Read aloud companion journal! Make any picture book into a lesson. Prep the journal once and use it all year. Forty student pages including read aloud worksheets to accompany any picture book Increase reading and listening comprehension skills during read aloudsGreat tool to leave for a substitute o.
- Read Alouds are a great way to promote literacy and the love of reading in your classroom. This text is an excellent book to use as a read aloud, and this unit package is JAM PACKED with lessons, reproducibles and tasks that you can use with this book! Read alouds are an essential way for you to MOD.
- But first, here are some important considerations when picking a read-aloud book. Higher Reading Level Generally, you’ll want to pick something at a harder reading level than your readers are currently able to read. One to two years is generally a good guideline. Because a child’s listening comprehension is higher than their own.
- Another strategy for reading comprehension to use during read alouds is to ask quality questions. It’s important to keep the pace of the read aloud so the students stay engaged in the story or text, so don’t stop after every sentence to ask a question.
Kindergarten Reading Skills | Reading Comprehension
Comprehension is gaining meaning from what you read. This is a complex higher-level thinking skill, but children from a very early age can begin thinking about what they have just read and tell you what a story is about. When children read, they must turn their “minds on” and actively think about the meaning of what they are reading.
The goal for Kindergartners is to understand the book they read and the books that are read to them. Children show their understanding by telling you about the characters, setting and important events from the story. If the book is nonfiction, they can retell you the important facts from the book. Students can answer questions about what they read or heard and even act out a story.
Read At Home Everyday
Reading at home for enjoyment is the best and easiest daily routine you can do to help strengthen your child’s understanding of stories. Asking simple questions about the characters and talking about best parts of a book get your child thinking about the story and making connections to their own life.
Keep it Light
Conversations about books should be fun. Quizzing a child for correct answers after reading their favorite book can suck the joy out of the reading experience. Instead, try to ask questions from a place of curiosity and wanting to know what your child thinks. This makes them feel that their opinions and thoughts have value.
Use the Five Finger Strategy
After reading a story, use your hand to help you remember the most important elements of the story. This technique can be used for people ages 4 to 94!
- Characters – Who was in the story?
- Setting – Where did the story take place?
- Events – What happened in the story?
- End – How did the story end?
- Your Take – What was your favorite part?
Process It
When reading with your child, a great technique is to pause after a few pages and check in to see if your child is truly grasping what they are reading. Asking open-ended questions allows them to explain their thinking. If what they tell you does not match the story, you can help redirect them back on track:
You say, “Did you see the wolf dressed up in the grandmother’s clothing? Why is the wolf doing this?”
Your child says, “I don’t know….Maybe the wolf likes dressing up.”
You say, “Do you see the wolf licking his lips and drooling? What does it mean when you see our dog doing that? Do you think the wolf is hungry? What might the wolf be trying to do?”
3 Seconds of Wait Time
Allow your child enough undisturbed “think time” to process what is happening. If you ask a question about the story, let them look at the pages and take a few moments to think, at least 3 seconds. We typically only wait one second before jumping in with the answer. Providing answers too quickly takes away a child’s “thinking time”, robbing them of the opportunity to form conclusions on their own.
Different Ways to Read
Books are the best way to expose children to new vocabulary, stories and higher-level thinking skills. But reading on their own is not the only way for children to access stories. Read alouds and audio books offer the same benefits and let children enjoy a great book. The NC Kids Digital Library offers hundreds of picture read alouds that let your child hear stories and build their pre-reading skills.
The best way to build your comprehension skills is by using books or magazines and asking questions to get your child thinking about what they just read. It doesn’t have to be complicated. A simple “What happened to that character?” or “What was that story about?” are great questions.
Worksheets can feel like meaningless “work” and may take away your child’s enthusiasm for reading. For this age, worksheets do not need to be completed in order to build excellent comprehension skills.
If you choose to use them during breaks from school or if your child shows interest in them, try to make it a fun and light activity. Pretend like you’re on a game show and your child is earning points for a special prize at the end (You win 10 more minutes of free time after your bath!)
These passages are well suited for end of Kindergarten or first grade. Parents can read the sentences aloud or read them together with their child.
Reading books online, interactively, feels just like playing a fun computer game and helps your child build their reading comprehension skills.
NC Kids Digital Library (Free, requires library card number)
Go to “Collections” and select “Read Alongs” to choose from hundreds of picture books that will read aloud as your child follows along in the story.
Libby, by Overdrive (Free app for iPhones and iPads, Google Play, or Windows Mobile)
This app can be used on your phone or tablet to access the NC Kids Digital Library read along books for free.
When You Read Aloud, Does it Improve Comprehension?
In order for an individual to improve at reading, they must develop their comprehension skills. Comprehending text comes as a result of persistent practice, patience, and a in-depth awareness of phonics and word building. To enhance this skill, students can read aloud - a simple but effective activity, as we are about to find out.
Read Comprehension Skill
Let's reiterate the importance of comprehension. Without it, students may be able to read text, but they will be focusing so hard on identifying words that they won't have the time or attention to devote to understanding the meaning of what is being said. This hinders their ability in literacy tasks, as well as restricting the enjoyment they are able to extract out of books - when reading independently, it's very hard to enjoy a story that you don't fully understand the plot and themes of.
It's clear to see that comprehension is of high importance for developing readers, but what can we do to improve it? The title of this article is a clear hint; reading aloud is a great tool to improve the way we understand and withdraw meaning from the text laid out in front of us.
Perhaps the greatest beauty of using the 'read aloud' technique is that sounding out words is made so much easier. When a difficult word arises, the student can have a go at sounding it out slowly and carefully. Most basic words can be read in this way, as they usually sound how they are written. It may take a few tries, but with the correct guidance, the individual should be able to speak the word as it should be read.
The improvement of all of these skills is based upon phonemic awareness; as this increases, so will comprehension. In simple terms, this is the ability to break down words into smaller segments orally, allowing the student to identify common letter sounds, prefixes and suffixes that they can later apply.
Read Aloud Reading Comprehension
Through implementing this measure over time, the student will begin to recognize particular words from past experience, and will thus be able to read them automatically as opposed to sounding them out - a time consuming exercise. It's only by immediately knowing what a word is that the pupil can understand its meaning. By putting the meanings of different words together, they can begin to understand whole sentences, paragraphs, and later: entire stories.
As mentioned above, the read aloud process for improving comprehension should be carried out under supervision from a teacher or parent to maximize its success. This ensures any mistakes are noted and dealt with - an essential measure to enhance the student's reading and understanding abilities in the longer term.
Bearing all of this information in mind, the answer to the question 'when you read aloud, does it improve comprehension?' is a resounding yes. It's an age-old, tried and tested measure that looks unlikely to ever be outdated thanks to its simplicity and proven positive outcomes. In this case, past methods really do resemble that of the future.