4 Ideas to help with reading comprehension

As parents, we often hear from classroom teachers that our kids might be struggling with fluency. The website Readingrockets.org defines Fluency as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. In order to understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or silently. For students to understand what they read or to be understood fluency must happen at an appropriate rate. Reading too fast or too slow impacts what a student reads out loud or silently. In my humble opinion, fluency is one of the most important stages of reading development.

My son's picture

As the mother of a child that has struggled with reading comprehension, I worried deeply last school year about my child's reading development. I remember feeling desperate and impotent watching him struggle with reading comprehension. Now that he was in 4th grade obtaining letter grades meant that he was coming home with low test scores especially for English language arts. My concern as a mother and as an educator was real and I began to use a number of resources to help improve my son's reading abilities. Below are some of the resources and actions I took to try to address his reading needs. Some of these were not easy to stick to because everything requires commitment and determination. To try to change things up we tried different tools.

1. Reading practice: Research continuously states that students learn to read by reading. when I first noticed my son was struggling far more than what I thought possible we began practicing reading out loud every night. We used a reading intervention program called "STARS " which gave us one-page practice items that we did together each night. The program focused on identifying the main idea of a paragraph and my favorite part of the program is how quickly and to the point it was.

2. Educational evaluation: As we continued to practice reading at home, I also worried about whether or not my son had academic needs that I was not going to be able to target on my own. I didn't want to wait any longer to figure out whether or not he needed additional help that I was not able to provide. So, one morning I wrote to his school and requested an educational evaluation. Within 30 days or so the results of the evaluation were discussed with me during a meeting where the school psychologist shared very good information about his academic progress. The evaluation results were stunning. The results confirmed that although he was struggling with reading comprehension there was no need to identify or service him in special education.

3. Parent-Teacher partnership: To ensure that I was not going to harm or negatively impact what my son was learning in school I worked with his classroom teacher to ensure we were both aiming for the same needs. We emailed regularly and she constantly shared with me in class assessed results. Knowing the results gave me an idea as to whether or not we were making progress. By the middle of the school year, my son was also sharing test results and his progress in school.

4. Online reading programs: When I noticed my son would get tired of doing the same things over and over I began to switch things up a bit. I used several online programs that I thought would be helpful to keep switching things up.

• Reading A-Z is an online independent reading program that contains thousands of leveled readers. Although this program was not free the 1-year subscription for the Spanish level readings was well worth the investment. I used the homeschool buyers program to get a great discount.

• Imagine learning: Imagine learning is an individualized reading program that assesses each student the first time they log in to create a personalized learning experience based on each student's needs. Check with your school to find out if there any online programs that are used to reinforce reading or math. Some schools opt to purchase online accounts that are used to provide additional practice to struggling readers. Over the last year, we were able to use a program called imagine learning which teaches language and literacy simultaneously.

• Readworks.org: I Imagine learning is an individualized reading program that assesses each student the first time they log in to create a personalized learning experience based on each student's needs. Check with your school to find out if there any online programs that are used to reinforce reading or math. Some schools opt to purchase online accounts that are used to provide additional practice to struggling readers. Over the last year, we were able to use a program called imagine learning which teaches language and literacy simultaneously.

• OneMuniteRead App: This school year while he has been in 5th grade we began using the onemuniterad app. This app uses a 3-step process to engage students in nonfiction quick reads that target fluency and comprehension. First, the student is asked to do a cold read for 1 minute. Second, he's asked to re-read out loud with the app 3 different times. last, he's asked to re-read the exact same paragraph on his own under a 1-minute timer. The immediate impact of re-reading and constant practice has helped my son develop a much better fluency. We are still using this app on a daily basis to work on fluency and comprehension.

As I wrote this post, I realized how much we have done to help improve my son's reading fluency and comprehension. I kept having to go back to add other things we had done over the last few years. As of today, we are still working on his reading but I am happy to share that his reading has improved tremendously. He now talks about what he reads and learns more often and enjoys being able to understand and participate more in class.

Please share your stories. What other strategies or programs have you used to help with fluency or reading comprehension?