - "WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT?"
If you get an answer like the one above, your child needs guidance. You'd say, for example, "Well let's go back in the story and see if there was anything about Cinderella not eating her dinner." After you don't find that information, gently lead your child toward understanding but DO NOT tell her the answer. So you might say something like, "Do you think the Stepmother likes Cinderella?" When your child says no, ask why she thinks that. Ask how the Stepmother behaves around Cinderella.
Remember, as stated in the introduction, begiining-reader texts will actually, specifically SAY something like "The stepmother disliked Cinderella." It takes practice for your child to the hang of this knew way of thinking about literature. So be patient!
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The job of your intermediate reader is to make that bridge between being a literal reader and being a reader able to inference.
Reading comprehension is a HUGE topic. There are many helpful websites out there for parents. I've linked a couple below. And remember, if you're working on reading with your child, you're certainly better than halfway there. So pat yourself on the back!
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