بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
As-salamu alaikum,
One of the goals of teaching children to read is teaching them to understand what they read. But how can we help students achieve this outcome?
Research tells us that comprehension is “improved by an understanding of how larger units of text are structured”(Maggart). A paragraph has a structure different from an individual word or a sentence, for example; and a story has a structure that is different from a word, a sentence or a paragraph.
Teaching children that almost all (if not all) stories share common elements is key to helping them understand and recognise the structure of stories. You will find a different number of elements common to stories depending on which website you read, but the important point is this: as we guide students to see that all these elements - whether they are given as three, eight, ten or fifteen - are related, children will begin to understand the logical relationship between those elements: students will learn to understand that “motives cause goal-directed actions and these actions cause consequences” (Maggart). Remember: It's important to model making these connections before students prepare to do so independently. Point out the story element(s) you taught, and notice - out loud - how a certain action caused a consequence in the story. Question what the motive was for the action that caused the consequence and then return to the text to find and show students proof for your conclusion. This will help students begin to better understand the stories they read in shaa’ Allaah.
Common elements in stories
As we mentioned, sometimes you will see the elements common in stories given as three, sometimes, ten, sometimes fifteen. Here we list eight (8) elements common in stories, but as the parent/ teacher/ parent-teacher, you will decide which list resonates with and is most appropriate for your students. Here are eight elements and a brief description of each:
- characters - almost all stories have characters; a main character and secondary characters (or more). The characters are not always human; sometimes they are animals or plants.
- setting - where is the story taking place? or where did the story take place? at what time. It's important to teach students that the "time" aspect doesn't always mean clock time; it can be a time period (e.g., the 2nd Hijri year, the Year of the Elephant).
- problem/conflict/challenge - what's the problem or challenge the main character or characters are faced with and must resolve? (e.g., In Makkah, the Muslims were trying to prevent the kuffar of Quraysh from harming them).
- plot - what action or actions move the story forward. What's happening that the story is moving from one event or scene to the next, chapter after chapter? Tell students that the events in a story (the plot) influence each other. (e.g., A character did [insert action] → [inset action] happened → because of that [insert new/different action] happened → then [insert action] happened, and so on). "The Firemen" Part 1 and Part 2), one of DFB's most popular Free Mini-Reads, is an excellent resource to use to teach plot (and, really all of the elements of stories).
- choices/ decisions - what does the main character or characters do to resolve the conflict? What actions do they do, what steps do they take?
- resolution - how is the problem/conflict of the story resolved? Maybe it isn't resolved? That does happen in some stories, so students must be taught/told this. Be prepared to show students stories where the conflict/problem was not resolved. Also: talk about choices. Point out that the choices the characters make, or fail to make, have consequences and sometimes the consequences are good/positive and other times they are not so good or even bad/negative. The choices of the main character influence and, more often than not, determine whether the plot is resolved in a positive or negative way. Bring this to students' attention: map the main character's actions and show how his/her actions led to the plot being resolved positively or negatively. Teach students that, sometimes, a character failing to act or not making a choice when they should can affect how the conflict is resolved or not resolved.
- theme - stories have a theme. How do you explain to students what the theme of a story is? Tell them that it's the main message the story is communicating to the reader. It isn't always (perhaps it is rarely) stated explicitly. Most often, the theme is communicated through the story, through what happens or fails to happen in the story. If the theme of a story is that lying is haram and a horrible character trait to have, the events in the story will show that. When the character lies, other characters may shun them, bad things happen, the character becomes or is a character students don't like, etc.
These eight story elements will help you teach story elements to students, which will improve your students' reading comprehension in shaa'Allaah. And you can also do something quite simple that will improve students' reading comprehension.
How to improve students' reading comprehension
An easy way for teachers, tutors and parents to help improve children’s reading comprehension is to ask them ten simple questions about stories they read. These ten questions help show children
the predictable, common elements almost all stories have.
Before you ask the questions
Before we share the ten questions, an important caveat needs to be shared: when asking students comprehension questions, it is critical that children be given time to answer the questions. Unlike most adults, children need time to gather and organise their thoughts; they need time to gather the content in their minds and prepare it to be spoken aloud. Expecting children to deliver an answer to our question almost as soon as it is asked is unhelpful and can create a tense learning environment and a tense learner. Give children several seconds to provide an answer to these questions before allowing your expectation for an answer to be activated. On to the ten questions.
10 questions that help improve reading comprehension
1. Who are the main characters in the story?
- In other words, who the the story mainly about? Which character seems to be the character that appears the most in the story? Who's point of view is talked about the most? Who's feelings are shown the most?
2. Where did the story take place?
3. When did the story happen?
4. What did the main character want? (motive)
5. What did the main character do about it? (goal-directed actions)
6. How did the main character feel about what he or she wanted?
7. What did the other character(s) do about the action?
8. How did the other character(s) feel about the main character?
9. What happened (consequences)?
10. How did the story end?
Children can be taught these common story elements from kindergarten/reception year on. Soon, they will begin asking themselves these questions independently when they read in shaa’ Allaah, and their reading comprehension skills will improve biithnillaah.
These ten questions can be used in Islamic Studies class, Quran class, and English Language Arts (ELA) class. Here's how:
The stories in the Quran, the seerah of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم), and the stories of the Sahaba (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم) all have the elements common to stories.
Books 4 & 5 from DFB's best-selling elementary grade series have storylines (plots) that grade 4 & 5 (year 5 & 6) teachers can use to help students improve their reading comprehension skills, using the ten questions above in shaa' Allaah.
And both of DFB's best-selling YA novels have strong, exciting plots that upper grade teachers can use as they help their students improve reading comprehension skills, using the ten questions above in shaa' Allaah.
We hope these questions benefit your students/children.
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