As parents, teachers and educators, many a times we concern ourselves with teaching the children WHAT to learn - grammar rules, vocabulary meanings, maths timetables, number patterns, etc and WHAT to do - reading comprehension, problem sums, spelling tests, etc.

And in the process we may have missed out on the equally important part of teaching them HOW to learn too.

Our school curriculum has no lack of subjects and performance driven tasks and work. Our kids have weekly spelling tests, topical reviews, mid-year exams, end-year exams and a myriad of assignments that are given with the aim to drill and impart content knowledge into our children. Of course, we cannot deny the good intentions behind these tasks; however, we must also look at the long-term investment into a child’s learning.

He/she learns the spelling words for the week with the objective to score 10 out of 10 or revises for a test or examination with the goal to attain higher marks than the previous test. And of course, these are also important outcomes to keep in mind. (Because if a child is learning effectively, then it is also only fair that we expect him/her to achieve good scores, right?)

Gathering from the parents and teachers whom I spoke to, it seems that the task of reading comprehension is a challenge for many students. And most are puzzled, and I believe, also frustrated at why the children just seems unable to perform well in this section despite countless practices and gentle (sometimes not-so-gentle) reminders to read the passage carefully, slowly and maybe a few more times.

Well, the first misconception to clear up is that being able to Read does not equate to Comprehension. They are in fact two very separate tasks that require different abilities, yet at times are as one.

For the purpose of helping our child be better in Reading Comprehension (as a task), let’s take a look at the underlying abilities necessary to accomplish this task.
(And, NO. It is more than and beyond just the subject of English)