Popular categories:
Explore printable worksheets, digital activities and more to teach reading comprehension strategies in your elementary classroom. Created by teachers, for teachers, the teaching resources in this collection are curriculum-aligned and have undergone a careful review by a member of our expert teaching team.
You'll find editable versions to easily differentiate your instruction for individual students, plus a variety of options to make lesson planning easier this school year!
New to teaching this portion of the English curriculum or just looking for fresh and engaging ways to teach reading comprehension strategies? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
We'll start at the beginning! Reading comprehension is a skill that's hard to overestimate in terms of its importance for elementary students to develop.
Defined as the ability to understand and interpret written language, reading comprehension involves the process of decoding text, extracting meaning from it, and then integrating that meaning with prior knowledge and understanding.
Not only does comprehension comprise the ability to recognize and understand individual words, but it also involves the ability to recognize patterns and relationships within sentences and paragraphs, as well as the ability to make inferences and draw conclusions based on the information presented.
To develop reading comprehension, students need a variety of language skills such as vocabulary knowledge, grammar, and syntax, as well as cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and critical thinking.
So how do they get there? Let's talk strategies!
As you well know, students don't start off being able to comprehend every single thing they read. But teaching them strategies to better understand and retain information will allow them to go from recognizing individual words to understanding a range of texts.
Some common reading comprehension strategies include:
All of these comprehension strategies can be taught and practiced explicitly.
A graphic organizer for students to use to summarize a fiction text.
A teaching presentation outlining the similarities and differences between an inference and a prediction.
Teach your students to analyze characters more effectively by providing them with a list of character traits.
Review our profile on Congresswoman and first Black presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm, and answer questions to reinforce understanding.
Display these cute sloth-themed story elements anchor charts when learning about narrative texts.
A worksheet to use when teaching students how to find the main idea of a text.
A graphic organizer for students to record text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.
A graphic organizer to help students summarize a nonfiction text.
Review 10 writing examples and identify the type of text connection demonstrated in each: text-to-text, text-to-self, or text-to-world.
Practice reading comprehension skills and learn about microplastic pollution in our oceans with a reading comprehension activity.
Practice analyzing poetry with this poem and set of comprehension questions.
Teach them to your students with a Plot Elements Teaching presentation.
Enhance your students' comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills with this nonfiction Earth Day passage and accompanying activities.
Enhance your students' comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills using a high-interest reading passage about Tornadoes.
Identify supporting evidence for the main idea of an informational text passage and answer the comprehension questions.
A worksheet to use when teaching students about characters and how to make inferences.
Practice identifying cause and effect with a blank cause and effect graphic organizer.
Learn about the life and contributions of Cathy Freeman with a comprehensive pack of inspirational women worksheets.
An article and comprehension task celebrating women and Women's History Month.
A reading response journal for students to use to engage with text in meaningful and purposeful ways.
A reading passage about cultural diffusion paired with a comprehension worksheet.
Meet famous Black History Month figures with this informational text and comprehension questions activity.
Analyze text and identify character traits of characters with a Google Slides Interactive activity.
A series of realtor advertisement worksheets to use when teaching your students how to infer information from written texts.
Integrate science, social studies, and first grade reading comprehension skills with a group of ten nonfiction reading comprehension worksheets.
A poster highlighting the three main reasons an author writes a piece of text - to persuade, to inform, to entertain.
A graphic organizer to use with students when making connections with a piece of text.
A collection of worksheets which enable students to practice applying reading comprehension strategies.
Explore the different elements of a narrative story with this student mini workbook.
Build comprehension skills and learn about human impact on ecosystems with a reading passage and worksheets.
A graphic organizer to help students summarize a fiction text.
A 15 slide editable PowerPoint template explaining the reading comprehension strategy of questioning.