Themes: Reading comprehension

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Has anyone had success in getting your child to understand the theme or message of a reading selection?

I have graphic organizers and a chart listing common themes. My son cannot take the specifics of a story and come up with generalized themes. I am currently practicing with a book of fables that has the morale listed at the end to scaffold and practice, but he does not like them. My son is 9.

Do I just plug away until a light comes on, or is there something specific I should be doing?
Has anyone else has issues with this?

(Yeah, I know, this is yet another thing I should be posting in the homeschooling forum, but there are more parents of aspies/auties, here.)

How does he do with nonfiction? Some kids on the spectrum love fantasy, but others don't like to go to far into the imaginary. My daughter reads fiction now but at that age the closest she could tolerate was historical fiction. If he isn't ready for unrealistic things like animals talking, kids fiction can be very trying until he matures through time and gentle exposure.

Also being literal can make the kids fiction where mommies are always dying difficult.

I agree about the animal deaths, as it is an issue for us. I would not even do Charlotte's Web or anything like that. I know to avoid stories that would freak him out, which is most of classic children's literature. I am staying away from the darker versions of the fables. I have sanitized versions of some of the ones that involve death.

He can do imaginary reading, but he prefers it to be silly like Captain Underpants. A lot of the lighter kids' lit has a lot of social situations, and that is a problem, too. His social skills are very low and he is not observant or especially interested. He always assumes characters in stories are acting nicely, even when they are not. He won't ever pick the mean motives in multiple choice questions. So, I am trying to avoid stories that require too much social understanding, too.

I am also doing excerpts of fantasy, where I will skip the darker bits. We have issues with inferring and predicting, but right now I am attempting to deal with themes, and I am making no headway. I don't think he even gets what I am looking for, even with examples. He does not see the point in having a theme.

It is one of those things that is supposed to be a grade-level skill, but I don't know how much I should bother him with it. there is no point frustrating him with it, if we don't have the foundations and he will just feel inadequate.

We are OK with most non-fiction except for social studies because it is like fiction, but the stories are true. It involves people and groups of people and caring about what motivates them. Not his thing.

Science and math reading skills are largely fine.

Keep plugging away. You NEVER know when your son is going to suddenly "get it".

I too thought, at age nine, that my son just wasn't getting the bigger picture. He did fine with non-fiction, but trying to get the general "gist" of a fictional story was not within his grasp. We just kept at it and at it, year after year. Your use of graphic organizers is a good one. What you can also do is try to make some kind of emotional bridge to something that your son has gone through (fear of the unknown, or being the new kid in class, or being different, etc.). There are lots of themes that might make sense to your son when you find a way to personalize them.

My son is in his first semester of college now. Right around his junior and senior year, he had EXCELLENT english teachers who magically got to him. Things began to click. I was shocked to hear that he received a 99% on an essay for his geology class. But I also recently was getting ready to throw out folders from his senior English classes -- and on some of those assignments, he received 25 out of 23. Up until that point, he struggled, with mediocre grades on writing assignments. Honest to gosh, I think something just finally "clicked" for him.

I don't have any specific suggestions, but I wanted to say that even though I have always LOVED reading and have always been a very strong reader, I do remember LOATHING any kind of "reading comprehension" assignment in school. Even though I was always a straight-A student, I do remember the feeling of confusion as I became more aware that it was an area of difficulty for me. Having to read a short passage, and then answer really boring questions about it, just did something really weird to my brain. Like my brain would instantly start to drift off and I found it VERY difficult to stay "on task" and keep paying attention to what I was reading.

I know part of it was the boring content-- most of the passages that were chosen were clearly not reading material that I would have chosen myself for pleasure reading. So having to attend to that, on a level that would allow Q&A afterwards, was very difficult for me. But I also think there was something about the fact that I *knew* I was having to read for a particular *type* of comprehension, which had nothing to do with actually enjoying the story, but rather paying attention to certain types of details, and it all seemed really ludicrous to me, and a very good way to ruin what is otherwise usually an enjoyable pastime.

I have noticed that my son (7) also struggles with grade-level reading comprehension assignments. He too is a very strong reader and reads well above grade-level, so there is something else going on. I think there is something about the way the questions are posed that is not quite making sense to him. Like he doesn't quite get what the questions are "going for" and I usually have to guide him to an appropriate response. I think he'd be more comfortable just talking about the story in a more non-formal manner, and then maybe the adult sort of "sneaking" in the questions about theme etc, but maybe not even using words like "theme".

I do also know that a lot of his issue is from literal interpretation of the questions... like if they say, "what do you think Gabriella will do next?" his response would be, "how the heck should *I* know? I'm not her!" But I'm assuming since you are homeschooling, you have a lot of leeway with how you approach the Q&A....

I just had a thought... . I wonder if it would be easier to teach the concepts of "theme" etc using NON-written sources at first... like, say, talk about his favorite movie or something...work on identifying themes and other story elements in movies which which he's very very familiar with the characters & story lines. I know MY kids will tend to watch and re-watch their favorite movies over and over, so they are very very familiar with all of the action and what the characters do, and why... (whereas with reading, they may only read something once, and forget a lot of the details along the way, just enjoying the story as they "go along"...)

I figure it would be pretty easy for you to make up chart applying literary themes to a favorite movie or movies... that might work better for examples, since the material would be very familiar to him.

Maybe that will help him to "get it" and then be able to apply that to new, and written, works.

