The Home Learning / Reading and Talk at Home

Talk about what was read, not just that it was read

The conversation after the book is where a lot of the value sits.

A child can finish a book, pass every check that the book was finished, and have thought about almost none of it. What turns reading into understanding is usually talk: saying what happened, deciding what you made of it, arguing about whether a character was right. Comprehension is not a separate skill bolted on after reading, it is largely a matter of having enough to say about what is on the page. Households that talk about books produce children who read differently, because they read expecting to have an opinion afterwards.

The questions that work are the ones a genuinely curious adult would ask. Would you have done that? Why do you think they lied about it? What do you reckon happens after the last page? Did you believe that bit? These invite a position rather than a recall. Questions with a single correct answer, asked by someone who already knows it, feel like a test, and children answer tests as briefly as they can get away with. The tell is usually in your own voice. If you already know the answer you are asking for, the child can hear it, and the exchange becomes a small assessment rather than a conversation between two people who have read the same thing.

Your own reactions carry a lot of weight here. Saying that a chapter annoyed you, or that you did not understand a section, or that you thought the ending was a cheat, shows a child that having a view is normal and that not understanding something is survivable. It also gives them something to push against, which is easier than producing an opinion from nothing. Disagreement about a book is one of the more enjoyable things a household can do. It also removes any suggestion that the adult is checking up. Two readers comparing notes are on the same side of the book, which is a better place to be than on opposite sides of a quiz.