Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Comprehending questions?

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?

Is it possible she is overthinking the questions? I know DS8 sometimes had (and has) this problem, especially when he was in school. Often math or reading comprehension questions were very easy, so he assumed there must be something more to them (trick question? asking for something else?) and would take forever to answer a seemingly obvious question (and would then get it wrong sometimes).

I'll be watching this thread for advice. I am starting to see similar behavior with DD6 in her homework. She just can't believe they would ask her such basic questions, so she starts answering a more complex question, but then doesn't actually answer the original question!

It's related to the mismatch between the child's understanding and the level of the questions. That is my opinion, anyway.

This has been a terrible problem for DD all throughout school (grades 3-12).

While it waxes and wanes, it seems to be tied to low-level cognitive tasks. She just doesn't think on that plane, and hasn't since she was 3 or 4, so asking her concrete questions like "what is a star?" mostly elicits PANIC from her...

because she's thinking "do you mean SCIENTIFICALLY?? At what level? At the level of the reading selection? So what is that.... about fourth grade? Sixth grade?? What do sixth graders know about astronomy, anyway?"

Er-- or does it mean the metaphorical use of the word "star" in this story? Can I give more than one definition??

AUGHHHHH!!!

Never fails.

First, she's a little kid. So I'd keep that idea in mind, especially if your son grew out of it.

I suggest going over a couple passages with her so that you can see precisely what trips her up and then ask her what she's thinking at the time. Can you ask the teacher to give you photocopies of a couple passages that she hasn't done yet, and the questions?

Personally, I question the value of these types of exercises as currently used. They strike me as being of the industrial-learning variety (stuff is created in a uniform way that removes uniqueness and evaluated using broad metrics that don't really work when dealing with the developing mind). However, at the same time, you may be able to find a little area where she's confused about something. Maybe Knitting Mama is right about overthinking. Or maybe she doesn't quite get the point of the exercise. Maybe the question is badly phrased. I can see my own seven-year-old mind getting stuck on "What is a star?" You mean, do I have to classify it? As in, what is a dog? A dog is a mammal? A dog is an animal? A dog is common pet? I don't know how to classify stars! Are there daytime stars and nighttime stars?!?

Actually, when I was doing my oral exam for my M.Sc., I was asked about the kind of reaction that took place in some certain situation with viruses. The answer was "they mutate." But I had a background in chemistry and thought the examiner was looking for the specific type of chemical reaction that took place during the mutation. Boy, did I get flustered.

Maybe it isn't a question of questions, but a question of thoughts?

Hypothesis: Her answer to "What is a star?" is a great answer, presuming that in her mind there were three or four sentences prior to the one that ended up on paper. Or the answer to the question about the answer to the question about the answer... etc. So, her mind is a mini-freight train speeding along and she is standing five feet away and trying to take a picture of it. One time it is only a boxcar, another a coal car and so on.

So "What is a star?"
"It's a glowing dot in the nightsky. OK, really it is an energy factory that's pretty large. But they only seem small because they are far away. However the sun is also a star. So... We see one at day and night."

If this hypothesis is right, then either learning to step back further from the freight train or having a wider aperture might be needed. Thinking the stepping back is developing introspective skills (maturity and like your ...because... method.) And picturing "aperture" more like dysgraphia issues where the need to produce the written output supresses a certain amount of the working memory content.

LOL, some would say there are many options for how to... and therefore may begin with a qualifier (such as "Given that..." or "If... Then..." or even the dreaded "Because..."). Overthinking? Yes. Many gifted individuals see multiple possibilities, which is great in real life problem solving, brainstorming, and for flexibly in working around unforeseen obstacles, wildcards, and roadblocks... but not so great in test-taking. Gifted individuals may gravitate toward thinking about and focusing on the fringe or edge of any concept... the exceptions to the rules, and any possible inconsistencies/discrepancies. The 80/20 seems to apply.

Affirming the validity of their thoughts and statements, and the important role which this type of thinking plays in an inclusive society (for example, making things handicap accessible) may be a first step.

Inviting the individual to consider the mainstream may a second step, and one which guides their thinking toward answers which tests may be looking for and consider "correct" for the majority of situations.

Approaching this from a different angle, kids may answer with their favorite part of a passage, or with what they may already know which was not in the passage (as though they were having a conversation, not as though they were being tested.) Cutting a "window" in a piece of paper and asking the child to find the best words from the passage which answer the question may help the child focus on answering the reading comprehension question at hand. Once the information is found, the child may construct this into the full sentence needed (for example, "What is a star?" A star is...)

Has she been evaluated for speech and language issues? See any other receptive language issues? This seems to be a symptom of something potentially bigger.

Yes, exactly.

I'm inclined to go with geofizz's line of questioning. Couldn't this be a language pragmatics issue? Poor ability to answer questions can be a red flag for that, can't it? (How/because rang a bell for me there.) How is her writing?

My DD has a tendency to overthink stupid reading comp questions, but I always *understand* why she overthought them when she explains why. It's not random and mysterious. It's typical giftie stuff, made a bit worse by her tendency to be overliteral and overprecise at times. She writes great short answers, but multiple choice questions where they're all kind of poor answers will frustrate her into a corner sometimes.

Right--this is exactly DD. "But it says always, and that's not always true, because sometimes...so that can't be the answer." (A bit of ASD-ishness, there, too, perhaps. Who knows.)