what is the best way to help someone with their reading comprehension skills?

Question

My daughter is struggling with her school work.I am wondering if she is really reading or just day dreaming.
If she is reading than there is a problem, because about two minutes after she is done reading she doesn't remember what she read. Any suggestions.... need real help (no jokes please)
this only happens when she is doing Scienc and Social Studies (two subjects she does not like)

she is very smart and an excellent reader. and has been classified as mentally gifted
I am trying to find out a solution, I know she is smart enough to do the work.
but does reading comprehension come into play, If you choose not to pay attention you can not possibly comprehend...If she just doesn't want to do it how can I make her... ( you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink). how can I make it more interesting for her, how can I make want to do something she has no interest in.

she is very smart and an excellent reader. and has been classified as mentally gifted
I am trying to find out a solution, I know she is smart enough to do the work.
but does reading comprehension come into play, If you choose not to pay attention you can not possibly comprehend...If she just doesn't want to do it how can I make her... ( you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink). how can I make it more interesting for her, how can I make her want to do something she has no interest in.

My daughter is homeschooled. She takes a multi vitamin, and gets plenty of sleep. She is 11 years old. She has good days and bad days. She is not tired when she does her studying.

Thanks for the comments so far they have been very helpful.

Answer 1

Okay, this is not an unusual problem, and there are things you can do. The key point you made is that it concerns subjects that she doesn't like, so her problem is not so much learning ability or comprehension in the regular sense but focus and concentration. It's very hard to stay focused on something you don't like, as you know.

You can help your daughter at first by studying with her a little. Don't sit by her every moment, because she will (like all kids) feel resentful and distracted, but spend a few minutes and try the following:

Go through a short passage of text with her and stop after every few sentences and ask her if there is anything she's not clear on. If there is, try discussing it. Even if it's something you don't know much about you will probably have some idea and that will help her. If you are both stumped, just note it down then continue.

When you've finished the text, check back over any notes and see if some things have 'dropped into place'. If you see the links but she doesn't you can help her get the main ideas. Most reading for school students is very carefully structured to express just a few key points and those are the things she needs to 'get'.

You can also contact her teachers for those two problem subjects and see what their opinions are. It could be that several students have similar problems, and in that case the teachers are usually aware of it and may have some suggestions or extra resource materials -- even those you can find online.

Another point is exactly how she is feeling when she's doing her studies at home. If she's very tired you may have to help her in changing her routine a little. And as you say she may be daydreaming, well -- that's focus again, and on top of tiredness it could be enough to make any 'intake' of knowledge near-impossible. So, definitely look at her routine.

Unfortunately I don't know her age, but assuming she's a teenager, just bear in mind those other factors that can affect your daughter's ability to concentrate. I think you know the sorts of things I mean so I don't need to detail them here. But a question you can ask yourself: Is there any pattern to when she has real struggles with her work? Does she have good days and bad days?(Or weeks?) If so, try to work out what other factors could be influencing her ability to study. Because we perform worst on the things we like the least, it might not take much. So it could be something very simple.

Finally, by all means let her use the Web to aid her studies in these difficult subjects. It's amazing how often using a different medium will help a person to learn.

I hope this helps you,

Lenky.

Answer 2

I dont think there is anything to worry about. Sounds like she is lacking quite a bit of concentration and this is obviously due to the fact that she doesn't enjoy the subjects that she is reading in. This is normal, everyone gets like that, if you find something boring you're not exactly motivated to read up on it and manage to stay focussed. This is difficult, especially for a child.
What you should do is make sure that she eats healthily and gets enough sleep along with multi-vitamins as this will help with her concentration. I think it will also help if the work she is reading is presented in a much more interesting way. ]You can do this in many ways, especially in science, use coloures felt tip pens and make brain storms which stand out and will catch her attention.
Good luck

Answer 3

Stop after every paragraph and ask her to "narrate" to you what she just read. If she can't get it (or at least a good portion of it), try asking her prompting question (what did the paragraph talk about, what does that do, ...). If she STILL can't answer, go back and read the paragraph again. Again, ask her to "narrate" it back to you in her own words. Keep going back to the same paragraph until she can explain what it is talking about. Don't get frustrated with her - at first, she will try to get you to move on, but stick to your guns. Eventually, she will see that she either pays attention and answers your questions or takes all day to do science and social studies.

