There is more to reading comprehension than meets the eye. Parents often face the issue of their child having difficulties with comprehension. The issue is not often only for students but also for parents.
Understanding the complexities of reading comprehension can help us better assist our children in their thinking skills. Often we only think of the child decoding the words (saying the words) but often forget that they may not understand the words because a lack of knowledge about the word. Remember, hearing it and knowing about it does not mean they understand it. Fluency also plays a key role in a child's ability to understand as words are often processed in conjunction with one another into meaningful word clusters and are only understandable when the brain can connect these combinations. Hence, if a child's fluency is not adequate they will not be able to comprehend what they have read. Now, if we come around full circle to the beginning of the process, it is also clear that if your child can't sound out the word quickly enough it means they either have underdeveloped phonetic skills or they do not understand the process of sequencing sounds. Either one means that the child needs to reestablish their understanding of phonology and phonics. These are crucial steps that are easy to practice at home and are not much different in many other languages (Yet quite difficult for Mandarin). If we improve our children's basic foundation skills, we should have a smooth transition into more fluent reading; which leads to much better comprehension. |
AuthorI Know English Archives
September 2016
Categories
All
|