Comprehension: should I read the full text before I answer questions?

As 11 plus tutors, we are often asked, "In an eleven plus comprehension test, should my child read the whole text before answering the questions? Or should they read the questions first and just scan the text for answers?"

The reason we are asked is that there is divergent advice given by 11 plus tutors on this matter. Anecdotally - and I must stress anecdotally - it seems to me that most other 11 plus tutors recommend reading the questions of comprehension exercises and then scouring the text for the answers to the questions.

Those who advocate this technique are doing so to ensure that the child can save time in the exam by not reading a comprehension text in full, and using it only to answer the questions. Some exams (especially CEM exams, which children in Bexley sit) are especially tight on timings, so I can see the logic behind advocating saving time by not reading a lengthy text either in full or before looking at the questions.

I have trialled both methods (i.e., the reading-the-text-first method vs the reading-the-questions-first-and-then-scouring-the-text method) and found that reading the text first and in full is better. This is, of course, highly personal, and there is probably a "horses-for-courses" case to be made, but here is why I think it is better to read the text first, in full:

• Confidence: the purpose of the comprehension exam is, of course, to test the child's comprehension. The child is not going to comprehend the text unless they read it in full. By reading the text in full, they are going to gain some confidence and grounding by understanding what kind of text they are reading (e.g., fiction versus non-fiction), what the text is about, when it is set, whom is it about, what is its structure etc.

To my mind, it would be daunting going into an exam and reading questions about something you have no context for or understanding of. Understanding the text, having some context for it, will give the child confidence when it comes to reading and understanding the questions.

Annotation: By reading the text first, the child can underline or mark anything that stands out as potentially significant: names, dates, reasons etc. There is a good chance that the child will be asked questions about key information, and they would have already identified the locations of these information before reading the questions.

If the child reads the questions first, they will not have the annotations ready to draw their eye back to the correct place in the text. Instead, they may find themselves haphazardly scanning through the text looking for the key information, which could prove quite unnerving to them.

Question types part 1: reading the questions first and then scanning for the relevant information in the text could well work for search-and-retrieve questions (e.g., when was Marie Curie born?). However, not all questions in the exam will be search-and-retrieve questions. Some of the more difficult comprehension question types require deductive reasoning which requires the child to deduce an answer by cross-referencing pieces of information that are scattered throughout the text.

Plainly, then, having an appreciation of a text's structure (which can only be gained by reading the text in full) will give the child some pre-knowledge of where these disparate pieces of information are. If the child is only using the text to find answers to questions, they will not have an appreciation of the text's structure or know which data they need to cross-reference or where those data are. So, while reading the questions without reading the text in full may confer a minor advantage in search-and-retrieve questions this method could prove hazardous when attempting to answer more complicated questions.

Question types part 2: Another question type in comprehension exercises is inference questions. In context of fiction, inference questions may require the child to infer how a character is feeling, or what they are thinking, without being explicitly told by the author. Research has shown that reading fiction makes us more empathetic and emotionally literate; now, if the child is not going to read a comprehension text in full, they may miss out on the appreciation of the rhythms of sentences and paragraphs that help them to feel what the story is about; they may miss out on the subtle dynamics of the relationships between characters that offer clues about feelings, thoughts and tensions. If they miss out on these things, if the miss out on the chance to emotionally engage with a story, it's going to be much harder for the child to figure out what a character is thinking or feeling.

All this said, it is important to stress that, especially in CEM exams, timing is very important. While I think that children should read the text in full before answer questions, your child must be careful not to linger too long on the text as the clock will be ticking. They won't have time to become too engrossed in a story; the depth of reading they should give to the text will have to be relatively shallow, but a full reading of the text will be far more beneficial - and much less risky - than just scanning the text for answers to questions.

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