Help with comprehension.
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Help with comprehension.
My son is losing marks on his comprehension practice papers because while he is perfectly able to pull answers directly from the text, and put them in his own words, he is struggling with the more 'inferred' answers, where he has to take what is written and interpret it to get the answer.
One example of this is where a paper had the phrase "One child thought that the chair was born at the same time as Grandfather", and from that he had to answer that the chair was old.
The answer isn't that it was made when Grandfather was born, but he didn't get the nference that as Grandfather was old, if the chair was made at the time he was bortn, then the chair must also be old.
Another example was a piece of writing about birds, and the question was "What audience was this piece of writing aimed at and why; evidence your answer from the text.".
The answer came from just one line in the whole passage - "Ask your Mother to boil some potato peelings". From just this one line, he was meant to deduce that the whole passage was written for children, and show that it was this one line that proved that.
How do I help him to 'get' inferred information?
One example of this is where a paper had the phrase "One child thought that the chair was born at the same time as Grandfather", and from that he had to answer that the chair was old.
The answer isn't that it was made when Grandfather was born, but he didn't get the nference that as Grandfather was old, if the chair was made at the time he was bortn, then the chair must also be old.
Another example was a piece of writing about birds, and the question was "What audience was this piece of writing aimed at and why; evidence your answer from the text.".
The answer came from just one line in the whole passage - "Ask your Mother to boil some potato peelings". From just this one line, he was meant to deduce that the whole passage was written for children, and show that it was this one line that proved that.
How do I help him to 'get' inferred information?
Re: Help with comprehension.
Inference. I need to clean my keyboard!
Re: Help with comprehension.
Have you tried the Bond 11 plus how to do comprehension book? While not sirectly relevant to Essex it does have sections that explain things like this. I worked through these with DS and we discussed the examples and as many other examples as I could think of
Re: Help with comprehension.
Those are the ones we are using, but his percentages are varying wildly depending of the subject matter in the passage of writing! We are currently working on 10-11 Fourth papers, and he is doing one a day. Should I just keep working through the books?
Re: Help with comprehension.
We've stopped using the Bond Comprehension/English as I didn't think they were too similar to the Essex English papers. I have procured every CSSE English paper for the last hundred (well, it seems like it!) and we are going through those.CardyMow wrote:Those are the ones we are using, but his percentages are varying wildly depending of the subject matter in the passage of writing! We are currently working on 10-11 Fourth papers, and he is doing one a day. Should I just keep working through the books?
I agree with the previous poster that the Bond-how to do comprehension book was useful. If you're working through Bond paper after Bond paper, but not actually clarifying or helping with the inference issue-maybe try a different tack.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bond-Secrets-Co ... 999&sr=8-1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Help with comprehension.
Cardymow,
When is your son sitting the exam? There is not much writing in the Essex 11+ English paper. Bond papers are useful as they cover the extra grammar needed as well as comprehension, but longer writing answers are not usually necessary.
When is your son sitting the exam? There is not much writing in the Essex 11+ English paper. Bond papers are useful as they cover the extra grammar needed as well as comprehension, but longer writing answers are not usually necessary.
Re: Help with comprehension.
He will b sitting the test this year, for 2013 entry. He is doing anazingly well on the Maths we do, good to excellent on the VR (thankfully), but I am concerned that the English paper will bring his mark down.
