Retelling: Comprehension Insight

If you have a perplexing pupil who sounds like a good reader but doesn’t seem to understand what is read, insights from retelling of a passage can be very helpful. Spend a short 10-15 minutes to demystify that student with a simple retelling strategy.   Retelling is a short, informative approach that can reveal how students recall, order, /or evaluate. It can produce remarkable illumination into the thinking skills of a baffling student.    You can determine  1. if students can discern the beginning, middle, and end of a selection.  2. if they can recognize who? what/ when? where? why? in a story 3. if they can determine the main idea and supporting details 4. if they can distinguish between important and unimportant details 5. if they can glean cause and effect 6. if they can retell in correct time sequence 7. if they can make inferences and evaluations 8. if they use standard speaking, language, and grammar skills 9. if they can organize their thoughts coherently   In my 30+ years as a reading specialist, this retelling strategy has provided me with remarkable insight into comprehension skills of struggling students. Sometimes it’s astounding how mixed-up and foggy their understanding...

1 Mar 2025 Comprehension, Education, Retelling No Comments Permalink Read Post

Using TV to Teach Comprehension Skills

While watching TV, families and friends can actually teach the very same skills teachers use to develop reading comprehension. Plus, these skills can get individual attention that children might not receive in today’s busy classrooms. First though, it is important to understand that this process involves a parent literally sitting down and watching an acceptable TV program with the child. Be sure the program, often a sitcom, agrees with parent social standards for the child.    Here are some important comprehension skills that are easy to practice with TV: 1. Problem/Solution—Ask what problem the main character is facing and how s/he might solve it. 2. Prediction –During commercials or at the end of the story, ask what might happen next. Then confirm or reject the answers. 3. Cause/Effect—Ask what happened because a certain person took a particular action.  4. Sequence—When the program is over, ask child to relate the important events that happened in the program. (There are two important comprehension skills here—distinguishing important details and presenting them in correct time order.) 5. Drawing Conclusions—Ask what motivated a person to act a certain way or do a certain thing, and then ask why they think the person acted that way. 6. Forming opinions—Ask for an...

1 Feb 2025 Comprehension, Education, Free Tips, Parent No Comments Permalink Read Post