Reading is a cumulative process.  As each school year passes, your child builds the knowledge and skills that are necessary for becoming a better reader. Reading with your child and helping him or her practice specific reading skills will dramatically improve your child’s ability to read.

     What follows are ideas for grade 4 reading comprehension activities that you can do with your child to build the skills he or she needs to become a good reader. As a parent, you can help your child want to learn in a way no one else can. That desire to learn is a key to your child's future academic success.  Try to incorporate any or all of the following grade 4 reading strategies at home.  For the following strategies, you can use your child’s favorite books, sign new ones out from the library, or purchase more for your home collection. 

How Can I Help My Grade 4 Child’s Reading Comprehension?

·        Have your child read a variety of texts such as: longer chapter books, magazines, online articles, classic novels, and books from at least 4 different genres.

·        Have your child ask meaningful questions while reading in order to attempt to gain a better understand and improve reading comprehension.

·        Have your child identify the writer’s perspective (i.e. 1^st person, 2^nd person) and explain why it is the best perspective for that story.

·        Show your child how to use captions, bold words, and titles help him or her understand text.

·        Read aloud stories to your child and ask your child what he or she visualized while you were reading.  Make sure your child includes good adjectives to describe his or her visualizations.

·        Have your child summarize the book or story in his or her own words.

·        Have your child point out transition words that connect the story in order to create a time order sequence.

·        Have your child express to you how his or her background knowledge helped him or her understand the story on non-fiction text more clearly.

·        Show your child how to synthesize a non-fiction text by combining his or her reading strategies to develop a new outlook/summary of the text.