Reading Comprehension "How much is he really understanding" (Repost)

This is a repost of a post I did back in 2010 along with an update.

As with reading skills, reading comprehension is another difficult thing to determine with a non verbal child.
Junior has always loved books. I would read to him and he would giggle at the appropriate spots or frown and look worried. I knew he understood the idea of what we were reading but did he really understand exactly what was going on in the story?

With a little help from the boardmaker program(something that typically is in any special ed classroom) I created these eye gaze reading comprehension questions.
They have been laminated(well I just use clear contact paper) so they can be used over and over and have a piece of velcro on the back in case I want to place them up on a board in front of him.
I did them large enough for him to clearly see the pictures and also for me to be able to tell exactly where he is looking. At this time Junior has about 10 stories with each having 8-10 questions each. I add new ones every so often to keep things exciting for him.
Junior loves the Amelia Bedelia series and also the Billy and Blaze series.

These cards are large so would work for a non-verbal child who can reach out and touch the correct picture as well as a child using eye gaze like Junior.


Update 11/2012
We have adjusted how we do things as Junior gets older and as new technology has been introduced.  The stories above he has outgrown and he now enjoys things like Narnia and the Hardy Boys.
We have transferred his reading comprehension questions to the ipad and he now answers from a field of 4.  The ipad makes it sooooo much easier to change the questions for what we are reading so I add a new set of question for every few chapters we are getting ready to read in his book.

He has some books on his ipad that he enjoys.  Here is his board to pick a book(there are about 20 if you were to scroll on down)

 After listening to the story we go to the story board and pick the story he has listened to.  It then goes to a question about the story. 

 If he chooses the correct answer he will be linked to the next question.  If he chooses the wrong answer he will hear "try again". 

Answering questions for his latest Hardy Boys story

 

 

 

 Proloquo2go has really made a difference in how we do schooling with Junior and made it so much easier to change and adjust for his needs.  It is the app being used above and is also used for him to communicate. 

Do you have Amelia Bedelia books or Billy and Blaze books?  Though we are not ready to give up our books I would be happy to share our comprehension boards with someone since we no longer use the laminated ones.  Let me know which books you have and I will see if I have comprehension boards for that book.  We have boards for many of the Amelia Bedelia and Billy and Blaze series.

Update 9/2013
Junior continues to love the Hardy Boys and we use the ipad for comprehension questions after every couple chapters as it shows in the above update.
We also have discovered that Abitalk now has several reading comprehension apps that Junior does well with.  These are great for during our school session because they are short stories followed by about 5 questions.  They have grade specific apps for k-5th  and some that are also subject specific.  We started using these apps this semester so have only tried  2nd and 3rd grade levels and will try the 4th and 5th grade level in the coming weeks. So far most the stories do not have the "baby" look even with the younger grade apps which is great.  Junior enjoys the stories and then most the questions he can answer using his yes/no eye gaze.  He loves science so I look forward to trying the subject specific science reading comprehension apps with him.  I am still on the hunt for other comprehension apps that work well for Junior but am pleased to have these to use with him for now and of course we read "real" books as well.