11 Plus Exams Forum

Accodring to my son's school he has a reading age above his age but he seems to fall apart at comprehensions. The school says that over the summer he should read as much as possible, but its not clear to me that it is having the desired effect.

Can anyone suggest an alternative?

Something that worked for my older daughter was shorter articles instead of entire books. For example pick short passages from the newspaper and then verbally quiz them on it. This is less formal and exposure to different writing styles in newspapers of different journalists and news versus features trains them to read comprehensions with an open mind.

Penny.

Remember, ALL the answers are in the text, no matter what the question is! There are times where you'll have to think, but there's nothing you need to pull out of thin air!

Hope it helps

"Read, Read and Read" with a dictionary at hand is what also worked when I was at school.

Penny

Hi,

If my name has not been completely blackened by my post to request help with verbal reasoning, I might be able to dig up some woksheets that I have used with some success to introduce children to the ideas of comprehension.

I could send them to you - I wouldn't charge anything - provided I can find them in the many things I have on disk.

They were used as a real undercut to preapring students for GCSE and might be of use.

Let me know

Cathy Bird

Sorry about the typos! Highly inappropriate for an English teacher!

In a hurry to get to the dinner table! So didn't check the preview!

Cathy

Hello, me again,

I have been thinking a lot about your son in the night ( insomnia!) and I have some ideas that might help him.

However, there are a few things I would need to know in order to assess the approach you might find most useful.

First: How old is he? (this is to know what sort of level we are pitching at re interest, vocabulary etc.)

Second a): When he is given Comprehension work, does he know it as 'Comprehension'. I mean, is this a word he is coming up against, or does he just get questions in the form of a set of exercise questions? (It is vital that a student actually has clarity on what he is doing)

Second b): Why does he think he is doing comprehension? Is it for any purpose in his view?

Third: What is it that your son loves in life? Sport? fishing? Computer games? robots? cooking? etc. . . . .?

Fourth: What does he read? What does he read for school and what does he read for his own pleasure?

Fifth: How and where does he do the comprehension? At school? At home? With the class? with you? ( not psychologically aimed questions - just helps to get an over-all view)

These are the sort of things I would go over on first interview with any child - then I can get an idea where to go.

I'd really love to help. ( and I'm not touting for work on any 'gravy train'!)

Yours
Cathy

Hi

Can anyone recommend any books to practice comprehension? My son has gone through Bond English book 4 and 5...

Many thanks

Fatsia

NFER do a pack of English papers and also there are some very good downloadable papers on this website.

I know this site is for 11+. However having done that my sons next challenge will be Sats which he will be practising at school next week. Does anyone know of what type of material we could use or indeed are there any web sites offering free downloads of past papers. Any advice on SATS ingeneral wodul be really apprceiated. My son is a year six student so is 10 years old.

Thanks