Reading Comprehension Strategies Teaching Resources
Teach reading comprehension strategies your students can use for a lifetime with printable worksheets, reading passages, graphic organisers, task cards, Google Slide decks and more resources to help students learn to summarise, make connections, draw inferences and more!
Aligned with the Australian English curriculum (including version 9.0!), this teaching resource collection was created by Aussie teachers for primary 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 reading lesson planning easier this school year.
New to teaching this portion of the curriculum or just looking for fresh and engaging ways to teach reading comprehension strategies? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including some strategies that can help your primary students, plus tips on working with EAL/D learners to build their comprehension skills.
What Are Reading Comprehension Strategies for Primary School?
As you well know, students don't start off being able to comprehend every single thing they read.
Teaching our students strategies to understand better and retain information will allow them to go from simply recognising 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 various primary and secondary 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 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 you — their teacher — by their peers or by the students themselves.
5. 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.
6. Summarising
Summarising 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 just a complete repetition of the text.
When summarising, 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 or inferencing, 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 our 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 use 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 EAL/D Students
Did you know that as much as half a million students in Australia are EAL/D learners? 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 English language learners build their confidence and their comprehension skills.
- Cooperative Learning — Working in small groups or pairs with other students gives EAL/D learners a chance to practise 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 Organisers — Designed to help kids visualise relationships and organise their thoughts, mind maps, flowcharts and Venn diagrams can all help English language learners visualise the relationships between ideas in the text.
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Making Predictions Comprehension Strategy: Digital Task Cards
Enhance reading comprehension with these Making Predictions Comprehension Strategy Digital Task Cards, where students read short stories, predict what happens next, and justify their thinking using text evidence.
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All About Paraphrasing Teaching Slides
Explain ‘writing in your own words’ to your students with an engaging, interactive Paraphrasing Slide Deck.
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Colour Me a Summary – Nonfiction Text Worksheets
Get your students summarising short nonfiction texts with this set of colour-coding worksheets.
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Summarising Fiction Poster Set
Help students remember what to include in a summary of a fiction text with this easy to use SWBST acronym.
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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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Nonfiction Summary Checklist
Give your students a checklist when summarising nonfiction texts to make sure they include everything required.
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Main Idea and Details Worksheets
Practise finding the main idea and supporting detail with this pack of main idea worksheets.
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Main Idea and Supporting Details Posters
Display this set of posters to assist in the teaching and learning of the main idea and supporting detail while reading.
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Main Idea in Fiction Worksheets
Use these main idea in fiction worksheets to help students confidently identify key ideas and supporting details in engaging, real-world texts.
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Design Your Own Book Cover Template
Design a new book cover and summarise a book using this one-page, printable template.
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Summarising a Story Flipbook
A template for students to use when summarising a story.
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120 Comprehension Strategy Question Cards
A set of 120 open-ended question cards to help students apply comprehension strategies when reading.
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Questioning Comprehension Strategy Teaching Slides
Teach the questioning comprehension strategy to your class with this engaging slide deck that explores how to ask purposeful questions to deepen understanding of texts.
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Making Connections to Text Teaching Slides
Teach the reading comprehension skill of making connections to text with this ready-to-use, age-appropriate teaching presentation for Year 3 and 4 students.
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Predicting and Inferring Poster Set - Early Years
Use this simple set of Making Predictions and Inferencing posters to help students understand and learn the difference between these two important reading skills.
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Making and Checking Prediction Graphic Organiser Pack
Use these making and checking predictions templates with your early years students to help with predictions before, during and after reading.
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Making Predictions Reading Strategy PowerPoint
Use these Making Predictions Reading Strategy teaching slides when introducing the concept of predicting during reading to your early years students.
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Visual Comprehension Slide Deck
Bring visual comprehension to life in your classroom with this engaging slide deck designed to spark critical thinking and boost student engagement.
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Making Connections Text to Self Poster Pack
Explore making connections with these text to self, text to text and text to world posters for the classroom.
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Elements of Visual Literacy Worksheets
Teach the elements of visual literacy with this engaging worksheet pack designed to help primary students analyse images and deepen their critical thinking skills.
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Visual Literacy Analysis Slide Deck
Teach visual literacy analysis using this comprehensive slide deck featuring 20 stimulus images, each accompanied by thought-provoking question prompts.
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Immigration Vocabulary List & Activity Pack
Download our immigration vocabulary list and printable vocabulary activities to teach your students about human migration and immigration.
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Self-Monitoring Reading Activities
Explore how to monitor reading while reading with this set of Self-Monitoring Reading Activities task cards.
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Monitoring Comprehension Anchor Charts
Display these Monitoring Comprehension Anchor Charts to help students with sentence starters and ways to monitor their comprehension while reading.
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Year Two Reading Comprehension Questions - Bloom's Taxonomy
Grow comprehension skills with our Year Two Reading Comprehension Bloom’s Taxonomy Task Cards.
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Monitoring Comprehension Task Cards
Use these Monitoring Comprehension Task Cards to enhance reading comprehension skills.
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Monitoring Comprehension Worksheets
Help students strengthen their reading comprehension skills with this set of differentiated worksheets for monitoring comprehension!
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Finding Word Meaning In Text - Context Clues Activity Sheet
Use context clues to determine word meaning in text with a printable Context Clues Activity Sheet.
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Click or Clunk Strategy Poster and Desk Mat
Explore the click and clunk reading strategy with your students using this poster and desk mat set.
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Predict What Will Happen Next – Picture Task Cards
Use our Predict What Will Happen Next – Picture Task Cards to practice making predictions with your young learners.
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Making Predictions Task Cards
Use these making predictions task cards in the classroom to help students with predicting skills during reading.
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Making Predictions Reading Comprehension Worksheet Pack
Improve students' reading comprehension with our Making Predictions Reading Comprehension Worksheet Pack, which features engaging short stories.
- Reading Comprehension Strategies Worksheets
- Reading Comprehension Strategies Teaching Presentations
- Reading Comprehension Strategies Templates
- Reading Comprehension Strategies Posters
- Reading Comprehension Strategies Games
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for Foundation Year
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for Year 1
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for Year 2
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for Year 3
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for Year 4
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for Year 5
- Reading Comprehension Strategies for Year 6