Reading Comprehension Strategies Teaching Resources
Teach reading comprehension strategies your students can use for a lifetime with printable worksheets, reading passages, graphic organizers, task cards, Google Slide decks and more resources to help students learn to summarize, make connections, draw inferences and more!
This curriculum-aligned teaching resource collection was created by teachers for elementary teachers just like you! Explore the whole collection, and you'll find editable versions designed to easily differentiate your instruction for individual students, plus a variety of options to make ELA lesson planning easier this school year.
New to teaching this portion of the ELA or ELAR curriculum or just looking for fresh and engaging ways to teach reading comprehension strategies? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including tips on helping ESL students/English language learners build their reading comprehenion skills.
What Are Reading Comprehension Strategies for Elementary School?
As you well know, students don't start off being able to comprehend every single thing they read.
Teaching our students strategies to better understand and retain information will allow them to go from simply recognizing individual words to understanding a range of texts and being power readers!
These strategies can help kids go from the early stages of developing critical thinking skills to preparing them for success in higher education and the workforce. All of these comprehension strategies can be taught and practiced explicitly.
8 Reading Comprehension Strategies That Build Students' Reading Skills for the Future
So, what are the most common strategies for reading comprehension? Our teacher team has broken down eight strategies to help your students build their reading skills.
1. Previewing
Previewing is the process of skimming the text before reading it in detail to get an overall sense of what it is about.
2. Activating Prior Knowledge
Employing this strategy, students draw on existing knowledge and experience to help them understand new information, such as a new text.
3. Making Connections
This strategy focuses on teaching students to connect a text with their own experiences and understandings. Research into the science of reading has shown enhanced comprehension when students can connect new information to information they already know.
4. Questioning
Learning to question is an important skill across a variety of elementary subjects, and developing this reading skill can help your students be better mathematicians and scientists — in addition to readers!
In this comprehension strategy, students ask and answer questions to clarify the meaning of the text and deepen their understanding.
When you center questioning activities around the familiar open-ended prompts of who, what, when, where, how, why and which, students assert their understanding and identify any gaps in their comprehension of the text.
Questions can be posed by you — their teacher — by their peers or by the students themselves.
5. Visualizing
Visualization provides both teachers and students with another means to extend their exploration of a text and deepen understanding. This reading comprehension strategy asks students to create and describe an image in their mind centered around a place, situation, or character in the text. Visualizing has been proven in research to improve student recall! Using the five senses is a great way to scaffold student comprehension through visualizing.
6. Summarizing
Summarizing is a reading comprehension strategy that asks students to reflect on the text and communicate their understanding. A well-formed summary is made up of the text's main idea and the key details that support the main idea, showing that the student has understood what they’ve read well enough to write a summary that’s not merely a repetition of the text.
When summarizing, teach your students to complete one or more of the following steps:
- Recount the text in their own words
- Identify the main idea, topic or purpose
- List key words or phrases
- Identify structural elements of the genre
7. Inferring
The process of drawing conclusions based on clues or evidence presented in the text is called inferring, and it involves readers using what they know and pairing it with what they read in the text to make a conclusion. You could also call this "reading between the lines!"
8. Monitoring Comprehension
Monitoring comprehension requires students to reflect on and assess their understanding as they progress through the text. In this metacognitive process, they should be asking themselves, "Is this making sense?" or "Do I need to read this again?"
- Some monitoring comprehension strategies that may be effective may include going back to reread a section of a text, slowing down or speeding up your reading rate and using text features to help understand difficult parts of a passage. All of these are active reading strategies that students can do to help them better understand what they are reading while they are reading!
The process of monitoring asks students to identify hurdles and barriers. With that in mind, we have found that our students tend to benefit most if we can connect this reading comprehension strategy with explicit strategies to help them pass those hurdles.
5 Reading Comprehension Strategies for ESL Students
Millions of American public school students are considered ESL students (also known as English Language learners), and it's important to differentiate instruction to ensure their needs are being met in your classroom.
If you're teaching ELA and have English language learners in your classroom, you might want to employ some of these strategies to help them build their reading comprehension skills.
- Vocabulary Instruction — Explicit vocabulary instruction can help your ESL students understand the meaning of key words and phrases in the text. This is a building block of reading comprehension!
- Simplified Texts — Using simplified versions of texts, such as graded readers, can help ESL students build their confidence and their comprehension skills.
- Cooperative Learning — Working in small groups or pairs with other students gives English Language learners a chance to practice their reading comprehension skills and develop their language abilities through discussion and collaboration.
- Visual Aids — Using visual aids such as pictures, diagrams or videos can help students make connections between the text and their own experiences and break down language barriers.
- Graphic Organizers — Designed to help kids visualize relationships and organize their thoughts, mind maps, flowcharts and Venn diagrams can all help English language learners visualize the relationships between ideas in the text.
