Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Comprehending questions?

Precisely.

It offends my daughter's sensibilities, for lack of a better turn of phrase.

Indignant-to-outraged is really the only accurate description of her feelings.

ROFL... OMG she's me... An example would be a question DS (then 4ish) asked while we were out walking one day... he said "Mama, which tree is bigger?" I was utterly paralyzed. Taller? Wider? More branches? More rings? More pine needles? More mass? Are you freakin' serious, asking me something like that??? DEFINE BIGGER!!!

I drive most people crazy.

As to the OP's topic... this sort of reminds me of a conversation I had with DS's school SLP. She met with me one day to review his progress and referred to a reading comprehension exercise he had done. She said "Some of his answers are quite odd." You could clearly see a change... from compliance at the beginning to gradual boredom resulting in more and more out of the box answers that were "technically" correct but very divergent from what would be expected. I wish I could remember an example. I feigned concern for the SLP's benefit but secretly I was really proud...

We're having something kind of similar going on with DS (1st grade). For whatever reason he does excellent answering multiple choice questions about books but doesn't do as well with open-ended questions. The teacher says that "making inferences" is an issue. I asked the SLP at the school to do some expressive/receptive language testing to make sure we're not missing something, esp. since he already has an IEP and has been getting services for speech articulation (and he was a late talker so speech has always been an issue). The teacher said she wants to do a few lower level things that he has gaps in in terms of comprehension (or at least expressing comprehension), and then move him along and up levels. She said she asked him "what is the setting of the story?" and he had no idea what she was talking about (no big surprise, though, since the last teacher didn't teach). So things like that. She was also disturbed that he couldn't identify parts of speech like what is a verb, what is a preposition but I'm pretty surprised she thought that was an issue for a first grader. She must have pretty high expectations.

Readworks.org is an interesting site to work on reading comprehension (and free--you just have to sign up for an acct.). I used it sometimes when I was a reading tutor.

what exactly are they expecting from a 7 year old for an answer to what is a star? i am just curious. thanks.

CCN- now when my dd7 asks me questions, she often prefaces it with 'just a short answer, mommy'.

OK> fine.

Out of curiosity, I asked my DD (3.5) to explain what a star is. She was on an astronomy phase forever and still comes back to it once in awhile so I know she knows the correct astronomy definition and she knows that I know that she knows.

Me: "Can you tell me what a star is?"
DD: "Me!"
Me: "Yes, you'll always be one in my eyes but pay attention to the question because you didn't answer it. Can you tell me WHAT a star is, not who."
DD: "Nope" (twirls around and escapes to another room)

This is exactly why I am worried that if we decide to try her out to fancy private schools, she won't be accepted.

Nautigal, if your DD has gotten better over the years, it could be largely developmental but you mentioned that she seems stuck when it comes to taking tests. Maybe an evaluation won't be a bad idea.

A series my SLP friend recommends for young children who need help with answering comprehension questions is Franklin because the problem and its solution are always very clearly defined but your DD is most likely too sophisticated for that. I'll try to think of a more appropriate series for older children.

The psychologist who tested DS6 recently said that it can be worth teaching test taking. She said it can be useful to remind DS, who just read the test then did the answers (all correct) that the answers to the questions at this grade will mostly come from the text, and that the answer to question 1 is usually in the first paragraph, question 2 in the 2nd etc..

You guys are just great!

CCN, I am laughing so hard at that. And chris, "just a short answer" -- that's what DH tells me!

Blackcat, thanks for the site -- I'll check it out. And see if the school can do that "receptive language testing". They did all kinds of things for DS, so I imagine so.

Mana, that conversation is eerily similar to ones in my house -- especially the twirling and escaping. It's DS who has gotten better over the years (though he still has a hard time with setting and stuff), so I'm hoping DD will grow out of it as well.