Reading Lessons at home in the new normal

Arnold O. Arceo

Reading comprehension is vital in our everyday life. Usually, we would think about learning it in a very formal setting with a teacher inside the classroom. Unfortunately, the pandemic came and our learners are now locked in their homes. Despite of this, the enhancement of their reading skills must be enhanced continuously. In fact, parents and students alike must take this opportunity to sharpen those skills. It might be daunting upon conceiving the idea of teaching those skills, but fortunately, there are simple ways.

Here are few way that you may want to try.

Reading comprehension has been a problem for some time now, and up to now, it continues to haunt both learners and teacher. Let us remember, that when we do something we do not like, we find it difficult to do, and when we enjoy doing something no matter how difficult it is we continue to do it.

With the said idea, we may encourage our learners to read something they enjoy. This could be in Filipino or English. Arousing the interest of the learner to dive deep into a topic can go a long way. We may start by asking what they are interested in, and next, give them a reading material about their interest. After that, leave the learner alone and just observe. The more information the learner gets means he will be left more questions, which he would try to find the answers to.

With what was said above, allow the learner to read stories. Wattpad is a very good platform that contains hundreds if not thousands of stories available to everyone. Stories are always interesting for learners. But, parents must screen first the materials being read by the learner. A good way to do this is to read together or talk about what he reads.

A good way to encourage our learner to make reading more practical is to give him a daily assignment to pick a news article, which could be from the internet and ask him to report it to you in his own words after reading it. Doing this will allow the parents check their learner’s understanding of what he read. At the same time, the learner becomes aware of what is happening around him.

These are just a few ways on how reading can be encouraged at home. Personally, I think the best way to teach reading is by modeling. The parents must show their children that reading is important by ding it themselves regularly. This habit could be picked up the learners and become habitual readers themselves.