Online Tools To Help With Reading Comprehension

July 8, 2020

Online Tools To Help With Reading Comprehension

Technology is now an important and essential part of many classrooms. Many schools utilize technology to help engage students in learning such as using tablets in the classroom. Reading is one of the main skills that children learn early in school. Using tablets and apps to help teach reading is now fast becoming an innovative way to get students learning. There are many online tools to help with reading comprehension and many of them your child’s teacher is likely already using. Online tools can greatly help with reading comprehension if your child is struggling. They can be a great way to help supplement your child’s current reading curriculum.

How can my child improve their reading comprehension?

Improving reading comprehension is all about practice, practice, and practice. The more your child reads the better their comprehension skills will become. Reading comprehension is one of the main reading skills and relies on five strategies to be effective.

  1. Activate prior knowledge or make connections – Children already know a lot about the world by the time they begin reading. One strategy that can help them with reading comprehension is to think about what they already know about the topic in the reading and make connections to what they already know to the reading itself. This gives them a basis for understanding what they might learn about in the new materials. 
  2. Ask questions – This strategy involves the reader not just asking questions at the end of the reading, but at the beginning and while reading as well. Asking questions helps to see what the reader does not understand from the reading. It also helps to figure out the main points of the reading. 
  3. Make predictions – Making predictions is another great way to make connections to the reading from prior knowledge. When your child is making predictions about what they are reading, they are able to understand the reading better because they can make a guess of what will happen next. 
  4. Visualize – Some learners perform better when they use visual aids to help them understand materials. This can be drawing out the story they are reading or using visual organizers like graphs or mind maps. This can help you see what your child is able to understand from the reading and also allows them to sort out information in a way that makes sense to them. 
  5. Summarize – Summarizing is an important strategy because it helps your child identify what are the main ideas of a text. It also helps them practice recalling information from the text, which is an important skill to learn for school.

Online Tools To Help With Reading Comprehension

What are some online tools to help with reading comprehension?

As mentioned, technology is an important tool for learning. Your child’s teacher is likely already using technology to help improve reading comprehension in the classroom. However, using online tools at home to help supplement your child’s learning can help them improve their reading comprehension.

  1. Reading Rockets – Reading Rockets is a resource to help parents and educators to teach their young readers to improve reading skills in the classroom and at home. The website includes research-based articles and expert advice on various topics about reading instruction. The site also provides different activities for a wide variety of reading concerns. 
  2. Rewordify – Many new readers struggle with reading comprehension because the text they are reading might have too advanced vocabulary. Rewordify simplifies any text to make it easier to understand and also takes those identified vocabulary words and creates exercises to help your reader practice learning these new words. 
  3. Sight Word Ninja – Sight words are an important part of reading and reading comprehension. If your child cannot understand the words in a text, they will struggle with understanding the text as a whole. Sight Word Ninja turns learning sight words into a fun game. Your child “slices” through the words as they come across the screen and you can adjust the type of words or input your own list of words. 
  4. Storyline – Providing your child with lots of reading materials can sometimes be challenging. They might quickly get bored with reading the same books over and over. Storyline provides a large library of ebooks that are narrated by your favorite celebrities. 
  5. Mindmeister – Graphic organizers are a great way to help your child organize their ideas and information they learn from texts. Mindmeister is a great mind mapping app that can help your child understand what they learned from the texts they are reading. 
  6. Readability – Readability is a great reading comprehension app that also helps with improving other language skills such as listening and speaking . The app uses A.I. technology to listen to your child as they read the stories provided aloud. If your child makes an error while reading, the app gives them feedback and error correction to help them improve. The app guides them throughout the reading process to help them easily comprehend the story. You can also change the setting so that the app actually reads the story to your child as they follow along. 

Why is reading comprehension important?

Reading comprehension is an important skill that is essential for your child to learn because they will use it all throughout their academics and life. When your child masters reading comprehension, they make the switch from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Reading then becomes a tool for learning new ideas and concepts.

If your child is struggling with reading comprehension, you can help them to improve their reading skills by using these online tools such as Readability. Readability addresses reading comprehension by also improving other skills such as vocabulary, phonics, listening, and speaking.