Comprehension help please

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Middlesexmum
Posts: 1008
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:54 am

Comprehension help please

Post by Middlesexmum »

My youngest dd is currently Year 4 and she will be sitting for HBS (first choice) plus various girls' indies.

She is a proficient reader and reads widely and her writing is of a high standard with good vocabulary and punctuation, but for some reason she is really struggling with comprehension. There seems to be some sort of block between lifting the information from the text and getting her answer down on paper.

I'm hoping this will improve with practice. What sort of materials could I get for her?
Stokers
Posts: 358
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:48 pm

Re: Comprehension help please

Post by Stokers »

DD went through a barren spell with comprehension over the Summer. We went back to some really straightforward papers and talked them through first before she went away and wrote her response. This helped her manage the anxiety that was building about comp papers. But, I would say, in Year 4, just reading and talking about reading would be enough. You've got the whole of year 5 to work up to more complex comp papers.
redbrige
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2014 10:54 am

Re: Comprehension help please

Post by redbrige »

We started off with schofiled and sims book2 when we are in year4 .
They are very nice stories which my DD already knew from few books few classic and few peoms.
By the end of year4 I felt she has improved on how to answer the questions from the text.
Hope this helps.
workingmom
Posts: 112
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:47 am

Re: Comprehension help please

Post by workingmom »

Middlesexmum - may be you can start with multiple choice comprehension passages. This might help her in splitting the work between finding the answer and formulating the answer.
Northdad
Posts: 229
Joined: Thu Mar 12, 2015 5:11 pm

Re: Comprehension help please

Post by Northdad »

We tried reading aloud one page complex passages from various books and discussing it. Tough going but seems to be helping
Middlesexmum
Posts: 1008
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:54 am

Re: Comprehension help please

Post by Middlesexmum »

Thanks all, some useful tips.

I think part of the problem is that I struggle with some of the questions myself! I am well educated but specialised in Science and it's been a long time since I've done any English comprehension. I find things like 'describe how the author does such and such....' really hard.

Do parents have to be experts in this as well??
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