Genre number 3 - A Letter to a Parent

Dear Mrs. Farid,

Your son Moses has been having trouble comprehending what he is reading in social studies class and I would like you to know that this is normal for students who do not know the the cultural or historical background of the United States. All of our students in the school struggle with the same problems regarding reading comprehension as your son, I assure you that there is no need to be alarmed.

I would just like to inform you of some reading strategies that might help Moses better comprehend his textbooks and give him some historical or cultural knowledge that would assist him in his reading comprehension.

Here are some strategies that you can help your son use in order to better comprehend the information in his textbooks:

- Overview the text

- Look for context clues, such as titles, subheadings and diagrams

- Attempt to relate important points in the text to one another (important points might include highlighted words, titles or subheadings)

- Try to use prior knowledge to interpret the text (prior knowledge would include things talked about in class or movies)

- Attempt to discover the meaning of words, first by context and then by dictionary

- List the main ideas of the text on a piece of paper

- If the textbook is about United States history, often times you can rent a movie that is related to the text and this would be a great way to understand the context of the textbook

Well, these are a few methods that our students have used to successfully understand their textbooks. If you have any questions regarding this letter please feel free to call me or send me an email. I would be happy to meet with you and Moses and talk about some of the things we can do together in order for Moses to continue to be a successful student.

Thank you so much for your time,
Alan I. Clipperton

Reference:
Singhal, M. (1998). A comparison of L1 and L2 reading: Cultural differences and schema. The Internet TESL Journal, 4. Retrieved September 8, 2007, from www.iteslj.org