What are effective ways children (age 9) can improve their reading comprehension?

Answer 1

One effective way to build reading comprehension skills is to stop after each page (or paragraph, if needed) and discuss what has happened in the story. *This is best taught using fiction books as your child is more familiar with social contexts than newly introduced information in non-fiction texts.

You can start by summarizing what was read, and pause for your child to fill in the blanks.

Ask your child to make predictions... "What do you think is going to happen next?"

Encourage them to dig deeper, "What gave you a hint to make you think that?"

Have your child highlight (or you can write on a post-it) the key words or phrases that helped them to infer.

When working with a specific reading comprehension worksheet, use colored highlighters. Highlight question one with yellow, go back to the text and find the answer, highlight it yellow. Go to question number two, highlight with blue, find the corresponding answer in the text and highlight it blue. Use different colors for the rest of the worksheet.

Review the types of questions that are asked. If the question asks "who" then the answer is a person, if it asks "when" then the answer is a time, date, year, if it asks "how" you need to find a specific example in the text.

Use a graphic organizer (you can find these on google or pinterest). Help your child fill out the organizer based on the book you are reading. Don't be afraid to offer assistance, or do all the writing to start off! Sometimes the added skills required to write, spell, utilize proper grammar and punctuation make expressing comprehension difficult.

Good luck and don't forget to make it fun! :)

Answer 2

As an elementary school teacher and tutor for more than one decade, I say have them read books about topics they are interested in, with social-emotional situations they can relate to on a personal level. You can read books out loud together and discuss the setting, characters, themes, conflicts, and plot developments together as you go along. When it comes to writing information down on paper in a reading comprehension question-and-answer format, have your students first discuss their thoughts thereabout with you in person, and then have them write down their responses on paper using similar (if not identical) language to what they just recited themselves directly to/in front of you, and their classmates-peers if present.

You can also lead a discussion about a/the given literary topic to help get the students' wheels turning.