Selecting a First Grade Reader

3) Encourage the child to recall accurately the facts of what was being read.

4) Encourage the child to comprehend what was happening in the material he or she was reading.

What i want to know...is...if they don't comprehend, what are you going to do?

i have always thought and still think that "comprehension" questions are for insecure teachers/teachers that need to grade ....mostly those questions are dumb and kids know it....and questions about deeper meanings are either grasped if a child is ready, OR they go over the child's head, and all the talking in the world doesn't change that.

I agree with you about reading comprehension tests. When Morganne and I read together, I ask her questions that go beyond the text. I'll ask her how she thought the characters felt in a certain situation or what she might have done in the same situation. I'll ask her if she'd like to try a certain activity or visit a certain place. And then I listen to her answers. She often has a deeper understanding of the material than I had thought possible.

One thing that was absent from the above list is the ability to read critically. Young children often believe that everything they see on TV or read in books is true. I think it's important for children to know that books are often based more on opinion than on fact. I encourage Morganne to apply her own reasoning and morality to the characters' actions, to draw her own conclusions.

Do any of us always grasp every detail that we read? And, if reading for enjoyment, does it make any difference if we get it all or not?

Another thing that is missing from the above list is learning how to skim. I'm a very fast reader (I'd never keep up with my email if I wasn't). I can read with different levels of attention as the situation demands. Sometimes, I'm looking for a particular fact or topic and I quickly skim until I find the information I'm looking for. Sometimes I'm just reading along lazily, enjoying the wash of words over my mind. Sometimes I focus intensely and try to print each word on my mind.

When reading a technical manual or science textbook, I skim the material first, so I can build a rough sketch of the information in my brain. Then I re-read the material, filling in the details that are important to me. Sometimes I will go over the same material many times, with various levels of attention. This works for me; I pick up technical information quickly.

Sometimes I'm puzzled when I see all of the hoopla over learning to read. I learnt to read early (at age 3) and have read voraciously all through my life. Reading gives me great joy and access to many different types of information. The process of incorporating my reading into my worldview is quite organic. When I heard teachers talk about reading comprehension in school, my reaction was always, "that's not how I do it".

A personal note on reading:

Morganne was going great guns on reading. A month ago, however, she started wearing an eyepatch to help strengthen her weak eye (she has amblyopia). Her vision with the eyepatch and her glasses is hovering at 20/200 (up from 20/600, very encouraging). Her interest in reading plummeted. It took me a few weeks to realize that the reason she was no longer reading was because she couldn't see the words in the books! I'm hoping that the eyepatch will be a temporary measure.

In the meantime, we're speaking Spanish and spending a lot of time outdoors in the teepee and the vegetable garden.