When she can do one paragraph, move to two paragraphs at once, then three, and so on until she can read the whole section.

Although not common at this age, younger kids can have difficulty with comprehension because they are focusing SO much energy on the decoding part, that they're not paying attention to WHAT the passage is saying. And since she only has trouble in two areas, this probably is not the problem.

Answer 4

There could be several approaches that might help. First I would check her reading comprehension with fiction she enjoys. Can she retell the story easily, describe characters, settings, etc. If not, work with stories she likes and practice re-telling or acting them out, drawing story boards, whatever she enjoys that helps her remember details.

If it is just certain subjects she doesn't enjoy that she is having difficulty with I'd try upping the difficulty. My daughter is also gifted and had trouble with careless mistakes in math. We found this problem went away when we bumped her up a couple grades and the work actually captured her attention. Since your daughter thinks she doesn't like those two subjects, I'd also try to find a hook to draw her in. Find a very specific topic in science or history to begin your studies and make sure you find in-depth high level sources for her to try. For example, if she really liked horses, you might try a college level text describing the heredity of different color patterns in horses, then broaden that into a study of basic genetics. Or, study how horses changed the ability of people to travel and how that changed various civilizations, for example the plains indians.

She's bright and if she is using standard middle school textbooks they are probably as interesting to her as watching paint peel. Don't be afraid to let her study some very specific and perhaps to you not very important subjects. Over time she will draw more connections between things she is interested in and the history and science that surrounds them. She will find herself drawn more and more into exploring those connections. In time, she might even find she likes studying them in general.

Good luck, have fun!

Answer 5

Hi there! My daughter is 10 and has the same problem. I agree with the other person about the lack of enjoying the reading material but in my dd case, it wasn't just the boring subjects. I got her some workbooks with short interesting stories--they are more factual than stories and then she has to answer the questions att he end.
It has helped with her too, to actually read it with her and then as we go through if I know it's something she needs to know, I might point it out to her like this...it may say in the book the the name of a town and you might ask her, what was the name of that town, again?? Because you make an emphasis of it, she should remember it.
We have to teach them how to *find* the answers and look for those nuggets of information that they just don't know to see...it all comes with time...be patient and just keep working on it...

Oh, and sometimes I have my dd just read out loud to me, even if she's sitting on the floor while I do dishes or ironing or whatever...(I'm quite honestly giving her *all* my attention, but it helps)

Answer 6

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Answer 7

If at all possible, find the material on CD or cassette, 3 members of my family, (husband, daughter and oldest sister) all have problems with reading comprehension, but if they listen to it, such as a book, on tape or CD, they understand and retain the information. It is considered a learning disability and the person qualifies in all 50 states for free matter from the Library Of Congress. Good Luck & God Bless.

Answer 8

It would help to know how old she is and if you are actually homeschooling--some people post questions in this homeschooling category but they aren't actually homeschooling.

You could have her read aloud to you and after each paragraph or an important sentence, you tell her to explain to you what was said. This doesn't mean repeating word for word what she read but actually explaining in her own words.

You could have her diagram things. I know social studies was always a horribly weak subject for me and I wish someone had shown me how to diagram and create timelines to organize all the information. For science, at a certain level we were shown to draw pictures and diagrams as part of our work and that helped with the understanding and retention.

Answer 9

Try to make flash cards or games. It might be that she is just bored of the way shes learning. When a child loses interest in something, and no one attempts to fix it, they don't really absorb the knowledge that they know find useless.

Answer 10

have her read passages out to you outloud and discuss them one by one.. it will make it stick in her mind