How to Help Your Children to Improve Their Reading, Spelling and Comprehension Skills
Read every day for 20 minutes., Ask questions., Use dictation to assist with both comprehension and spelling practice., Write stories., Find the errors.
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Read every day for 20 minutes.
It is important that children read every day for 20 minutes.
Sit with them and listen to them.
By doing this you be able to understand their reading abilities, what words and sounds they struggle with. , After the children have read a few pages, stop them and ask them about what they have just read.
This allows them to think about the information they have read and begin to process it and not forget it.
This is key to building comprehension skills.
Ask them questions and try to coax out as much detail as you can out of them.
When they come to do comprehension exercises in school later on, they will answer the questions with detail because they're already used to doing so in the home environment., Read out a few of the passages from the book they are reading and ask them to write down what you read.
Read each word slowly, give them enough time to think about the word, then ask them to write it down.
Having read the words already, they may remember them; however, some words are spelt differently from how they sound.
Check their spellings after and identify the words and sounds they are struggling with and practice those more. , Children have a wild imagination.
Set them a few story titles, for example: “Lost in the Woods,” “From Another Planet,” “The Coolest Adventure”.
Also set a few personal and descriptive titles, such as: “Describe your house, or a friend or a relative” “My Favourite Country” “My School Trip”.
Varying the titles will work their imaginations as well as helping to improve their descriptive writing skills., Ask your children to spend some time rewriting any sentences where you discovered errors, to correct them, but without you identifying which parts are errors.
This allows the children to spot the mistakes for themselves.
For this exercise, use sentences with missed punctuation, bad spelling, etc.
They can read their own writing and correct the mistakes, a skill that is essential for the rest of their lives.
Check the work; after this exercise, the parts where they have not noticed the errors is where more attention needs to be given. -
Step 2: Ask questions.
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Step 3: Use dictation to assist with both comprehension and spelling practice.
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Step 4: Write stories.
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Step 5: Find the errors.
Detailed Guide
It is important that children read every day for 20 minutes.
Sit with them and listen to them.
By doing this you be able to understand their reading abilities, what words and sounds they struggle with. , After the children have read a few pages, stop them and ask them about what they have just read.
This allows them to think about the information they have read and begin to process it and not forget it.
This is key to building comprehension skills.
Ask them questions and try to coax out as much detail as you can out of them.
When they come to do comprehension exercises in school later on, they will answer the questions with detail because they're already used to doing so in the home environment., Read out a few of the passages from the book they are reading and ask them to write down what you read.
Read each word slowly, give them enough time to think about the word, then ask them to write it down.
Having read the words already, they may remember them; however, some words are spelt differently from how they sound.
Check their spellings after and identify the words and sounds they are struggling with and practice those more. , Children have a wild imagination.
Set them a few story titles, for example: “Lost in the Woods,” “From Another Planet,” “The Coolest Adventure”.
Also set a few personal and descriptive titles, such as: “Describe your house, or a friend or a relative” “My Favourite Country” “My School Trip”.
Varying the titles will work their imaginations as well as helping to improve their descriptive writing skills., Ask your children to spend some time rewriting any sentences where you discovered errors, to correct them, but without you identifying which parts are errors.
This allows the children to spot the mistakes for themselves.
For this exercise, use sentences with missed punctuation, bad spelling, etc.
They can read their own writing and correct the mistakes, a skill that is essential for the rest of their lives.
Check the work; after this exercise, the parts where they have not noticed the errors is where more attention needs to be given.
About the Author
Cheryl Russell
Enthusiastic about teaching pet care techniques through clear, step-by-step guides.
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