Teaching Comprehension - Part 2

In the previous post I discussed the challenges of teaching reading comprehension to a child with a mixed receptive/expressive language disorder. Today I want to give you some examples of what we are doing in homeschool to help facilitate Hannah's comprehension of the written word. Basically, I am teaching her critical thinking and how to be aware of the "who, what, where, when, why and how" as she reads (and as she communicates verbally with others as well).

First, some reminders: my daughter turned 7 years old in December, so we are in first grade. With the severity of her language disorder, I try to balance her work with what challenges her but still allows a level of success. She is reaching a point where she knows she should understand and gets very frustrated when she doesn't understand. Mostly I am using materials that are grade appropriate (first grade), but I am utilizing workbooks that are kindergarten level as well to help improve certain skills (such as penmanship and of course comprehension).

Word Webs

Using word webs is proving very helpful for us in improving comprehension, because Hannah is a visual learner. Following are two photos to demonstrate what we do:


For now, we are building word webs that are based on very simple text and in which it is easy to find descriptors and answers to the wh- questions. In this first picture, I have put Biscuit at the center of the web (Biscuit is the puppy in the book). Then I asked Hannah what does she know about Biscuit after reading the short text on that page. She learned that Biscuit is yellow and he is small, so the words "yellow" and "small" were added to the web.

In this picture, you can see that many words were added to the word web by the end of the story. She identified words that described Biscuit, words about what Biscuit wanted and what he wanted to do.

For word webs, we are using a small whiteboard with special whiteboard crayons (dry erase markers are too smelly and too messy for me). I found them at my favorite "non-chain" office supply store, Miller Pads and Papers.

Workbooks

Not every child enjoys workbooks, but I have found that Hannah likes them very much. One benefit of workbooks is that they give plenty of opportunity for repeated practice of various skills. They also give her practice in following directions, along with penmanship and other fine motor skills.

As she reads the text, the directions, and then has to answer questions on the page with her pencil or crayon, the workbooks serve as a quick assessment tool for me to determine where her understanding is solid and where we still need work. After trying some sample pages from various companies, I settled on the spectrum workbook series from School Specialty Publishing. You don't have to purchase them online though, I actually picked up our first ones at the local Staples store (you'll find them in the section with the crayons and other school-type supplies.

On the left page there is a short story with four pictures. On the facing page there are questions to answer. She filled in the blanks on some, circled pictures and completed a sequencing exercise at the bottom of the page (which happened first, second, last). Sequencing is another useful tool in helping Hannah to learn to think critically.

Here are some of the workbooks we are using.

I hope this information is useful. As always, if you have questions or need more details, please leave a comment and I'll share more with you about what is working for us, especially in the area of comprehension. I will have more on reading in the coming days, along with details on what we are using for math studies.

OneMom