There's not alot of great choices out there for reading comprehension. I'm not a fan of Reading programs. And so, by the advice of my fellow homeschool spot-ers, I am choosing for my kids to read from a list of real books. That being said......What, then, do I do about reading comprehension?
I do a few different things. If you are reading to them, without knowing the ages of your children. I have them use play-do or drawing while I read and what they make must be about the story. Then usually later on in the day when I have a moment or two alone with one of them I ask them to tell me about the story, if they have read it and even if I have read it to them. At first it was hard to get anything out of them now they love to talk about what has been read or they are reading. I find myself saying alright that is enough.... I try to make like book club discussions for them as well. I hope that helps....
Discussion. If they are reading the books independently and you are not reading it with them then you can use online worksheets or have your child complete a book report or present an oral report. I just gave my kids their first standardized test. We haven't worked on reading comprehension in terms of reading a short passage and answering questions about it. We just read and discuss. They had no problems completing the reading comprehension portion of the test. I think it was one of their strongest areas.
My dd was slow with comprehension. I read with her and asked frequent questions including for her to retell what she had just read in her own words. We then were able to work up to reading an entire chapter and discussing it. It seems to be more of a developmental thing, IMO. As long as they keep reading and discussing, eventually they will understand more and more of what they read and be able to apply it.
www.bookadventure.org has quizzes (similar to Accelerated Reading) for children to take. Here when we read books we talk about them, what happened, who did it, what could they have done differently, what would you do, how do you think the character felt?
We also do a lot of discussions, but I'll be honest and say here it is VERY individual with my children. My 7yo dd can tell you whatever you want to know, and has probably created a backstory for every single character LOL. My 9yo ds was (imho) absolutely killed with book reports in ps. He can tell you what color shirt a character was wearing, but loses the thread of the story pretty early on. Very can't see the forest for the trees (more like cramming for an exam than reading a story). We're going to be working on this in the upcoming year, so it will take very creative thinking on my part. btw- I always scored just medium on my reading comprehension tests. And I'm a AVID reader and I love to write. Sort of taught me that 1.) you don't have to remember every detail to love a great story, and 2.) that what one person (test giver) gets out of a story isn't necessarily what I took out of it. Even now, if I do some 3rd grade "what's the best title" worksheet, I ALWAYS disagree with their options and answers. We all have different ways of processing information, and we take different things out of the same information. One of the things I love about homeschooling is that there aren't really any wrong answers to most of this- if I ask my dd how the main character felt, and she says he was worried and has a great explanation, than who am I to say he only felt sad? Much more connective thinking than the typical sort of.. connect the dots stuff I learned.
This is SUCH a great point. In fact, last year, in ran into this same situation with my dd8 at the time. We were doing time 4 learning last year (which I won't do again) and they were asking her how the character felt in a story she was reading. Well, every answer she gave me wasn't an "acceptable" answer. And I thought, "why not?"
You could always just use something like progeny press guides or novel units. There are questions on the chapters that make the kids think about what is going on and can spark discussion. Novel Units actually has quizes and tests that you can use too.
meghan just want to thank you for what you have posted, here. that is exactly my problem with my 3dds when we have our reading discussion. ME being too much of "follow the book" or "ps systemed brain" - lol =p. definitely something i need to keep in my head when we start our hs in fall. good health and happiness.
That is exactly why we have not done much with prepared questions for our literature. I "manually" check for comprehension.
In that past I would read the books before Ems. I would type up questions for her to answer. Many of the questions made her have to think and read between the lines. They weren't always answers that were found in print. Now that she is older, she has to summarize each chapter on paper or orally answer questions. As much as I do not like book reports, she has to do two a year. If she goes to college, this will be a requirement in English. She needs to know how to write a book report. So we go light on them. As long as she knows how to do them, then I do not push hard in this area.
