Developing Your Child’s Reading Comprehension

3rd - 5th Grade

 The following is a set of important strategies to use with your child when reading to him/her or when he/she is reading to you:

o   Make predictions about the solution to a problem, the outcome of a story, or what might happen next

o   Retell the story by sequencing important events; distinguish between major events/details vs. minor events/details.

o   What was the author’s message or main idea? What details led you to this conclusion?

o   Go back into the book to find the answer to a question – particularly with non-fiction.

o   In your own words, how would you summarize the paragraph, chapter, or story?

o   Make connections to the story – between the text and self, the text and other texts, or the text and the world.

o   Making Inferences

o   Infer characters’ feelings or their motivations throughout a text (i.e. why they feel a certain way, or explain their actions)

o   Infer causes of problems or outcomes

o   Ask specific questions that require your child to go back into the text and recall facts and details.

o   Identify cause and effect events throughout a story.

o   When your child comes across an unknown word in a text, have them use context clues to determine its meaning. (i.e. have him/her use the words and sentence(s) around the word to determine its meaning.)

o   Ask, what was the author’s purpose for writing this story/article? (i.e. why did they write it?, what was the message or moral of the story?)

o   Identify facts and opinions in a text. (Fact – something that is true, Opinion – what someone thinks and may or may not be true)