We're having something of a dilemma with DD7 and her reading comprehension. It's not that she doesn't comprehend what she reads, it's that she doesn't comprehend the comprehension questions. (DS had the same problem, and may still to some degree.)
We discussed this at the P/T conference, and we're trying her in the "at-level" reading group starting this week, instead of the "above-level" one she's been in, though the teacher was reluctant to move her down because she knows DD can read the higher stuff. But the at-level group does more work with comprehension, so we're hoping she can get it to click and then move back up again. I'd rather have her moved down now and get it under control than have it continue for years.
She's been failing reading tests (read the passage, answer the questions) and AR tests, and she answers the most outlandish things. If you just ask her, she can explain what she read, but she can't seem to figure out what the question is asking on the test. Or she can't write what she means in her head. "What is a star?" got the answer, "We see one at day and night." When asked, she says the sun is a star we see in the daytime, and we see the other stars at night, and then she went on and on about stars and planets and space. But even that isn't an answer to "what is a star".
She has 70-some AR points for the year so far, and the teacher sent home a report printed from the AR tests that shows what she passes and fails -- she passes tests from 1st grade to 6th grade level books, and she fails tests from the same range. It doesn't show any particular pattern, e.g. failing high-level tests, etc. The teacher said she had failed all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid tests (grade level 5.x), but actually the report showed that she's passed 5 of them and failed 3, so I pointed that out and sent it back.
My guilt response is that my kids must have this problem because I can't make myself read to them in the currently-prescribed style of reading a few words, asking questions, making predictions, reading a few more words, asking questions, and so on. That drives me absolutely batty, and I didn't do any of it. BUT nobody ever read to me that way, either, and I did just fine.
My kids simply don't comprehend questions like they should. At her age and younger, DS, when asked "how do you ..." would start with "because ..." and I would say, "because is not an answer to how," and explain what kind of answer I was looking for, and talk about question types and all that. It made me crazy because I just couldn't figure out where the wires were crossed. He's grown out of it, for the most part, but she seems to be stuck in it, at least as far as tests go.
Any sage advice? Any resources for teaching kids how to understand what a question is looking for?
