Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Workbooks to improve reading comprehension and wor

My DS (G3) needs to improve his reading comprehension and word analysis skills in vocabulary in context, inference, phonic analysis, and explicit information. He is an excellent speller.

Could anyone recommend workbooks?

Thank you.

Ann

I suggest a different approach (or in addition to getting a workbook from a book store).

I suggest you get some interesting books (fiction and non-fiction) at a slightly higher level than he currently reads. So if he reads second grade level then get some at a low third grade level. Read to him a bit every night and every so often stop and ask him questions. Then ask him to read a page (or paragraph or 1/2 page) and he asks you questions.

Also my family has book club like activities. My child will read a book independently and be so excited he wants to talk about it. So my dh and I will read it too and then over dinner we will have something that looks like a book club discussion. Generally my son leads the discussion. It is fun to let him pick the food that night too. You might even be able to print off discussion questions off the internet.

A workbook is good for teaching a kid the types of questions they will run into on all the tests they will come across but nothing is better than reading together and helping him in the minute and shared interest in the story/material.

Wow, what a great idea!
Thank you SO MUCH for your suggestions!

I'll second Sweetie's suggestions

I'll also ask - is there a reason you're concerned about reading comprehension? If you feel like his reading comprehension is lagging behind what you'd expect based on ability, it might be worth considering a reading eval just to be sure there isn't a subtle undetected challenge going on.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I think a story is a story, and I'm not at all against screen time. I think you can work on comprehension, plot, charachter, nuance, actually by watching children's movies. You can half way pay attention as they watch something and ask questions about stuff you missed, or sit and pay full attention and start a running conversation over the movie. Point out the obvious. React to the story. Your kid will start to do the same.

If you do get a workbook with short stories and comprehension questions, the way I remember it being taught, you read the questions first, then you read the story and underline the sentences that answer the questions, then you answer the questions afterwards. They might have to re-read if they miss something. It will take some guidance from you and some practice.

Reading eggs. com has a section for ages 8 and up called reading express that teaches comprehension. There's a two week free trial and you can use two promotional codes (find them by google), so it adds up to the first month free to see if it works for your kid. You might want to sit with him and help him out, at least at first.

This is all separate from finding out why there's a problem at all to start with.