Comprehension is an area that most hyperlexic kids need extra support with. And it's important to build these skills early as they will lead to greater success as they grow and the texts become more complex.
Now, since these kids are such strong visual learners, using videos is a great way to build skills in this particular area. Besides, videos are way more fun than just listening to a teacher explain or model different strategies.
That's why I compiled this list of reading comprehension videos. They're great for hyperlexic kids, English language learners, and really all kids who might need some help with their comprehension.
The following videos will help you teach your child different reading comprehension strategies and skills. They teach things such as keywords (or signal words) to watch out for. They also provide definitions of important concepts. They even go over things like WH question words, idioms, and metaphors that often confuse autistic and hyperlexic kids.
It's important to note that these educational videos focus on explaining different strategies explicitly or through song, both of which are helpful strategies when it comes to teaching hyperlexic kids.
Also, most of these videos already have built-in captions or subtitles. However, some do not. So remember to turn on closed captioning for any videos that don't have built-in captions as it aids in comprehension for hyperlexic kids. You can read more about the benefits of closed captioning for hyperlexic kids here.
And finally, I focused on picking videos that are short in length. After all, young children generally have short attention spans, especially when it comes to topics like reading comprehension that can often be dry and boring to teach. So all of these videos are under 5 minutes in length.
Build Comprehension Skills with these Helpful Reading Comprehension Videos
It's important to remember that comprehension isn't just one thing. It's made up of lots of little moving parts and different skills, which is why these videos cover a variety of important skills to work on and teach.
So, if you're interested in helping kids with reading comprehension, which you obviously are, then let's dig in!
1. Teaching Main Idea & How to Find it in a Story - Being able to figure out the main idea and summarize a story are important reading comprehension skills. The focus in this video is to teach kids how to find the main idea.
2. Cause & Effect: Keywords to Look For - Hyperlexic kids don't always pick up on cause and effect relationships. That can make it tricky to figure out the problem and solution in a story. Using signal words for comprehending cause and effect is a great reading strategy and this video covers some of these keywords.
3. Author's Purpose: How to Figure Out the Purpose of a Text - Knowing the author's purpose for writing a text can help you figure out the meaning of the story. It's also helpful for analyzing short films and other types of texts. So it's important to know how to figure it out and this video does just that.
4. Fact & Opinion with Practice Examples - Good comprehension skills involve being able to tell when something is a fact and something is an opinion, both in reading and in writing. This video shows the difference between the two.
5. Sequence of Events & Transition Words to Look For - Being able to summarize or retell a story involves knowing the sequence of events. But what's particularly helpful in this reading comprehension video is the list of transition words to look for. It gives kids an actionable plan for determining the order of events in the text.
6. Compare & Contrast: Keywords to Look For - Sometimes a text will compare and contrast two things. Here's an overview of keywords that elementary school kids can watch out for. Learn more about keywords (aka signal words) here.
7. How to Use Context Clues in Reading Comprehension - Sometimes readers will come across an unfamiliar word that impacts their understanding of the text. What you can do is look for context clues. This video explains how to use context clues in reading.
8. Suffixes & How they Change the Meaning of a Word - Teaching suffixes is a great way to boost language proficiency and comprehension.
9. Prefixes & How they Change the Meaning of a Word - Same idea as teaching suffixes. Prefixes can help kids understand the meaning of individual words that might be unfamiliar to them and boost comprehension.
10. Story Elements: How to Identify the Characters, Setting, & Events - When reading a book or short story, a good reader should be able to identify the characters, setting, and events. This video explains what to look for and how to identify these different story parts.
11. Story Elements: How to Identify Problem & Solution - It's important to be able to identify the main problem and solution in reading. This short video clip shows you how.
12. Story Elements Song About Character, Setting, & Plot - But there are more story elements to consider when it comes to reading comprehension and writing, including characters, setting, and plot. This catchy song explains it all.
13. Fact or Opinion for Kids: How to Tell the Difference - Learning about the difference between fact and opinion is a great comprehension skill to have, especially when reading on the internet. A lot of adults could probably benefit from a refresher on the difference between the two...
14. Strategies for Finding the Main Idea - This video covers a variety of different comprehension strategies you can use to figure out what the main idea of the text is.
15. Nonfiction Text Features & How They Help You Understand the Text - I really like how this video shows real life examples of these different features found in nonfiction texts. Kids can use the information in these features to boost their comprehension.
16. Differences Between Fiction vs Nonfiction - This video introduces the concept of genre and compares and contrasts fiction and nonfiction. It even breaks down these two types of reading resources into specific subtypes.
17. Pronoun Song - Comprehension of pronouns and pronoun mix-ups are quite common in hyperlexia (learn more about pronoun reversals here). Thankfully, this fun song teaches kids what pronouns are and how they're used. Don't be surprised if this song gets stuck in your head.
18. Subject Pronouns - Pronouns are used to refer to other things and can definitely impact comprehension. This video digs deeper into teaching pronouns by focusing specifically on subject pronouns.
19. Object Pronouns - Improve comprehension of pronouns further with this video on object pronouns.
20. That's an Idiom Song - Okay, this song is definitely catchy! Idioms and metaphors can cause all sorts of misunderstanding for kids (especially autistic and hyperlexic learners), but this video explains some common metaphors.
21. 10 Common Idioms: Examples & Meanings - This video explains 10 common idioms and what they really mean.
22. What are Metaphors? - This helpful video explains what metaphors are and why they're used. It also includes some examples of common metaphors.
23. Making Predictions Reading Strategy - This is such an important comprehension strategy to learn. And this video explains what predictions are and how to make predictions while reading.
24. Making Text Connections Reading Strategy - Making connections to other books, life experiences, and the world is an awesome way to boost comprehension. This video explains this strategy in detail, but you can read more about the making connections reading strategy here.
25. Parts of a Book Review - This video shows kids all the different parts of the book. This information can be useful for comprehension as it helps give clues about the main idea of the story.
26. 6 Questions to Ask for Reading Comprehension - A song that reviews different WH question words (who, what, when, where, how, and why) and how they relate to the story. These questions can also be used as a writing comprehension strategy as it shows kids different things to think about and include when writing.
27. The Five Ws Song - Hyperlexic kids find WH questions tricky to answer. That means that answering comprehension questions are also hard. This song goes over the 5 WH words: who, what, where, when, and why.
28. WH Question Words - This educational video explains various WH question words beside the main 5 WH question words.
Phew, I know that was a lot! But I hope you found this list of reading comprehension videos helpful for your kids, especially if you have a little hyperlexic learner.
