What is the purpose of reading comprehension?
Understanding of a topic
remains thicker than the rote-learning, it makes a proper base and ultimately
helps a child grow into a well-read human being. Let’s understand it with some
other example, we read a beautiful paragraph about the geography of a wonderful
place, we have got a wonderful voice and people enjoy listening to us, but what
is the purpose of such reading when reader does not understand the meaning of
geography, if a person is telling about the geographical features just by
reading then how could it be possible for that person to imagine such place or its
physical features. Let’s take another example, you are going with your kids to a
market to buy daily stuff, but you do not know the units in which that stuff
will be available and money to be used in exchange. These simple and daily
skills are improved by comprehension. It is an essential part of study when it
comes to reading content and understanding it. It is an important tool of
reading which helps children recalling things which they have just studied. Our
purpose of being read just winds up when we could not understand the study
material that we have in our hands, however, we could just read it. That is
completely useless.
How do we know that the Earth is oval-shaped? This is because we have learnt about the physical features of Earth through modern-day satellites. Well-learned and reputable people of society wrote down a wonderful history of theory and practices for us, that still inspires us and leads us to live a better and wonderful life. They compiled their experiences in the form of books and we just sit on our study table and read what they achieved in their lives and we continue from where they stopped their research. But how could you understand these wonderful theories, this needs skills and that skill is fostered by comprehension. You cannot imagine that a child could understand anything that he or she has just read; lack of comprehension skills would not let them understand these things. The main purpose of comprehension remains the same; it is developed in order to sharpen the understanding of children through stories, researches, discoveries and arguments. Thus comprehension plays a vital role on two fronts, first, it improves language and grammar skills as children spend a lot of time thinking on topics of their study – how to start and where to start. Second, it enriches children with loads of information that will help them in their lives. For example, what is the distance of our Moon from our planet Earth, this is a tricky one and you need to rote down the facts. But it is, though, not so important. However, if you start understanding that Moon does not have its own light and it just reflects the light of the Sun, this information is crucial and one should keep it mind. Because that is the difference between an animal and a human being – a human could reason, be logical to things and could be rational. Now we can say the importance of comprehension cannot be overlooked.
How to develop comprehension skills?
Comprehension is equally
important for every child whether he or she is interested in science or arts.
However, it automatically improves the language skills of children, but its
main purpose is to make a great balance between reading and understanding of a
particular topic. Comprehension is everywhere, whether we are at home or
outside. It plays a vital role in building our sense at every stage of life.
Parents just need to spend thirty to forty minutes out of their busy schedules
and help children understand things they see in their immediate surroundings.
Daily reading and observation of things are very crucial and important. That can
only solve the purpose of things a child should understand.
Everything which is read
should be followed with some logical questions so that a proper understanding
of things could be developed. Parents should ask questions on the topic which is
just read, it will not only help your child, but also help you enhance your
knowledge. You need to make visuals of things related to the topic, which you both
are reading. Share your childhood experiences and ask things happening in your surroundings.
Always keep one of Albert Einstein’s quotations in your mind, “Imagination
fosters your intelligence”. What does it mean? It means when you start
visualizing things your strength to imagine things improves, and every
brilliant task of this world that was once executed, first was imagined by a
brilliant mind.
How could imagination be
fostered? It could be fostered only when you start asking questions about topics
that you are reading and start putting things in order and start visualizing
what would happen next. This theory of next, if taken in a positive way, could
lead to a wonderful life.
