Welcome to Monday on Homeschool Hackers! Today’s Top 10 is designed to help you increase your child’s reading comprehension.

Many children can “word call,” or recognize words, but don’t understand the meaning contained in what they read. As a reading teacher, I’ve often worked with struggling readers who needed to develop their comprehension skills. Even proficient readers don’t always use all of the strategies available to them. Comprehension is the reason we read, though. We read to gain understanding, to relax, & to explore new worlds unavailable to us otherwise. Children need to understand what they read.

Here are 10 key ways you can help your child increase their reading comprehension:

1. Read aloud to your children – no matter how old they are. It is crucial to model good reading & comprehension skills.
2. If you plan to teach a particular reading strategy with a specific book, read it to yourself first. This allows you to prepare your own reactions & questions before you present the lesson.
3. Tell your child what you are thinking about when you read aloud. Thinking “out loud” is another way to model reading comprehension. You might bring up a point your child may have missed.
4. Ask questions while you read. For example, to check for basic comprehension while reading Blueberries for Sal, ask “What did Sal do with the blueberries?”  Or ask for a prediction like “What do you think Sal’s mother will do when she realizes that Little Bear is following her and not Sal?”
5. Have your child find the answers to your questions in the text. Identifying what in the text made your child think of something can be very enlightening, especially if there is a misunderstanding. It also shows your child is using the information in the text & not just experiences to understand the book.
6. Ask follow-up questions to help your child take that extra step. You can deepen your child’s comprehension & general knowledge if you push them beyond the basic comprehension questions.
7. Make inferences & ask inference questions. Again, this is a way of modeling comprehension strategies. Ask, “Why would Sal’s mother be afraid to have a baby bear following her?” Inferencing is a difficult comprehension skill, so try to model it often.
8. Make connections. When you read, you think about how the book relates to your life, other books, and the world at large. Start thinking about how you do this and try modeling it for your children.
9. When your child uses a comprehension strategy, point it out to him/her. This really encourages and labels the skill for your child. Chances are your child will use that strategy more in the future.
10. Have a genuine conversation about the text. Respond to what you are reading. Talk about what your child likes about the characters or what you don’t like about the writing style. Ponder the story line together.

Remember reading is supposed to be fun, but it is only fun when you understand the text. Teaching your children a few reading strategies will help make reading a pleasurable experience for them. Happy reading!

Colleen Felz is the Homeschooling Coach! Find more tips & curriculum ideas as well as stories about the joy & trials of homeschooling at her personal blog, Homeschooling Coach.