How to help a child
in understanding and remembering what you’ve read?
You spend a lot of time helping your child learn to read. You try to be patient and not to rush him. He reads and rereads the same paragraph, but never “understands” it. Why is it so hard for a child to understand what he is reading?
It’s great that you support your child’s initiatives in reading. You can understand your frustration, you have spent a lot of time and energy teaching your child, but you do not see much improvement. Don’t worry, you have already done a lot just by showing your child how much you care about them.
The ability to make sense out of sentences and paragraphs involves a complex combination of many skills and abilities. To support your child in reading correctly, you need to understand the nature of their difficulties.
Decoding and word recognition process
The decoding process is the transformation of a graphic model of a word into an oral language form. The ability to match the written word to the sound of the word is an important step in learning to read. Decoding is the foundation upon which all reading instruction is built.
If your child gets lost in the decoding process, they will have difficulty understanding what they have read. The new online remedial program Fast ForWord Foundations helps you develop decoding skills at home. Decoding is a very important process – the more words your child can automatically recognize at a glance (without having to pronounce every letter or syllable), the faster they can read. Go to the site and find out more informationhttps://argoprep.com/blog/improve-your-childs-reading-comprehension-level/
Ease of reading
Why does cursory reading matter? If a child reads each word by syllables, it takes a long time to read the whole sentence. This makes it difficult to memorize all the words in a sentence and understand how they fit together.
One way to learn to recognize a word quickly is to read it out loud several times. That’s why reading the same passage multiple times can help your child learn to read fluently.
Level of understanding of what you’ve read.
Even if your child is a good reader, he may be reading books that are far above his current level of understanding. The most important thing is that your child can not only read the text, but also think about it. Sometimes the teachers evaluate reading skills – how well the student can read and understand a text. These assessments also reflect important information – whether a student needs help.
Talk to the teacher about your child’s reading skills. You can ask the teacher to recommend home reading books that match your child’s reading level. You can also choose your own books. For example, when choosing a book, ask your child to read several pages and tell you what they have just read. The book is suitable if the child really understands what they have read.
Decoding and word recognition process
The decoding process is the transformation of a graphic model of a word into an oral language form. The ability to match the written word to the sound of the word is an important step in learning to read. Decoding is the foundation upon which all reading instruction is built.
If your child gets lost in the decoding process, they will have difficulty understanding what they have read. The new online remedial program Fast ForWord Foundations helps you develop decoding skills at home. Decoding is a very important process – the more words your child can automatically recognize at a glance (without having to pronounce every letter or syllable), the faster they can read.
Ease of reading
Why does cursory reading matter? If a child reads each word by syllables, it takes a long time to read the whole sentence. This makes it difficult to memorize all the words in a sentence and understand how they fit together.
One way to learn to recognize a word quickly is to read it out loud several times. That’s why reading the same passage multiple times can help your child learn to read fluently.
Level of understanding of what you’ve read.
Even if your child is a good reader, he may be reading books that are far above his current level of understanding. The most important thing is that your child can not only read the text, but also think about it. Sometimes the teachers evaluate reading skills – how well the student can read and understand a text. These assessments also reflect important information – whether a student needs help.
Talk to the teacher about your child’s reading skills. You can ask the teacher to recommend home reading books that match your child’s reading level. You can also choose your own books. For example, when choosing a book, ask your child to read several pages and tell you what they have just read. The book is suitable if the child really understands what they have read.
Focus of attention
Difficulties with concentration are another reason why your child may have trouble understanding what is being read. Reading comprehension also depends on the ability to ignore distractions.
If your child has difficulty concentrating, it may be due to executive dysfunction, hearing impairment, or ADHD/DDHD. These impairments may affect their ability to understand and retain information in their work memory.
You can help your child reduce the workload by, for example, teaching them to break up reading tasks into small parts, taking notes, and highlighting important information.
Reading skills and comprehension strategies
Reading is thinking. And the way we think is the basis for improved understanding during reading. To improve our understanding of the text, sometimes we must consciously stop reading and analyze our ideas and thoughts about what we’ve read.
You can teach your child to be an active reader. Encourage them to voice all their thoughts and concerns, ask questions as they read, read aloud one paragraph at a time, and discuss what they have read.
Note that experienced readers also see how well they understand what they are reading and reread the confusing parts of the text. Learn to look for contextual clues around a sentence or phrase, for example, pictures or words in adjacent sentences can help your child understand the meaning of words they don’t understand. Help your child learn these strategies by example.
Additional support
Make sure you talk to your child’s teacher about extra support at school. Remember that your continued attention and encouragement will have a long-term positive impact on your child’s education. Understanding your child’s problems and applying the above guidelines will improve your child’s reading skills.
