Reading Comp & Writing help?

Dawn,

I've been looking into this question. There is a website that has quizzes for books for kids to answer and earn rewards, but I can't for the life of me find it. I did find some workbooks by Evan-Moor that look like they would be helpful.

http://www.evan-moor.com/catalog/boo...ID=179&BID=238

http://www.evan-moor.com/catalog/ser...?CID=10&SID=93

They're not cheap unfortunately. I don't think they're outrageously priced either. You should be able to make copies and sell it on e-bay after you're finished. They might be available at Kaplan's.

Dawn, another good thing to do is to find short things to read, even directions, and either read them to her or have her read them silently as you read (silently) with her. Then ask her to tell you (paraphrase) what was said. Break it down with her if you need to. For example, let's say she has a writing prompt that says:
Tell about a time that your feelings were hurt by a friend. Explain what this friend did to hurt your feelings, why it hurt your feelings, and how you resolved this conflict.
You can underline key words like TELL, EXPLAIN, WHY, and HOW. If she doesn't know what resolved means, get her to GUESS and go from there.
You can do this with small reading passages. Do it a paragraph or two at a time with a chapter book or short story. Have her read it aloud or y'all read it silently together. Stop and discuss what is happening. It's not a quick process, but it works.
As for writing, do the same thing I told you to do with understanding directions. Discuss what she is to write about. Tell her to write it just like she thinks it. It's SO IMPORTANT for her to get her thoughts down on paper. Tell her it doesn't matter if it's pretty or makes total sense RIGHT NOW. The first step is to get what's in your head onto the paper before you forget it. Then, once that is done, you can work on organizing it and making it flow (or as I say to my students, "making it sound pretty.") So many kids get bogged down in trying to write like William Shakespear (or Lemony Snickett) that they lose the meat of their writing--their thoughts. A good thing to do is to work on getting her to write about what she's read and about things she can relate to--real life experiences. Get her comfortable with this, and then you can move onto more complex writing like persuasive paragraphs/essasys and comparing and contrasting. Yes, she will need to do this type of writing sooner than you think.
I so wish I lived close to you. I could really help her, and reading and writing are my two loves! Yes, I am a total sick geek!

And I know I sound really immodest, but I can tell you that if you do what I am recommending, it will work. I would get some workbooks, too, because they will help her with standardized testing type questions and format, but don't rely solely on the books. My methods will work, I promise.

Tammy,

I'm so happy to see you explain the method for reading and writing. That's exactly what we're trying to do here at home. Using narration to tell back the story or text that was just read.

Thanks! I learned a few things during my years of teaching and tutoring!