Reading Skills – My Child Can't Find Details When Reading

TutorGiant

     Quite often, special education students have difficulty finding the details within text.  It may be the case that the student is anxious, gets frustrated easily, or simply doesn’t have the necessary reading comprehension skills for finding details.

     There are several ways you can help your child to find details in text.

·         Give your child a graphic organizer (e.g. a circle in the middle of the paper with lines sticking out...This is called a ‘mind web’) and have your child write down the main idea in the center and the ‘proof’, or details,  on the lines outside of the center.

·         Have your child pretend to be a policeman and try to find the ‘evidence’ in a paragraph.  The evidence is obviously the ‘proof’, or supporting details.

·         Make sure your child is capable of finding the main idea first.  Once your child knows how to find the main idea, he/she will be able to start looking for supporting details.

·         Have your child write a paragraph about something of interest to him or her.  Make sure your child starts off the paragraph with the main idea (e.g. “A shark is a dangerous predator”).  Have your child write a few sentences supporting the main idea (e.g. that sharks are dangerous).  This will give your child a better understanding as to the format of a paragraph (i.e. where to find supporting sentences).

·         Have your child highlight or underline, in different colors, each supporting detail.  This will make the paragraph visually pleasing for your child as well, it will give him/her a better ‘picture’ of how to find supporting details.

     These techniques are fun and they don’t take a long time to teach.  With a little practice, your child will quickly learn how to find supporting details within a paragraph.

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