5 Reading Comprehension Strategies For Elementary Students You Can Do At Home 

Do you want to teach comprehension reading strategies… but you’re not quite sure where to start? The process of teaching a child to read is complex and has so many pieces! Reading comprehension is a very important piece of the puzzle, but it can be tempting to put it off until decoding is mastered. However, there are lots of comprehension reading strategies elementary students can start learning at a young age. I’m excited to share five easy ways to incorporate reading comprehension with young and beginning readers. 

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Why Is Comprehension important in reading? 

So why start learning reading comprehension strategies early? Why can’t we wait until they have more mastery over decoding and phonics skills?  

Well, the real purpose of reading isn’t to accurately sound out words. It’s to understand what the author is sharing. We read to learn. In schools, we talk about a big shift that happens around third grade – when students start “reading to learn” instead of “learning to read”. This is when comprehension skills start to get complex.  

When the time comes, we want children to make this shift as easily as possible. And the best way to do that is to incorporate comprehension reading strategies into their reading routine from the beginning. Younger students can learn a lot about reading comprehension by learning to become active readers from the beginning, and the skills that they learn will help them become better readers overall.  

Reading Comprehension Strategies 

Encouraging reading comprehension with young children doesn’t have to be complicated. There are lots of simple reading comprehension strategies elementary students can handle at a very young age. Here are five reading comprehension strategies that you can try with any book, even if a child is still struggling to sound out words: 

Preview The Book 

Reading comprehension should begin before the book is even opened. Good readers are often starting to form mental pictures of what a story might be about, even before reading it. Before children dive into a book, encourage them to look at the cover picture and the title. We want children to start thinking already about what kind of story or information they might find inside of the book. Some questions you can ask are: 

“What do you think this story will be about?” 

“Can you guess anything about the character on the cover?”

“What do you think we’ll learn about in this book?” 

This simple exercise can take less than two minutes. But already, you are encouraging the child to think about the story and its meaning. You can also model this yourself. You might say something like, “I’m noticing there is a dog and flowers on the cover. And the title says Pup In Spring. That dog must be the pup! And I bet we’re going to find out about different things he likes to do in the springtime!” Previewing the book is a key component of active reading that can really help kids understand a complex text.

Look Carefully at the Pictures 

Pictures are an important tool for young readers. Not only do they provide context clues that can help them sound out and decode tricky words, but they often include important information and details that help to tell the story. It’s helpful to encourage children to take their time looking at each picture before diving into the text. Some questions you can ask are: 

“What do you see in this picture?” 

“Can you tell what they are doing in this picture?” 

“What else do you notice?” 

You can also model this by pointing out small details in the picture and talking about them. This might sound like, “Wow look at this picture of the rain! I see big puddles on the ground. Some of them look muddy. Oh, and the pup is getting muddy too! Do you see the mud on his paws? And look, there’s a bird flying through the rain. I hope it gets to its nest soon!” Kids who can really understand what is happening in a picture are practicing higher-level thinking skills, and these valuable skills are important in the process of reading.

Related Post: 30 Best Preschool Sports Books

Make Predictions 

Making predictions is a great way to get children to start using their reading comprehension skills early on. As the book goes on, encourage them to pause and make a prediction about what will come next. This reading strategy requires kids to apply their prior knowledge to what they are reading, which is an important skill for proficient readers to have. This tip can even be used with pattern-heavy picture books, which often have a very predictable structure – the more children notice and get used to these structures, the more successful readers they will become. 

Some questions you can ask are: 

“What do you think will happen next?” 

“Do you have a guess about what will be on the next page?” 

“Are you noticing a pattern in this book?” 

Model this by making your own predictions about the book. You could say, “Pup is muddy from the rain and puddles. I bet he’s going to have to take a bath next!” Effective readers use the thought processes of making predictions regularly when they read, and it is important that we are teaching this reading comprehension strategy to our kids. We can teach our kids how to make predictions based on their personal experiences or the text structures they see, and these key strategies will help students understand the stories they are reading on a deeper level.

Make Connections

As children are exposed to more stories, we want them to start to be able to draw comparisons and make connections between them. This can start at a very basic level. A great way to lay the foundation for this is to help children make the connection between the story and their own lives. Often, stories can remind us of a memory or past event. Making these connections to our own background knowledge helps children get ready for comparing texts later on. 

Some questions you can ask are: 

“Does this remind you of something that you’ve done before?” 

“Is this character kind of like you?” 

“How does this story make you feel?” 

You can model this by remembering something in your own life that the book reminds you of. “This reminds me of when it rained over the weekend and we all went out to run in the puddles!” There are lots of ways to help kids make connections, and helping kids pay close attention to these key ideas and how they relate to their lives will help them improve their reading skills.

Do Something at the End 

When a child finishes a book, this is an important opportunity to see what they remember from the story. Getting into the habit of reflecting on what they have read with effective strategies can be helpful in building up reading comprehension skills.

Some possibilities include: 

• Retelling the story in their own words
• Remembering a favorite part 
• Going back to reread part of it 

These activities all help strengthen a child’s ability to remember and make sense of what they read. Some questions you can ask are: 

“What happened in this story?” 

“Can you show me your favorite part?” 

“Can you read me that part again?” 

Retelling a story takes a lot of practice, and it’s a great thing to model for children. When you model how to retell a story, use words like “At the beginning”, “after that”, “in the middle”, “then”, “finally”, and “at the end”. 

You can ask your child to retell the story in words, or for older grade levels, you could even try asking your child to write down what they remember from the story. Using a free book report for early readers can help younger kids organize their ideas. Kids can use story maps or graphic organizers or even create a simple anchor chart using sticky notes to help them remember story elements like the main character or the main idea of the plot.

Start Comprehension Reading Strategies Now 

When it comes to improving reading comprehension, it’s good to start early and start small. Simple habits can help children pay more attention to the story and make sense of it. Doing a few of these ideas every day helps to lay the foundation for kids to become strong readers who can understand more complex stories later on.

Thank you to Laura White from Love Grows Learning for writing this guest post!