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.
Practice reading comprehension skills and learn about microplastic pollution in our oceans with a reading comprehension activity.
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.
A graphic organizer for students to record text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.
Enhance your students' comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills with this nonfiction Earth Day passage and accompanying activities.
Meet famous Black History Month figures with this informational text and comprehension questions activity.
A worksheet to use when teaching students how to find the main idea of a text.
Teach them to your students with a Plot Elements Teaching presentation.
A graphic organizer to help students summarize a nonfiction text.
Enhance your students' comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills using a high-interest reading passage about Tornadoes.
A teaching resource to help teach your students how to find word meaning in context.
Review 10 writing examples and identify the type of text connection demonstrated in each: text-to-text, text-to-self, or text-to-world.
A series of realtor advertisement worksheets to use when teaching your students how to infer information from written texts.
A beautifully designed, 24-page reading magazine specifically written for Grade 3 students.
A collection of worksheets which enable students to practice applying reading comprehension strategies.
A set of 5 comic strips to use when teaching your students how to infer information from everyday situations.
A set of comprehension task cards to help students draw conclusions and make inferences when reading.
Display these cute sloth-themed story elements anchor charts when learning about narrative texts.
An article and comprehension task celebrating women and Women's History Month.
A scaffolded writing task for students to complete when learning about the informative text type.
Practice making inferences with pictures.
Read and learn about April Fools’ Day with this set of differentiated comprehension worksheets.
A fun reading comprehension game to play after reading a fictional text.
Use this worksheet with the Timelines Teaching Presentation to assess students' knowledge of timelines.
A beautifully designed, 24-page reading magazine written specifically for Grade 4 students.
A 12 slide editable PowerPoint template explaining the reading comprehension strategy of visualizing.
A 15 slide editable PowerPoint template explaining the reading comprehension strategy of questioning.
Identify supporting evidence for the main idea of an informational text passage and answer the comprehension questions.
A beautifully designed, 24-page reading magazine specifically written for Grade 2 students.
A comprehension worksheet paired with a comic about being safe when sharing photos on digital platforms.
Practice deciding if a text is fiction or nonfiction with this cut-and-paste worksheet.