Ask These Questions When Reading to Your Child

Asking questions while reading to children encourages their interaction, comprehension, and connection. This teaches our children, in a gentle way, that reading is thinking. Comprehension is THE ultimate reading skill! If we don’t understand what we are reading, there is no point.Often, the problem with developing comprehension skills in school is that it sucks a lot of the joy out of reading! Who wants to be quizzed after every book? Not me! As parents, we can help develop these critical reading skills with a more natural, relaxed approach. Think BOOK CLUB! Keep the conversations safe and casual. There are no right answers or worksheets. Our goal is connection and conversation.You could ask:What does the character want?What does this remind you of?How is this like ___? How is it different?Should the character have done that?Notice these questions are open-ended, meaning there is not one right answer. Open-ended questions require higher-order thinking skills. Believe it or not, chatting about books, reading often, and learning activities will prepare our kids for these big, important, big kid reading comprehension skills:

• Making predictions

• Making connections

• Sequencing

• Comparing and contrasting

• Drawing conclusions

• Questioning

• Distinguishing fact and opinion

• Finding the main idea

• Determining cause and effect

• Summarizing