5 Steps To Improve Reading, Spelling and Comprehension Skills

1. Read every day for 20 minutes. It is important that children read every day for 20minutes. Sit with them and listen to them. By doing this you be able to understand their reading abilities, what words and sounds they struggle with.

2. Ask questions. After they have read a few pages, stop them and ask them about what they have just read. This allows them to think about the information they have read and begin to process it and not forget it. This is key to building comprehension skills. Ask them questions and try and get as much detail as you can out of them. When they come to do comprehensions, they will answer the questions with detail.

3. Dictation. Read out a few of the passages from the book they are reading and ask them to write down what you read. Read each word slowly, give them enough time to think about the word and write it down. Having read the words already they may remember them, however some words are spelt differently to how they sound. You can check their spellings after and identify the words and sounds they are struggling with and practice those more.

4. Writing stories. Children have a wild imagination, set them a few story titles e.g. “Lost in the Woods,” “From Another Planet,” “The Coolest Adventure”. Also set a few personal and descriptive titles, “Describe your house, or a friend or a relative” “My Favourite Country” “My School Trip”. Varying the titles will work their imaginations as well as improve their descriptive writing skills.

5. Find the errors. Rewriting sentences with errors, correctly. This exercise allows for children to spot the mistakes themselves. Sentences with punctuation, spelling etc in the wrong place or not there at all. They can read it and correct the mistakes. Check the work, where they have not noticed the errors is where more attention needs to be given.

http://www.bigbrainstuition.com