An experienced educator’s thoughts:

There aren’t too many causal factors in low reading comprehension. One of the most common is poor decoding. Kids with weaker phonics skills use their mental bandwidth to sound out words. It’s then too great a mental load to also understand the words well. Children don’t have to have a dyslexia diagnosis to experience this difficulty. Some middle grades kids need more explicit coaching on multi-syllable words to develop the grade-level fluency that supports good comprehension.

For children who decode well, poor reading comprehension is often a function of attention. One needn’t have an ADHD diagnosis to be inattentive when reading. For example, boredom and anxiety will both interfere with attention. Some kids just don’t like reading or aren’t motivated to give standardized tests their best effort.

Limited vocabulary and lack of background knowledge will also negatively affect comprehension. These tend not to be primary issues for children who are doing well in school and grew up in literate households. They can be contributing issues for kids who don’t enjoy reading independently, don’t have a lot of conversations with adults, and/or haven’t had a lot of out-of-school enrichment experiences (museums, travel, the arts).

The curricula and training for remediating reading comprehension tend to focus on attending to detail and visualization. Not every person has the ability to create strong mental imagery, so you probably want to focus on attending to detail. This involves teaching appropriate reading rate, using annotation strategies, summarizing, and finding main idea.

There is a workbook series called Reading Detectives that I like.

Does he read much in free time? I’d start a book club with him. Read a book together and talk about it with each chapter. There are book unit studies you can find online too.

I do this kind of work and would be happy to talk. I’m a former teacher and school leader in DC and now work with middle school students on reading comprehension and learning strategies.

Sometimes strong students struggle on standardized tests because of things like pacing, question analysis, or specific comprehension skills — and those can often improve with targeted practice.

Part of my work is also helping families think through whether tutoring alone makes sense or if it might be worth looking more closely at learning data or evaluations down the road.

If it would be helpful to talk it through, feel free to message me

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you for your thoughts. DC listens well and can read out loud with ease. We have not seen any reading comp issues at home- we have done practice questions-thought it might help. Child has been at 3 different schools and has always maintained great grades. We wondered if everyone was getting these grades but from talking to friends with children at the schools we understand that is not the case. Completely baffled by the outcome of these standardized tests. PS We do not talk about these tests with our child so it does not appear to be an anxiety issue.

This may be part of the problem because kids who do practice tests consistently score much better.

Not to be rude, but A's in class are meaningless here because class grades reflect soft skills like participation, good behavior, turning in homework on time, and mastery of grade level content. Kids who are of average intelligence with a good attitude receive the same A's as brilliant children with good attitudes.

Standardized tests measure knowledge and intelligence.

OP here. Thank you for your thoughts. DC listens well and can read out loud with ease. We have not seen any reading comp issues at home- we have done practice questions-thought it might help. Child has been at 3 different schools and has always maintained great grades. We wondered if everyone was getting these grades but from talking to friends with children at the schools we understand that is not the case. Completely baffled by the outcome of these standardized tests. PS We do not talk about these tests with our child so it does not appear to be an anxiety issue.

Some schools give everyone good grades. When your child does homework at home, do you see reading comprehension issues? Can your child easily read out loud and sound natural/fluent?

How is his listening comprehension? If low comprehension is due to not completely automatic decoding, you'll want a different kind of tutor than if low comprehension is because of language difficulties.

I was diagnosed with adhd later in life. My lower comprehension scores as a child/teen were probably due to my speed reading abilities and lack of focus (on uninteresting topics) than anything else.

OP here. We have been working at home over the years- the grades are great but the standardized scores keep getting worse and worse. Very worried. Thought maybe an experienced tutor might be able to help.

PP, "slow thinker" is literally one of the things that neuropsych measure and diagnoses to qualify for accomodations.

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of a good reading comprehension tutor? Middle school DC has great grades but has bombed last few standardized tests esp reading comp section. We have not had a neuro psych. We would like to get an experienced tutor's thoughts first before we do anything.

Not all academic deficiencies are attributable to an underlying condition. If they have good grades but do poorly on standardized tests then it's probably due to your child being a slow thinker and/or spending too much time on some questions and then running out of time to complete the test. All a tutor will have them do lots of practice questions in a timed setting so that they learn how to manage their time, and give a few tips about how to eliminate wrong answer choices quickly. Frankly, you could do that yourself at home with your child.

Does anyone know of a good reading comprehension tutor? Middle school DC has great grades but has bombed last few standardized tests esp reading comp section. We have not had a neuro psych. We would like to get an experienced tutor's thoughts first before we do anything.