Reading Comprehension Teaching Resources
Explore printable worksheets, digital activities and more to teach reading comprehension strategies and skills 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 so your students will be able to identify the main idea of a text, draw inferences, remember key details and more.
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!
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 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.
On top of that is the ability to make inferences and draw conclusions based on the information presented.
Yes, there's a lot packed in there!
How to Teach Reading Comprehension
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 you teach reading comprehension? Like many of those foundational skills we teach in elementary grades, this isn't something kids learn in a single lesson, unit or even one school year.
Teaching reading comprehension is going to stretch from kindergarten and first grade all the way through the rest of a child's academic career (at least on the pre-college levels).
That said, here are some activities to make use of as you approach teaching reading comprehension as an elementary teacher:
- Pre-Reading Activities — Brainstorming, KWL charts, prediction exercises and other "pre-reading" activities will help your students activate their prior knowledge, build background knowledge and set a purpose for reading. These are all key to developing their comprehension.
- During-Reading Strategies — Teaching your students to ask questions, summarize, visualize and make connections will give students the know-how they need to monitor their comprehension as they read.
- Post-Reading Activities — Reading comprehension doesn't stop when kids get to the last page of a text. It's only just beginning. That's why it's important to make sure your lesson plans include activities that help students deepen their understanding of the text and develop critical thinking skills. Examples of post-reading activities that can help build these skills include discussions, debates and written responses.
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Story Elements Graphic Organizers – Portrait
Encourage your students to write and draw about various story elements with this set of differentiated graphic organizers.
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Back to School Today! Poem for Kids
Ease back-to-school jitters and launch your students into a love of poetry with a short poem for kids written just for the first day of school!
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‘Imagine if…’ Changing Setting Worksheet Set
Use this Imagine If… Changing Settings Worksheet Set to spark creativity and deepen comprehension as students explore how changing a story’s setting transforms the entire narrative.
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Exploring Earthquakes Comprehension Worksheets
Give your students a clear, engaging introduction to earthquakes, what causes them, and how scientists measure them with printable Earthquakes Comprehension Worksheets.
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Free Character Traits List
Teach your students to analyze characters more effectively by providing them with a list of character traits.
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'I Can' Statement Cards - Primary Literacy Display
Highlight your classroom learning targets with printable 'I Can' Statements for lower primary students.
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Human Histories: World Explorers – Comprehension Worksheet
A free comprehension worksheet paired with an informational text about world explorers.
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Emotion Match Passages Worksheet Pack
Help your students strengthen emotional vocabulary and early inferencing skills with this engaging set of Feeling Inferencing passages.
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Making Reading Connections Using Comics
Get your students making reading connections with these engaging comics and accompanying worksheets that help students link what they read to their own experiences, other texts and the wider world.
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Free Story Prediction Worksheet
Encourage students to think critically before reading with this Story Prediction Worksheet.
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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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Jack and the Beanstalk Retelling Activity Cards
Teach your students about retelling with this set of sequencing cards for Jack and the Beanstalk.
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Paired Passage Worksheets-Mammals vs. Reptiles
Compare mammals vs. reptiles and add to your reading instruction with leveled nonfiction, compare and contrast passages and worksheets.
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Story Elements - Worksheet
Practice identifying characters, settings, problems and solutions in fictional texts with this set of worksheets.
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Character Traits Graphic Organizer
Describe the most notable mental and moral qualities of a real or fictional person.
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Making Connections Reading Comprehension Passages
Teach the making connections reading comprehension strategy with this set of five engaging short stories and differentiated graphic organizers that help students build meaningful text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world connections.
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Character Emotion Wheel Pack
Help students explore how language can be used to present characters in different ways with this set of character emotion wheel templates.
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Story Elements Cut and Paste Worksheets - The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Explore story characters, settings and main events with this set of cut-and-paste worksheets based on a well-known fable.
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Phases of the Moon – Comprehension Worksheet
Analyze different moon phases and how their visual appearances change over time with this reading comprehension worksheet.
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Seasonal Settings Descriptive Writing Task
Use this Seasonal Settings Descriptive Writing Worksheet Pack to help students strengthen their descriptive writing skills by exploring how different seasons influence the setting of a story.
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What’s Inside? Inference Activity
Use these images to help students practise making inferences from visual clues by analyzing the contents of a bin and a backpack to determine what they reveal about the owner.
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Making Inferences Picture Cards Activity
Use these Making Inference picture cards activity to match text with images and infer meaning using visual details.
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Opinion Essay Structure Escape Room – Mission Persuasion!
Teach opinion essay structure with this engaging escape-room game that helps students build a series of strong, convincing arguments.
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Making Connections Worksheet Set
Allow your students to record their connections to a particular text with this Making Connections Worksheet set.
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Self Monitoring Reading Strategy Poster
Help students reflect on their reading with this Self Monitoring Reading Strategy Poster.
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Problem and Solution Worksheets
Explore narrative elements with this set of problem and solution worksheets.
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Beginning, Middle End Worksheets
Explore the main structure and story elements in a short story with these beginning, middle and end worksheets.
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Making Inferences Comprehension Task Cards and Worksheets
Download this set of comprehension task cards with your students to help them draw conclusions and make inferences when reading.
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Hickory Dickory Dock - Story Elements Worksheet Pack
Demonstrate learning about the parts of a story with a printable set of Hickory Dickory Dock worksheets.
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Henry Hudson Worksheet Pack
Discover famous explorers like Henry Hudson with a Henry Hudson Worksheet Pack
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Lewis and Clark Worksheet - RACES Writing Strategy
Practice using the RACES writing strategy for text evidence with a Lewis and Clark Passage, graphic organizer, and worksheet.
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Nonfiction Comprehension Worksheet Pack for First Grade
Integrate science, social studies, and first grade reading comprehension skills with a group of ten nonfiction reading comprehension worksheets.
- Reading Comprehension Worksheets
- Reading Comprehension Templates
- Reading Comprehension Games
- Reading Comprehension Posters
- Reading Comprehension Flashcards
- Reading Comprehension for Pre-K
- Reading Comprehension for Kindergarten
- Reading Comprehension for 1st Grade
- Reading Comprehension for 2nd Grade
- Reading Comprehension for 3rd Grade
- Reading Comprehension for 4th Grade
- Reading Comprehension for 5th Grade
- Reading Comprehension for 6th Grade