Reading Comprehension Activities and Strategies

Learning to read begins at an early age and reading comprehension activities that you can do at home with your child are so important for improving their reading skills. Developing a child's reading strategies and comprehension begins a long time before a child starts school or kindergarten. Children learn so much about books and the world during the early years of childhood. Children learn to read by being read to.

Some parents find everything's an argument with reading. Reading is an enjoyable experience and children should feel it is always that way. Children love bedtime stories, that special quiet time with mom or dad. Once your child has started school they often bring home books to read.  

Do you want a reading strategy that works? Effective reading strategies will assist your child when reading and improve their reading comprehension.

Here is some simple reading comprehension activities to help you read any book with your child.

1. Start with a book talk. Look at the front cover. What is the title? Look at the picture on the cover. Who wrote the book? Discuss the picture; is it an illustration or a photo? This is a pre reading strategy.

2. Be interested in what the book is about. Talk about the story before, during and after reading. Try to relate it to something in the child's life.

3. Listen patiently. Even if the child can read the book, there may be challenging parts for them. Give the child plenty of time to have a go at any difficult words, before you jump in and correct or tell them the word.

4. Let your child know you are pleased with their reading. Give them plenty of encouragement and praise for solving difficult words, self correcting, fluent reading or just trying their best,

5. Do not to teach your child to 'sound out' every difficult word. Some words you just can't sound out. There are many more effective strategies in learning the alphabet, to help a child when they come across a word they don't know. See below for more information.

6.If the child is struggling, share the reading with your child by reading alternate pages. If the book becomes too difficult, read it to your child and talk about the story. Do the Five Finger Test. If your child make 5 mistakes on the first page of the book then it is too difficult for them.

7. Keep a reading log of your child's books. They love to see how many books have been read. Give a reward for reading a certain number of books.

8. It is very important to read to and with your child even as they get older.