Narrative Reading Comprehension
In addition to Eric’s daily reading and workbook
exercises from his Pathway developmental readers, he
does the following comprehension exercises on a specific story each week.
Currently we are using well-known fairy tales for
our stories. After those are completed, we will start with fables, tall tales,
and myths.
For each
story that we introduce in our reading comprehension program we use the
following sequence of activities. We usually work on a story for an entire week,
re-reading and re-telling the story while filling out the forms.
I am indebted the Teach Me Language for some of the following ideas on teaching reading
comprehension. I also got the idea for using laminated sentence strips for
sequencing from this site:
Reading Comprehension
Exercises—Part 1
1. First, show Eric the title of the story and the picture
on the title page (if there is one). Have him predict what the story is about.
Ask, “What do you think this story is about?” Write Eric’s idea on the Story Report form along with the title and author
(if there is an author.)
2. Next, have Eric read the story aloud. Stop him
every couple of pages and help him identify new characters and list the most
important events that happen. Write Eric’s answers on the Story Events sheet or have him write them. Use my
previously typed story events as a guide for
identifying the main events of the story. After the story events form is
completed, have him re-tell the story using the Story Events sheets as a cue.
Once he can do this, have him tell the story without the sheet as a cue. He can
elaborate with dialogue and description as much as he likes but he should tell
the basic events of the story in order. Informal oral comprehension questioning
can occur here, but the focus should remain on retelling and sequencing.
3. Complete any accompanying comprehension
worksheets.
4. Cut up the laminated copy of the typed story events, mix up the order, and have Eric put
the sentence strips in the correct sequence. After he finishes ask questions about the order of events
such as “What happened FIRST?” “What happened LAST?” “What happened BEFORE
______?”
5. Have Eric complete
the Story Report form.
6. Have
Eric complete the Story Summary form. Make sure
he summarizes the story in the correct sequential order.
Reading Comprehension
Exercises--Part 2
After Eric had read several stories using the
comprehension activities above, we started the next set of exercises. At this
point, he frequently read two different versions of a fairy tale or fable.
Eric
is doing well with his sequencing activities using a written prompt. Now let’s
try to get him to “re-tell” the story with less written prompting.
1.
Have Eric read the first version of the story. See if he can re-tell the story
to you without any written prompts. If he can, then skip to the comprehension
questions accompanying the story.
If he can’t retell the story, then go through the story and take “notes”
in “point form”. Don’t write complete sentences; just write a word or two to
prompt him. You can use the important story events worksheet. See example.
2 After taking point form notes on
the story, see if Eric can tell you the story using the prompts. Then see if he
can tell you the story without any written prompts. Try to get him to tell as
complete a story as possible. His goal is to be able to coherently retell a
story that he reads. It doesn’t have to be word for word, but his retelling
should make sense.
3.
Then do the accompanying questions that come with the story.
4.
Fill out the story report form and the story summary.
5. Next,
read the second version of the story if available. Use the story comparison worksheet to compare the two
stories.
6.
Have Eric ask and answers wh- questions using the Wh
Question Spinner-