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english comprehensions

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:35 pm
by subzero
Can anybody give some advice re getting better at comprehensions.My son is sitting his 11 plus in November and does not seem to be improving with his comprehension work.
he is an able reader but when asked questions such as "what did the writer mean" he doesn't seem to have understood the passage at all.

What can I do to help him improve?

Comprehension

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:18 pm
by Bob
Comprehension needs to be an active process: your son needs to annotate the passage, identifying the 'evidence' he needs to support his answers

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:41 pm
by subzero
Thanks Bob...do you know if they are allowed normally to mark the comprehension text in an exam paper?

comprehension practice

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:16 am
by vito
My son also seem sto read the comprehension text well. But looses the overall meaning. Does anyone know a good source of practice comprehensions preferably graded so we can start at a level and work up.

Comprehension

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:33 pm
by Road Runner
My son struggled wth his comprehension mailny because he found the text he was reading(at school) was quite boring so he wasn't taking it in.

The probem is in and SATS test or 11+ the reading is likely to be boring and it will not be something the child is interested in.

I bought some old SATS English papers and we worked through them together.

I asked my son to read the text first then we would look at the questions and I would guide him on how to find the anwers. When he realised that the answers "are always in the text" he started to look for the answers instead of just thinking and writing what he thought was the answer from memory. He then realised that he wouldn't neccessarily need to fully understand what he was reading and it wouldn't mean that he couldnt do well.

When we had worked through the papers bit by bit I then gave him the whole paper as a test(I had copied them) and he done really well.

It definitely helped as when he sat his SATS he got a high level 5 in english.

MelX

comprehension

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:29 pm
by Stephen McConkey
Hi subzero

I always recommend to my pupils to read the passage/text at least twice before looking at the questions. That way they have a “feel” for the content of the text and that may make answering questions a little easier.

Regards
Stephen

stephen mcCONKEY

Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:50 pm
by arnesh
DONT YOU THINK READING , FOR EXAMPLE-A NFER TEXT TWICE WILL BE HARD TO ACTUALLY COMPLETE THE WHOLE PAPER

Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:58 pm
by Guest55
It is important to read it twice - you will remember quite a bit - you could underline key things if you are allowed to mark the paper.

Now have a break over Christmas please! Your brain needs to be refreshed to perform at its best -

TALK ABOUT IT

Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:00 pm
by arnesh
I CAN STOP STUDYING AS IVE GOT THE QE EXAM APPROACHING
IF YOU READ A PASSAGE TWICE AND YOU PUT YOURSELF IN MY SHOES YOU WOULD KNOW HOW STRESSFULL TIME LIMIT IS

Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:03 pm
by Guest55
I do know exams are stressful - I am a teacher so have done LOTS of exams in my life and prepared thousands of children for them.

Please believe me that the time to read twice will mean you can answer the questions more easily and quickly.