After your children have mastered phonics it is time to look at teaching reading comprehension strategies

Most children after learning phonics can read nearly anything, but they do not always understand what they are reading. There are new words and sentence patterns they will run into that they don’t understand. If you have been reading to your child on a regular basis you have been

exposing them to the written word. So they already know a lot about grammar and sentence patterns, but as their reading increases there will be more they don’t understand.

One of the best things you can do to save yourself time is to teach your children how to use a dictionary.

This way they can look up most things. It is also a good idea to ask them to guess what they think the word is and see if they are correct. Also if they ask you about a word tell them to look it up in the dictionary first. This way they get into the habit of using a dictionary.

After reading a passage or chapter get you children to explain to you what is happening in the book.

This way you know if they understand what they are reading. The easiest teaching reading comprehension strategy to apply at home is the blackboard. I have a big blackboard in the kid’s room and any words they don’t understand they write on the blackboard after looking it up in the dictionary. And every now and then I ask them “What does this word mean?” and we go through the words. You’ll be amazed at how much your kids forget so repeat, repeat, repeat might help.

For more information about phonics courses I recommend including a Montessori course see our Teach Reading page.