When should we start addressing reading comprehension? Is Kindergarten too early to work on reading
comprehension skills?
We know that parents and other adults including preschool
teachers are encouraged to begin engaging babies and toddlers in book “reading”. Of course, the reading is being done by the
parent/teacher/adult. We also know that
adults engage children in conversations about books, using, for example, “Dialogic
Reading”.
When might we begin to “teach” reading comprehension skills
in a somewhat more formal sense?
Let’s assume that it is possible to teach some reading comprehension
skills in Kindergarten. In my grandson’s
kindergarten this past year, his teacher actively engaged the class in learning
some basic reading comprehension skills—story characters, setting, and story plot. They read both narrative and information
texts. They had “favorite” books. They shared what a book was “about.” They also wrote “stories” from their personal
experience.
But are there curricula for teaching comprehension in the
primary grades. That’s what I’ll explore
in the next series of posts.
