Comprehension is one of the most crucial skills of becoming a well-rounded reader and one that we continuously work on with our students at Teton Literacy Center. Indeed, what fun is reading if you cannot understand the text!? Last month we gave you Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension! and this month we are going to delve deeper into one of those strategies—questioning texts.

One of the key strategies in assuring that students are understanding the texts they read is questioning. Questioning is effective in that it helps students take the time to think about the words they are reading and what those words mean together. Further, questioning is an easy tactic for parents to implement at home—all you have to do is take a short bit of time discuss and question what your student reads!
​
What kind of questions are most effective you ask? Read on to find out questioning points proven to aid in comprehension!

• Summarize: Ask your student to summarize what she has read. This can be at the end of a reading session, chapter or book or it can be at the start of a new session with the same book. Examples of questions that will prompt your student to summarize:
  • What was the book about?
  • What was your favorite part? Why? Least favorite part?
  • Tell me what happened.
  • Do you remember what happened when we read last night?
• Predict: An easy follow-up to a mid-book summary, ask your student to predict what she thinks will happen next. You can also prompt predictions at the start of a book or in the middle of a reading session. Examples:
  • What an interesting title/cover/etc! What do you think this book will be about?
  • What happened last week? What do you think is going to happen next?
  • Wow! This is getting so exciting! What do you think will happen to this character?
• Key Details: Closely relating to summaries, ask your student about the key details of a text, or what the most important parts of the text are. Key details are a primary focus of Teton County School District and bringing the concept up at home is a great way to reinforce it for your student! Examples:
  • What were the most important parts of the story? Why were they important?
  • What key details helped you understand that character? Or situation?
  • When did you know things were changing in the story? Or for the character?
  • How did you know what the problem was? When did you know the problem was solved? What key detail let you know?

Summer is the perfect time to learn together as a family. With the end of school right around the corner, it is important to start thinking about how your children will stay engaged this summer.

The best way to prevent “summer slide,” or losing knowledge gained over the school year during the summer, is to engage in learning activities every day. Some simple activities to try…

• Cook a new recipe each week as a family. Choose recipes from faraway places or passed down by generations. Have your child read the recipe, write it down to share, convert measurements and experiment with flavors. This is a fun way to build vocabulary, numerical fluency and read in an authentic way all summer long.
• Read a nonfiction book together as a family every week. Challenge your children to learn more about the topic by researching it at the library and presenting their findings to friends or family. Choose nonfiction books based on your children’s interests to keep motivation high.
• Read a classic fiction book as a family over the summer. I still remember my father reading crazy science fiction stories to us from the 1940s. I used to read my little brother the Harry Potter series. I also recommend the Jurassic Park series, Lord of the Rings, or any classic children’s novels. TLC and the library have books you can borrow all summer long!
• Volunteer. Summer is a great time to volunteer together as a family. Clean up your street, pick up recycling, or even read aloud to kids hanging out at the local park.
• Explore. Summer is such a wonderful time to explore together as a family. Go to museums, on hikes, over to a friend’s house, or look for bugs in your own backyard. Exploring what is around you, writing journal entries about it, discussing it as a family or reading books that connect to the topic, are all ways to engage the brain. Need ideas on what to do? Talk to our staff!

--Ms. Kristin

 Even if your child is able to read on his or her own, reading together is still very important. Some popular children's books, like Harry Potter, are at a middle-school reading level. This makes them tough for young readers to tackle on their own, but great for read-alouds!

One of our tutoring students, Ariana, has been very excited to listen to the BFG. She hasn't seen the movie yet, but she is loving the book. Ariana is also learning some great vocabulary words, which she enjoys acting out. Check out the summary she wrote this week! 

For more reasons on why reading aloud is important, check out the infographic below. We borrowed it from http://www2.readaloud.org/

As the holiday season approaches, it's good to remember to slow down a little. One of our board members passed this article along from the Wall Street Journal. We recommend you take a look! 

One of our tutors, Hayden Peery, shared this article with us. We highly recommend reading it!

"When we read with a child, we are doing so much more than teaching him to read or instilling in her a love of language. We are doing something that I believe is just as powerful, and it is something we are losing as a culture: by reading with a child, we are teaching that child to be human." 

This folktale has been adapted from a traditional Tanzanian tale. 

Long ago, in the Tanzanian rain forest, the rainy season was stronger than ever. The river had overflown, and floods overtook the land. The animals all ran in fear, climbing high up into the hills. The floods happened so quickly that many of the animals drowned. Luckily, the monkeys were smart and able to climb high into the treetops. As the sat in the trees, they looked down to the flooded land below. In the water, fish were swimming around and gracefully jumping in and out of the water, as if they were the only ones enjoying the terrible flood.

One of the monkeys saw these fish and pointed to his friend. 
     "Look down below, my friend, look at those poor, helpless creatures. They are going to drown. Do you see how they're struggling in the flood waters?"
     "I do!" said the other monkey.
     "What a shame! I bet they got stuck because they have no legs. How can we help them?"
     "I don't know, but we must do something. Let's go down to the edge of the flood waters, where the water is not deep enough to sweep us up. I think we can help them get out."

So the monkeys did just that. They began catching each of the fish, but not without difficulty. One by one, they picked them up out of the water and put them carefully on the dry, hilly land. After a while, there was a pile of fish lying on the grass, not moving.

     "Do you see? Those animals were so tired from struggling in the water, but now they are just resting and relaxing. If it had not been for us, my friend, all these poor animals without legs would have drowned," one of the monkeys said. 
     "They were trying to escape from us because they didn't understand our good intentions to help them. But when they wake up after their naps, they will be very grateful that we saved them!" 

Next Steps:

• Discuss the moral of the story. Were the monkeys being helpful? Why were their good intentions not so good after all? How would you explain your ideas to the monkeys?
• Paint an African sunset and write about your favorite African animals. (Download our pre-made template below.)
• Read the folktale from the template below together, filling in the blank spaces with words that make sense for the story. (Outside Sources: Story adapted from “How the Elephant Got His Trunk” by Rudyard Kipling and “The Twenty Ten Theme”, Wordpress, Retrieved from https://originalribenababy.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/why-the-elephant-has-a-trunk-and-why-the-crocodile-gave-up/)