Teaching Reading Comprehension?

[imthefoolonthehill]

Hey, this summer my aunt wants me to tutor my cousin (approx 14 years old).

One of the things she wants me to focus on is reading comprehension.

How does one improve reading comprehension? The way I learned was just practice.

Any tips out there?

[adilyoussef]

Reading Comprehension:

You have two types of reading comprehension: extansive reading and intensive reading. So while you are working with your cousin, focus on intensive reading and give him/her long texts or shortned novels to read to enhance his/her reading skills when s/he is a lone.
For intensive reading, choose carfully your reading passages. Take into account vocabulary that your cousin may need, his/her level and the structures s/he needs to focus in. Focus only on one reading skill at a time. Eather skimming, scanning, reading between the lines, infering the author's attitude and purpose, recognising rhetorical structure, infering word meaning, and so on and so forth. The passages should be at your cousin's interest and needs. That would motivates him/her to read and perform well.
Start by activating your cousin's prior knowedge of the topic delt with in the text. Elicit his/her knowledge either by asking him/her quetions or prompting him/her, and pre-teach vocabulary (only key words that might hinder his/her comprehesion of the text, if there is any). Then give him/her a reason why s/he should read that passage. Usualy it's done by a pre-question. In your pre-quetion you focus on one reading skill as sited before. This is the first reading. In the second reading give him/her different kind of questions to answer depending on the skill and sub-skills you focused on. The last stage is to give him/her and exersise in which s/he has to reproduce what is in the text, either in the form of composition or other activities.
Never interupt him/her while s/he is working but only if your help is required, and always give feedback. Always start by positive points than negative ones.
Always keep this in mind: "teaching never lead to learning, but make your students love what they are doing and you will be surprised by their performance." And good luck.

Adil

[Pensive]

First of all, give her/him some good books to read (better if classics because they contain a little bit difficult vocabulary) and then ask her/him questions from the books which include summary of different chapters, explanation of characters and words meanings plus sentences. Try to ask from your cousin, creative questions to make it interesting and so she could also take interest in it.

If she is not interested in book reading much, then I will suggest to start with fantasy or science-fiction instead of classics because these genres specially attracts teenagers and they might get her into the habit of reading and when one reads more and more, vocabulary enriches and comprehension skills gets stronger.

I hope it helps. And goodluck because 14 years old can be quite irritating. :D

[Scheherazade]

Hi Fool,

I agree with what has been said so far: How and what to teach to your cousin would really depend on his/her present level and, as the saying goes, practise makes perfect so the more s/he reads, the better his/her skills will be.

However, it is also important to help develop right reading habits. While reading novels, it is also a good idea to provide shorter texts which makes him/her question what s/he is reading: Who is the writer/speaker? Who is the text addressed to? What is its purpose (apparent/hidden)? While answering these questions, you might like to encourage your cousin to develop proper reading techniques such as scanning, skimming, summarising required for that particular type of material and task.

You might find more ideas and resources on these websites:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/reading/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/asguru/english/litandlang.shtml

[Pensive]

Hehe, thanks Scher! Great link, seems to be helping me too.