2. Provide books at the right level

Teaching Comprehension Skills

Sequencing helps children understand the logical progression of events. Explaining story structure and how plots typically move from introduction to complication, and then on to climax, resolution and moral, gives young readers context to draw conclusions. Students can be taught to use these comprehension skills when the teacher is reading out loud and when they are reading books at their individual level.

Summarizing Main Ideas

Identifying the main idea and summarizing requires that students determine what is important and then put it in their own words. “Implicit in this process is trying to understand the author’s purpose in writing the text, which makes information easier to retain,” Shuler says.

Making Inferences

“In order to make inferences about something that is not explicitly stated in the text, students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself,” Shuler says. “In order to make an inference, kids need to understand what it is that they’re reading. When they’re reading with an adult, they can lean on the adult to help them with this if they’re not sure.”

Improving Language

Sometimes, the struggle with reading comprehension is tied to challenges with oral language. Unaddressed, early childhood language weaknesses can lead to misunderstanding spoken words and poor spoken grammar. Speech and language therapy techniques can be used to address this issue.

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[Summer Reading: Book Ideas for Parents of K-8 Students. ]
Ultimately, it is crucial that children master reading comprehension, Solomon says. That should happen in early grades, but problems can be corrected later if necessary.
“Many middle schools have found it necessary to include a remedial reading course as part of their curriculum of study to support the general education classes,” she says. “Students are never too old to learn the basics of reading. Establishing solid decoding and word recognition skills will create a necessary foundation for continued success as a reader and a student.”
Since the introduction of writing systems, reading comprehension has always been a foundation for achievement in several areas within the educational system, as well as a prerequisite for successful participation in most areas of adult life. The increased availability of technologies and web-based resources can be a really valid support, both in the educational and clinical field, to devise training activities that can also be carried out remotely. There are studies in current literature that has examined the efficacy of internet-based programs for reading comprehension for children with reading comprehension difficulties but almost none considered distance rehabilitation programs. The present paper reports data concerning a distance program Cloze, developed in Italy, for improving language and reading comprehension. Twenty-eight children from 3rd to 6th grade with comprehension difficulties were involved. These children completed the distance program for 15–20 min for at least three times a week for about 4 months. The program was presented separately to each child, with a degree of difficulty adapted to his/her characteristics. Text reading comprehension (assessed distinguishing between narrative and informative texts) increased after intervention. These findings have clinical and educational implications as they suggest that it is possible to promote reading comprehension with a distance individualized program, avoiding the need for the child displacements, necessary for reaching a rehabilitation center.