Does your child have difficulties remembering stories they have just read or can’t answer any questions about what happened such as who the main character was or what the main character did? If your child is unable to understand what they’re reading, they may need Reading Comprehension Therapy.
The whole point of reading is to understand what’s being said, whether it’s reading a novel for pleasure or reading a website for gathering information. And with so much material appearing in written form these days, it’s a vital skill to have.
Obviously, if a child’s language skills aren’t up to scratch they’ll have trouble making sense of the words, but even when their language skills are up to scratch, their reading ability can still affect their comprehension.
When to seek help
If your child is having trouble reading the words accurately or they have difficulties reading at a normal fluent rate, you may need to talk to the team at Kids Chatter about Reading Comprehension Therapy.
Up until grade three, there is a big focus on your child to learn to read, but after grade three they read to learn, as almost everything given to them is in written form. Learning pretty much any new skill involves reading, whether it’s a textbook, a recipe or a website. If they can’t comprehend the words’ meaning, they’re going to quickly fall behind.
Even maths problems are often presented in written form, so even if your child is mathematically gifted, unless they can comprehend what they’re reading they may well end up failing because they can’t understand the question that’s written as a story.
How we help your child understand what they are reading
At Kids Chatter, we’ll focus on not just teaching your child how to read the words accurately, but also work on their speed and fluency of reading. We’ll also teach them different strategies to work out the meaning of what they’re reading such as using context when they don’t know the meaning of a new word, picture clues or breaking things up into more manageable pieces to extract information from the text they’re reading.
We look at all the elements—reading accurately, reading fluently, understanding the individual parts of what they’re reading—and help them put it all together so they can understand what they are reading.
Why it’s important to seek help now
Being able to understand what they’re reading is an essential skill for your child. It will help them, not only at school but also in their daily lives as an adult where so much of our communication is in written form (think emails, websites etc.) So spending a bit of time now to get it right, will have major benefits in the future.
If your child is unable to understand what they’re reading, please call us today to arrange an assessment on 0432 735 044.