My child reads well but does not understand it. What now?
Reading aloud and understanding are separate skills, and a child can be strong at one and weak at the other. The usual cause is vocabulary or pace: a child reading at full speed has no room left to think. Both are fixable, and neither is fixed by reading more of the same book.
This is the question that confuses parents most, because the child looks like a good reader. They are. Reading is the code; comprehension is what you do once it is cracked, and it is taught separately.
How to tell which one is missing
Read a page to them, aloud, and then ask the same questions. If they can answer when you read it and not when they read it, the problem is decoding — the reading is taking all their attention. If they cannot answer either way, it is comprehension or vocabulary.
The three usual causes
- Vocabulary. They do not know enough of the words. Four or five unknown words on a page is enough to lose the meaning of all of it.
- Pace. They read fast because fast sounds good. Nothing is being taken in. Slowing a child down is often the whole fix.
- Nobody taught them to look back. Good readers reread. Children think rereading means they failed, so they push on.
What actually helps
- Stop at the end of each paragraph. One question: what just happened? This single habit changes more than any worksheet.
- Let them meet hard words in books, not on lists. A word learned in a sentence sticks. A word learned on a list is gone by Friday.
- Ask them to find the line. Not "what was the answer" but "show me where it says that". This is the skill exams actually test.
- Read above their level to them. Comprehension grows from listening long before it grows from reading. Keep reading aloud to a nine-year-old.
Does this apply to Urdu and Arabic too?
Exactly the same way, and more sharply. A child who has learned the Urdu or Arabic script can read every word on a page and understand none of it, because the vocabulary is not there yet. It is the same problem and the same answer: meaning has to be taught beside the decoding, not after it.
When to get help
If comprehension marks are consistently below everything else, if they can read aloud fluently and cannot summarise a page, or if writing has started going the same way. One term of focused work usually closes it.
This guide is about English. See how 1-on-1 English lessons work, and what they cost.