A common question we field from parents of younger children is, “How can I tell if my child understands what he reads?” This is a really important question, so let’s explore reading comprehension in more detail.

The ultimate goal of reading is to understand the meaning of a text. And, this takes extraordinary practice. When a child is young, it is difficult to know what he or she understands. One great tool for younger children is to not only read aloud to them, constantly stopping to ask probing questions, but also to have them read aloud to you.

Reading comprehension is a process that involves many cognitive tasks. First, a reader needs to pull information out of a text. Then, the reader needs to pull the individual pieces of information together to make sense of it. At the highest level, reading comprehension is similar to calculus where we differentiate then integrate. Here are the five essential skills required for reading comprehension:

Decoding
Decoding is the vital first step in the reading process. Children use decoding skills to sound out words they have heard but haven’t seen in writing. The decoding process relies heavily on early language skills called phonemic awareness. This awareness allows kids to hear individual sounds in words and play with the sounds. Grasping the connection between a letter or group of letters and the sounds they make is an important first step. Most children naturally acquire phonemic awareness by being exposed to rhymes, books, and songs. But importantly, some children don’t. One early sign of reading difficulties is trouble counting syllables or identifying the first sound of a word.

Fluency
To read fluently, children need to recognize words instantly. Fluency speeds up the rate at which a child can read. Sounding out or decoding every individual word takes a lot of effort. Word recognition allows whole words to be understood by sight, without stopping to sound them out.

Fluency is achieved when readers can read smoothly and at strong, consistent pace without making many errors. Like decoding, fluency is essential for good reading comprehension. To test fluency, quiz your child on what was read.

Vocabulary
To understand what you are reading, you need to understand most (not all) of the words in the text. Having a strong vocabulary is a key component of reading comprehension, and unfortunately, vocabulary isn’t acquired quickly. Instead, children accumulate vocabulary through everyday experiences in addition to reading. Parents can help build their child’s vocabulary through frequent conversation and reading together. When reading aloud, stop at new words and discuss their meaning. Technology is a great aid in developing a strong vocabulary. We recommend students that are reading on a screen utilize the built-in tools that allow you to tap a word and pull up its definition. Free online resources like www.vocabularly.com are also extremely useful.

Sentence Construction and Grammar
This may seem like a writing skill, but connecting ideas within and between sentences is called cohesion. Knowing how new ideas relate to previous ideas allows children to gain meaning from the entirety of a text. Coherence is this ability to connect ideas to other ideas in a larger text. Children can benefit greatly from understanding basic sentence structure and grammar. Teach children at an early age parts of speech, parts of a sentence, and sentence structure and formation. It is easy enough to pick up any text and explain to a child how the sentence has been constructed by identifying things like nouns and verbs, subjects and objects, and dependent and independent clauses. To test coherence, ask a child high-level, general questions about the text. What is the author’s main point? Would the author agree with the following…? Was the author trying to persuade, inform, or entertain the reader?

Reasoning and Background Knowledge
It is important that a child to be able to relate what was read to what he or she already knew. Children also need to be able to interpret what is not being explicitly stated. This ability is honed later in the reading process. But, as a parent, you can help your child develop this skill by exposing your child to many experiences. Ask them open-ended questions about what they’ve read and how it relates to what they know. It’s no surprise that children who are exposed to many different cultural experiences at an early age tend to develop into great readers.

A Note on Texts
Obviously, some texts are easier to comprehend than others. This is why it’s a great idea to have children read a wide variety of different texts. This is why it’s also a good idea to constantly push the child to read at a higher-grade level. Nonfiction can be really engaging when the subject is of interest to the child, but there can be a lot of information to absorb. Fiction can be enjoyable because humans are inherently storytelling, narrative craving animals. Switch up the type of texts you present to your child for maximum benefit.

An Unfortunate Societal Trend
We are witnessing an extremely concerning trend of deteriorating reading abilities as, generally speaking, children, and society generally, spend less time focused on reading long, difficult texts and much more time using technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There is something to be said about sitting with a difficult text and struggling to understand its significance. Working memory, focus, and attention are being whittled away by our desire to make life as comfortable as possible. It’s important—now more than ever—that we do our best to relay to children the importance of reading.

If you would like to discuss how we can help your child improve his or her reading ability, please contact us at (720) 605-6622 or via email at info@mosereducational.com.