- Free Plan
Drawing Conclusions and Making Inferences – Comprehension Task Cards
Use this set of comprehension task cards with your students to help them draw conclusions and make inferences when reading.
- Free Plan
Novel Study – Chapter Summary Worksheet
Reflect on a chapter in a class novel using this one-page worksheet.
- Plus Plan
The Day of the Dead for Kids - Reading Prose Comprehension Test
Read and learn about the Mexican holiday, Dia De Los Muertos, with printable 4th grade reading prose comprehension worksheets.
- Free Plan
S.W.B.S.T. Summarizing Graphic Organizer
Use this printable SWBST strategy graphic organizer with students to write a summary for a fictional piece of text.
- Free Plan
What's the Connection? Worksheet
Use this reading skills worksheet to help your students learn about the types of text connections: text-to-text, text-to-self and text-to-world.
- Free Plan
Making Inferences With Pictures Worksheet
Guide your students to use pictures to make inferences with this reading worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Fact and Opinion Sorting Activity
Use this fact and opinion sort to teach your students the difference between statements of fact and statements of opinion.
- Free Plan
Five Finger Summary - Graphic Organizer
A graphic organizer for students to use to summarize a fiction text.
- Free Plan
Making Connections Graphic Organizer
A graphic organizer for students to record text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.
- Free Plan
Making Inferences – Birthday Activity
Teach your students how to make inferences with this birthday invitation activity.
- Plus Plan
Making Inferences Teaching Slides
Teach your students how to make inferences with this 31-slide teaching presentation.
- Free Plan
Design Your Own Book Cover Worksheet
Design a new book cover and summarise a book using this one-page, printable template.
- Plus Plan
Character Profile Template Pack
Explore the personality, appearance, feelings and actions of a character with printable character profile templates.
- Free Plan
Reading Response Template – Inferring and Predicting
Guide your students to make inferences and predictions with a piece of text using the one-page template.
- Plus Plan
Making Inferences Worksheet Pack
Guide your students to read between the lines with this making inferences worksheet pack.
- Free Plan
Nonfiction Summary Checklist
Give your students a checklist when summarizing nonfiction texts to make sure they include everything required.
- Plus Plan
Reading Comprehension Strategies PowerPoint – Making Connections
A 14-slide editable PowerPoint template explaining the reading comprehension strategy of making connections.
- Plus Plan
3rd Grade States of Matter - Reading Worksheets
Teach science and reading skills with a set of printable 3rd Grade Reading Worksheets about the 3 states of matter.
- Plus Plan
Inference Pictures – Digital Question Pack
Download this set of captivating pictures and thought-provoking questions designed to challenge students’ inference-making abilities.
- Plus Plan
Inference Detectives Worksheet Pack
Guide your students to use personal experiences and text evidence to make inferences with this set of reading worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Summarizing Nonfiction Graphic Organizer Pack
Help students summarize nonfiction texts with this set of graphic organizers.
- Free Plan
Making Connections Worksheet
Practice making connections while reading a piece of text with this graphic organizer.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Traditions in France - Mini Book for Kids
Learn about Christmas traditions in France with a printable Christmas Around the World Mini Book for kids.
- Plus Plan
Paired Passage Worksheets - Thunderstorms (3-4)
Use paired passages to help your student practice applying reading comprehension strategies.
- Plus Plan
Summarizing Fiction Task Cards
Guide students along their summarizing journey with this set of Fiction texts on task cards for students to summarize.
- Plus Plan
Summarizing a Story Graphic Organizers
Help students remember the fundamentals of summarizing a story with this set of fun graphic organizers.
- Plus Plan
Inferencing Worksheet
Use this worksheet with your students when teaching them how to make an inference.
- Plus Plan
An Egyptian Christmas - Holidays Around the World Mini Book
Introduce your students to Egyptian Christmas traditions and decorations with a printable Christmas in Egypt Mini Book.
- Plus Plan
Let's Infer! Reading Worksheet
Boost reading comprehension with our 2-page writing worksheet that helps students practice making inferences.
- Plus Plan
Veterans Day - 4th Grade Reading Comprehension Worksheets
Explore this 4th Grade Reading Comprehension pack and learn about the Veterans Day holiday.
- Plus Plan
120 Comprehension Strategy Question Cards
A set of 120 open-ended question cards to help students apply comprehension strategies when reading.
- Plus Plan
Super Six Reading Comprehension Strategies - Question Mats
A set of question mats to use when working with the Super Six reading comprehension strategies.
- Reading Comprehension Strategies Templates
- Reading Comprehension Strategies Worksheets
- Reading Comprehension Strategies Posters
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for Kindergarten
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for 1st Grade
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for 2nd Grade
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for 3rd Grade
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for 4th Grade
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for 5th Grade
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for 6th Grade