Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. Experienced readers may take this for granted, and many are not familiar with the skills that go into extracting meaning from what they read.
Here are a few very effective strategies to build reading comprehension:
- Have engaging conversations asking open ended questions
- Engage your child in a dialogue about recent and future events
- Re-read familiar books
- Do book-related activities
- Build vocabulary by asking the meaning or synonyms/antonyms for words
- Build reading fluency by rereading several times
- Use pictures to assist comprehension
- Build background knowledge
- Summarize or retell stories orally or in writing
- Create visual imagery
