I just did a reading inventory on my son. If you are not familiar with a reading inventory visit this site Reading Rockets for a great description. Basically, I used an informal reading test to find my son’s reading level. It involves reading sight words and then passages both orally and silently.  I was so happy to find that he is at grade level. He did score slightly higher than grade level in oral reading but he was at grade level in silent reading.

So I am on a quest to try to help him with his silent reading comprehension. Most of his reading next year in fifth grade will be silent reading so I need to make sure he is comprehending. I am going to use some of the strategies I learned in this article LearningTip #50: Strategies Help Reluctant Silent Readers Read to Learn. These focus more on content reading not literature but you can adapted them.

Some of these I already do, but I  need to be mindful of them and write them into my lesson plans. Here is a basic list:

1.Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA): Before reading a selection, look at the heading and come up with a prediction or predictions about what that specific portion will be about. After the reading, do a retelling, confirm predictions and make new ones.

2. Active Comprehension: This strategy is similar to DRTA except that instead of generating predictions, the child will generate questions about what they will read. What might be answered in this selection, etc. After reading a paragraph, have child retell and then see if any of the questions were answered. Continue through the reading in this manner.

Please read the articles on this link because it has some great strategies and ideas. I am just writing a short summary of the strategies but the article does a more thorough explanation.

I am going to use these strategies with our science textbook. We use Apologia’s Creation Series: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. This curriculum is perfect for this because it has natural breaks. The author also includes questions at the end of the reading that we could use as a “pre-reading” exercise.

Also I have found that doing a reading inventory really helps we to see what we still need to work on. It also gives me peace of mind that I am doing my job.

Ligia