Carpenter Bee,

Yeah, I have a ton of leeway. So, that is not an issue. None of his pleasure reading has a theme, b/c it is non-fiction or very silly fiction. Even the silly fiction can't be comprehended on an NT level b/c it involves a lot of inferring about social interactions he is completely in the weeds on. He has literally zero social knowledge to bring into the story. I stay away from those kind of questions. Even when he was in school, he had no clue what was going on, and no one helped him. That is part of why he no longer there.

So,maybe the issue is we have don't have the foundations for theme. He doesn't get anything too abstract, though he will understand symbolism much of the time if I feed it to him. To give you an idea, he understood the message of the poem, I know When the Caged Bird Sings, once I explained the symbolism to him. Poems are short and when not too complex, we can do those.

Themes in kid stories tend to be social, and don't work. the stories are boring and tioo long, even in excerpted anthology form. He can't even regurgitate the theme, as his brain won't hold it. It has no interest. When I take some of the folktales he likes, he really doesn't understand the messaging content in those, either. He doesn't see the good characters being rewarded and the bad ones punished, even though it is really obvious. That isn't a bad thing as real life goes, given that real life is not like that. It is horrible for English literature, though.

I may need to lower expectations and just look at this as a getting his feet wet kind of thing.

LOL. yes. It really makes me wonder (as I did when I was a kid), what is even the POINT of "reading comprehension". How much will this come up in real life? Most people don't need to be able to dissect literary conventions in their daily life. They'd do better to teach kids how to read and understand real-estate forms or banking applications. And I say that as a person who loves to read and comes from a family of writers. What are they really trying to teach? How to "enjoy" texts and get the "most" out of them? I think most people who are *going* to enjoy it, enjoy it without explicitly studying or examining these things. And those who don't, find other ways to entertain themselves.

FWIW, my son also prefers nonfiction or "silly" books... so when his reading homework would have questions to fill out on his daily reading like "what do you think will happen next in the story?" it wouldn't apply at all to what he was reading. And this was even though the teacher insisted that she supported ANY kind of reading, including comic books. But in reality, they want kids to be reading a certain type of thing... chapter books.

I agree with you completely, also having been a bookworm in my childhood. I also don't understand why enjoying literature is considered a necessary skill. I will say that I learned more about human nature from literature than I did from real life, so I did find it useful. You do need at least a base knowledge to do that, and my son is just not there.

I can say that I am very happy that the current curriculum has a much better balance between non-fiction and fiction. Many people complain about it, but it works much better for us. I do need him to be able to do enough literary analysis to get into and through college. That is the main reason I care, though obviously I have a ton of time. I just don't like feeling so behind the curve on things.

I can't give you any helpful feedback, but I can tell you that you are describing my son exactly.

Due to nothing I did, the summer between 3rd and 4th grade, he read the book "The Call of the Wild" and it suddenly clicked. He got it. He loved the book. Couldn't get enough of it. Then he read White Fang. Now, he does much better. I don't think his comprehension is quite up to grade level, but his comprehension of life in general is not up to grade level either

I guess what I am saying is keep working with him, but I wouldn't push it too much. I think it will click when he is ready.

FWIW, my son does best with books in which the animals are the main characters. Even the ones where the animals talk.

I just thought of something...what about the "Choose your own adventure" books? Do you think those could maybe engage him on a different level to get him more "in" to what is happening in the story?

That is a good idea. I will have to check Amazon to see what is available these days. My brother was a reluctant reader and he would read those.

I don't have an experience to speak from my guy is about to turn 5yr, but I am wondering if you worked backwards it would help.

Start with a theme and then have him read things that fit with the theme. Maybe start with simpler silly things he will enjoy that are really short. After a while you could add two simply stories and ask which fits with the theme you have given with wrong one being really wrong. Another variation of this if he has good imagination and it doesn't stress him out you could give him the theme and have him tell you/write a story around them theme.

Whatever works, let me know because I am just a couple yrs behind you.

I am using a text anthology like the classrooms use, so that would not be hard to do. I have been trying to get him to figure out the connection himself, but maybe if I was just upfront about it, and told him ahead it would work. (i was using the fables that tell you the moral, for that, but maybe I just need to do it for everything.)

The written story is a good idea, but we have dysgraphia issues. I could have him narrate verbally, and see how it goes.

Edited to add: I will definitely respond if I make any significant progress.

Thanks!

You know, I remember being a kid a not liking to read fables because of that feeling that you were SUPPOSED to get some kind of message from them. I just wanted to be able to read them and enjoy the story, and if I "got something" out of them, then that was a bonus. I don't want to feel like I'm being TESTED while I am reading. And a fable is inherently going to feel like it is testing you, in some ways. So even though a fable (even with the moral spelled out) seems like an obvious choice, maybe he is rubbed the wrong way by them, as I was?

I think what people get out of any kind of art-- music, visual art, writing, whatever-- is very personal, and it has always bugged me when you are "supposed" to interpret it a certain way. Or to have all the pleasure of the experience sucked out of you by even HAVING to define it in some way.

I was about to suggest something where he could come up with his own interpretations, instead of trying to figure out the "correct" one, but then I thought about how my own son would respond to that... and how he actually seems to get flustered in the opposite direction... becoming anxious if he doesn't know the "correct" answer even if there ISN'T one (like when he's asked for an opinion on something.)

I did explain that themes are subjective, and that there are a lot of right answers. You are right about it maybe rubbing him the wrong way. He doesn't seem that way, though; more like indifference, but it is hard to say.