clever comprehension

3 Ways To Help Your Child Improve Their Comprehension Skills

clever comprehension academy

Many parents complain that their child struggles with comprehension.

Perhaps it’s because they struggle to understand the text, or perhaps it’s because they find it difficult to figure out what the question is asking of them.

Whatever the reason, there are things that you can do to help your child improve their ability to read and understand even the most complex of texts.

Here are five of our favourite comprehension boosting tips:

Create an environment of literacy in the home.

This is a piece of advice given by the wonderful Dr Kathryn Weston and it’s one that’s stayed in my mind for a long time.

What does it mean?

Well, many parents completely dismiss literacy at home and often prioritise Maths and Sciences because English is often deemed a less important subject. And then, all of a sudden they realise that their child actually needs to have strong English skills because literacy is assessed throughout a child’s education. Such parents then frantically begin hunting for an English Tutor and panic because there isn’t much time to help their child improve their comprehension skills.

Instead of doing this, you can create an environment of literacy in the home by doing some of the following:

  • Reading to your child at night.

  • Asking your child to read to you for 10 minutes each day.

  • Using vocabulary flash cards during meal times so that you can create table topics around them.

  • Asking them to re-write some of the stories they’ve read recently and read them aloud to friends and family.

By doing this, your child begins to understand how important it is to build strong English skills especially with regards to comprehension.

Encourage them to read a variety of classic and modern texts.

It’s so easy to encourage your child to stick with the usual “fun” books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid but such books don’t necessarily encourage much creative thinking or help a child develop their deduction or inference skills. By encouraging your child to read a variety of texts, you’ll be helping them to create the skills needed to make studying comprehension much less difficult.

Use 10-minute boosters.

We love the CGP and Bond 10-Minute series of books because they enable children to improve their comprehension skills in such a short space of time. It’s therefore worth purchasing some of these books and gradually working through the books with them. Start by going through the books together, discuss the passages and then eventually encourage your child to complete the comprehension papers on their own. It takes just 10 minutes and it’s so worthwhile.

So, there you have it. Three of our favourite tips for improving comprehension skills.

If your child needs additional help with comprehension, consider purchasing our online course which enables students to study at their own pace. Click here to learn more.

Should My Child Study During The Summer Holidays?

should my child study during the summer holidays?

As a parent it can be difficult to know whether to allow your child to simply enjoy the summer holiday break or encourage them to keep a regular academic routine.

It's natural for most children to want to play, have fun and sit in front of the TV all day. However, doing these things can also negatively affect their academic progress.

So how do you as a parent strike the balance between allowing your child to have fun whilst also encouraging them to study?

Here are a few quick tips to help.

#1. Treat the summer as a time for progress and rejuvenation. 

The summer is a time for you and your child to recharge and unwind and it's therefore essential that you give your child at least some time to have a break. Do your best to have a positive mindset about the summer months and think of it as being a time for progress and rejuvenation. 

#2. Schedule fun time and work time.

One of my favourite quotes is, "if it's not scheduled, it's not real." This simply means that if you don't schedule things then they're never going to happen. To maximise your child's progress during the summer months it's pivotal that you carve out specific times for work and for play. You could for instance have study time from 11am-2pm and then fun time from 2pm-7pm. This will help your child to follow a routine and it will ensure that they study without feeling over worked. It'll also ensure that they wake up at a decent time each morning as many children have the habit of waking up in the late afternoon when they're not at school.

#3. Create a curriculum.

Which subjects or topics is your child struggling with? Is it 11-plus verbal reasoning, trigonometry or writing compositions? Make a note of the areas that they need to work on and create a curriculum that will cover all of the key areas that they need to study in more depth. Use the summer as a period where they can make progress in areas that they were previously struggling with.

If your child is struggling with English you can enrol them in an online course such as The Clever Comprehension Academy so that they can go through subjects like reading, inference and vocabulary in a way that is convenient. Furthermore, the course can be accessed 24/7 so your child can study in their own time. Click here to learn more about it.