Reading Comprehension Teaching Resources
Explore printable reading comprehension worksheets, digital activities and more to teach reading comprehension strategies in your primary classroom. Created by teachers, for teachers, the teaching resources in this collection are aligned with the Australian curriculum 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 various options to make your 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, including a simple definition of reading comprehension, a look at different strategies students can use and more!
What Is Reading Comprehension?
We'll start at the beginning! Reading comprehension is a skill that's hard to overestimate in terms of its importance for early years 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 recognise and understand individual words, but it also involves the ability to recognise patterns and relationships within sentences and paragraphs, as well as the ability to make inferences and draw conclusions based on the information presented.
This isn't just important for reading, of course.
Comprehension is all about making meaning, and it includes various levels of understanding, including:
- Literal
- Inferential
- Evaluative
- Critical
If you think about it, we rely on these skills on a daily basis — when we notice the stooped shoulders of a partner as they walk in the door or when we listen to the weather report and observe how heavily laden the sky is with grey clouds.
To develop those same skills in a reading context, our students need to build 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!
What Are Reading Comprehension Strategies?
As you well know, students don't start off being able to comprehend every single thing they read. But teaching them strategies to understand better and retain information will allow them to go from recognising individual words to understanding a range of texts.
Some common reading comprehension strategies include:
- Previewing — This is the process of skimming the text before reading it in detail to get an overall sense of what it is about.
- Activating Prior Knowledge — Students can draw on existing knowledge and experience to help them understand new information, such as a new text.
- Making Connections — This strategy focuses on teaching students to make connections between a text and their own experiences and understandings. Research into the science of reading has shown enhanced comprehension when students are able to connect new information to information they already know.
- Questioning — In this comprehension strategy, students ask and answer questions to clarify the meaning of the text and deepen their understanding. When you centre 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 a teacher, by their peers, or by the students themselves.
- Visualising — Visualisation 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. Visualising has been proven in research to improve student recall! Using the five senses is a great way to scaffold student comprehension through visualising.
- Summarising — Summarising is a reading comprehension strategy that asks students to reflect on the text and communicate their understanding of it. A well-formed summary is made up of the main idea of the text 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 summarising, students may complete one or more of the following:
- 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
- Using the SWBST process can help students with this reading comprehension strategy. The steps in the SWBST process are:
- Somebody
- Wanted
- But
- So
- Then
- When summarising, students may complete one or more of the following:
- 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 may also call this 'reading between lines!'
- Monitoring Comprehension — When monitoring comprehension, students reflect on and assess their understanding as they progress through the text. In this metacognitive process, students may ask themselves questions like 'Is this making sense?' or 'Do I need to read this again?'
- Some 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!
- While monitoring asks students to identify hurdles and barriers, students also benefit from connecting this reading comprehension strategy with explicit strategies to help them pass their hurdles.
All of these comprehension strategies can be taught and practised explicitly.
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The Christmas Pickle Reading Comprehension Worksheet
Learn about the Christmas Pickle Tradition and practise reading comprehension skills with a printable reading passage worksheet pack.
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Monster Magic - Reading Comprehension Activity
Read and comprehend a set of instructions to create a magical monster!
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Applying Reading Comprehension Strategies Worksheets
A collection of worksheets to enable students to apply reading comprehension strategies.
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Great Barrier Reef Comprehension and Note Taking Worksheet
Learn about The Great Barrier Reef with a reading comprehension and note-taking activity.
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Earth Watch – Drowning in Plastic Reading Comprehension Worksheet
A comprehension worksheet for a magazine article about plastic pollution in our oceans.
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Book Review Worksheet
A book review and summary card for comprehension learning.
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Christmas Around the World Mini Book - Germany
Introduce your students to Germany's Christmas traditions and decorations with a printable Christmas Around the World Mini Book.
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Comprehension - Should Smart Phones be Allowed in Classrooms?
Decide if cellphones should be allowed in class and boost comprehension skills with a reading passage and comprehension test.
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Earth Watch: Protecting Native Plants and Animals – Comprehension Worksheet
Build comprehension skills and learn about human impact on ecosystems with a reading passage and worksheets.
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Making Inferences With Pictures Worksheet
Guide your students to use pictures to make inferences with this reading worksheet.
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Decodable Text Worksheets – Common Consonant Digraphs (Set 1)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
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Inference Comics - Worksheet
Use this set of comic strips when teaching your students how to infer information from everyday situations.
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Let's Research! Reindeer Facts for Kids PowerPoint
Use this instructional Google Slide or PowerPoint to guide your students through a reindeer research project!
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Comprehension Task Cards - Draw Conclusions and Make Inferences
A set of comprehension task cards to help students draw conclusions and make inferences when reading.
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Christmas Finger Puppets Template
Craft a fun set of Christmas finger puppets for your students to have fun with during dramatic play.
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Literary Devices Poster Pack
Explore the various literary devices used by authors with the set of colourful classroom posters.
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Empathy vs. Sympathy Reading Comprehension Worksheet
Challenge your students to learn the differences between empathy and sympathy with this reading comprehension worksheet.
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Let's Infer! Reading Worksheet
Boost reading comprehension with our 2-page writing worksheet that helps students practice making inferences.
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Narrative Elements Graphic Organisers – Portrait
Encourage your students to write and draw about various story elements with this set of differentiated graphic organisers.
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Phases of the Moon – Comprehension Worksheet
Analyse different moon phases and how their visual appearances change over time with this reading comprehension worksheet.
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Decodable Text Worksheets – Common Consonant Digraphs (Set 2)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
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NAPLAN Reading Magazine – Year 3
5 reading texts with multiple choice questions for NAPLAN Reading Year 3.
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Comprehension Task Cards - Finding The Main Idea
A set of comprehension task cards to help students find the main idea when reading.
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Sophia the Superdog! - Comprehension Text and Questions
A superdog themed text and set of questions to help develop comprehension strategies in the classroom.
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60 Comprehension Strategy Task Cards
A 144 page comprehension resource pack to help students apply comprehension strategies when reading.
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Inference Detectives Worksheet Pack
Guide your students to use personal experiences and text evidence to make inferences with this set of reading worksheets.
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Understanding Sequence - Comprehension Task
A task to use when teaching your students reading comprehension strategies.
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Reading Comprehension Worksheets - The History of Electricity
Read to learn about the history of electricity with printable reading comprehension worksheets.
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What's Missing? – Interactive PowerPoint
An interactive presentation where students try to guess what object is missing from the picture.
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Making Inferences Comprehension Worksheet
A task to use when teaching your students reading comprehension strategies.
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Amazon Rainforest Facts - Reading Passage
Read and learn about conservation with a reading passage and comprehension worksheet on the Amazon Rainforest.
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Year 2 Magazine – What’s Buzzing? (Issue 2)
A beautifully designed, 24-page reading magazine specifically designed for Year 2 students.
- Reading Comprehension Worksheets
- Reading Comprehension Templates
- Reading Comprehension Posters
- Reading Comprehension Teaching Presentations
- Reading Comprehension Games
- Reading Comprehension for Foundation Year
- Reading Comprehension for Year 1
- Reading Comprehension for Year 2
- Reading Comprehension for Year 3
- Reading Comprehension for Year 4
- Reading Comprehension for Year 5
- Reading Comprehension for Year 6
- Reading Comprehension for Year 7