How to improve comprehending ability in children?

Children of this age like to learn quickly but our textbooks are elaborate and require patience. Lack of reading invariably affects comprehension. If there is no comprehension, there will hardly be any understanding of the concepts learned. How to improve comprehension skills? is a common question in the minds of?teachers and parents.

Though there is a list of methods available, I am going to elaborate on what could work well in both classrooms and at home.?For instance, if children were given a passage to read and answer some questions.

Then ask them the following 4 things to do:

1. Underline the main idea

If children find it difficult to take notes. Ask them to?underline the main idea?in each paragraph they read. This will not only reduce their effort but also save time.?

2. Circle contextual clues / Find meaning

After a brief reading of paragraphs, ask the children to glimpse through the questions asked and look for clues in the paragraphs they read. When the children are stuck with some words ask them to find the?meaning with the help of a dictionary. But this is possible only at home. In classrooms or in tests this is very difficult. So help them to find the clues or teach them with examples on finding clues from contexts. Ask them to?circle the clues. This is 'the one technique' that could increase their?ability to answer the questions asked.

3. Reread and summarize

As a way to summarize ask the children to re-read the underlined main ideas in each paragraph. This will give them a good grasp of the texts they just read and increase the comprehension. Further, this will help them answer questions that require higher order thinking.

4. Answer the questions

Finally, answer the questions comfortably taking aid from the underlined main idea and contextual clues. Forget not to look for circles and underlines.

Author:

Dr.R.Narayanakumar (Chief Methodologist - YaClass)