LANGUAGE:
A PROJECT OF:
How Reading Works / Understanding the Meaning of What's Read
UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF WHAT'S READ
Teachers Call This Skill:
COMPREHENSION
Comprehension is being able to make meaning from what you read. It’s the whole reason we read! We read to learn new things, to understand the world, and to enjoy stories. From a very early age, children can begin making meaning from what they hear and read, by discussing what they learned, retelling what happened, asking questions, and sharing their feelings and opinions.
Understanding the words on the page is a complex process that involves many different skills working together. Children draw on their vocabulary (the words they know), their background knowledge (what they already know about a topic), and their sense of how language works (how sentences and stories are structured). Comprehension is also supported by phonics skills and the ability to read accurately and quickly. Strong comprehension doesn’t happen all at once! It grows over time as children build fluency, knowledge and language.
Families play a powerful role in supporting comprehension every day. When you talk with your child about their experiences, share stories from your family and culture, explore new places, or read and discuss books together, you are helping them make sense of the world. These conversations and shared experiences build the knowledge and language children need to understand what they read.
Story Map Printable for Fiction Books
Main Idea/Key Details Printable for Nonfiction Books
KWL Printable for Nonfiction Books
Resources
WATCH & LEARN
Captions and Languages
To watch videos with subtitles: Click the settings icon in the lower righthand corner, next click “subtitles,” and then “English.”
To see subtitles in another language, after selecting English, next click “auto-translate” and then select the language of your choice.
TRY THESE ACTIVITIES
Read At Home Every Day
Reading at home for enjoyment is the best and easiest daily routine you can do to help strengthen your child’s understanding of books! You can start to build "home reading culture" by setting a regular time to read with your child, like after school, before bed, during bath or snack time, or during the commute to or from school. This time should feel fun and relaxing, not like homework or a punishment. Visit the library often so your child can choose new books they’re excited to read next. Let your child see you reading too - books, magazines, recipes, anything counts.
Question Cube
Make reading time interactive with a simple question cube! Just print, cut, and fold the cube, then roll it during or after reading. This activity keeps discussions fun and low-pressure while helping your child think more deeply about what they read. Instead of feeling like a quiz, it turns comprehension into a game, encouraging your child to share ideas, make connections, and talk about their thinking. You can even create your own questions depending on the areas in which your child may need more support.
Talking is Teaching!
Conversations about books should feel natural and fun! Reading at home doesn’t have to look like school and it shouldn’t feel like a quiz. Asking a lot of “right answer” questions after reading can take the joy out of the experience for some children. Instead, let the conversation grow out of the moment. Pause to wonder together, notice something interesting, or react to what’s happening in the story. Ask questions because you’re genuinely curious about what your child thinks. When children feel that their ideas and opinions matter, they are more likely to stay engaged, think deeply, and enjoy reading. Those meaningful conversations are what help build strong comprehension skills over time.
Click here to watch a video about using conversation to improve comprehension.
Use the Five Finger Strategy
After reading a story, use your hand to help you remember the most important elements of the story. This technique can be used for people ages 4 to 94!
Characters – Who was in the story?
Setting – Where did the story take place?
Problem – What was the problem that needed to be solved?
Events – What happened in the story?
Solution – How did the story end/the problem get resolved?
Pause and Process
When reading with your child, a great technique is to pause after a few pages and check in to see if your child is truly grasping what they are reading. Asking open-ended questions allows them to explain their thinking. If what they tell you does not match the story, you can help redirect them back on track:
You say, “Did you see the wolf dressed up in the grandmother’s clothing? Why is the wolf doing this?”
Your child says, “I don’t know….Maybe the wolf likes dressing up.”
You say, “Do you see the wolf licking his lips and drooling? What does it mean when you see our dog doing that? Do you think the wolf is hungry? What might the wolf be trying to do?”
Click here to watch a video about talking while you read.
3 Seconds of Wait Time
Allow your child enough undisturbed “think time” to process what is happening. If you ask a question about the story, let them look at the pages and take a few moments to think, at least 3 seconds. We typically only wait one second before jumping in with the answer. Providing answers too quickly takes away a child’s “thinking time”, robbing them of the opportunity to form conclusions on their own.
Ask Open-ended Questions
It’s easy to fall into the trap of always asking simple, straight-forward questions that elicit one word answers about your child’s reading. Questions such as “Who is the main character?”
Try asking a question that stretches your child’s thinking and allows them to explain their feelings. “Did you agree with what the character did? What would you have done?”
This taps into higher-level critical thinking skills, deepening their comprehension while giving you a window into their thoughts.
Show Evidence
As your young reader matures, they can demonstrate their understanding in more sophisticated ways. When asking them questions from the story, ask them prove their answers by showing you the pages and words that describe the event.
Discussion Bingo
Dig deeper in fiction texts with your older reader with this activity! The open-ended questions in this bingo game will encourage your child in 4th grade or above to make critical connections, share their opinions, and use evidence from the text. This taps into higher-level critical thinking skills, deepening their comprehension while giving you a window into their thoughts. The goal is to get a row (or even fill the whole board!) while sharing ideas and talking about the text.
Make Their Thinking Visible
Graphic organizers are simple tools that help children organize their thinking after reading. A story map helps children retell key parts of a story by naming the characters, setting, and what happened at the beginning, middle, and end, while a main idea organizer helps them identify what the text is mostly about and the key details that support it. A KWL chart (What I Know, what I Want to know, and what I Learned) encourages children to connect new reading to what they already know and reflect on their learning.
Become a Sentence Detective
Sometimes comprehension breaks down not because a book is too hard overall, but because a single sentence is tricky. It might sound surprising that just one sentence could trip a child up, but sentences can be complex-filled with new words, lots of ideas, or unfamiliar ways of saying things. You can support your child by slowing down and making sense of one sentence at a time together. You can ask, “Who or what is this sentence about?”, "What are they doing?",“What’s happening?”. For more complex sentences you might ask "how", "where", "when" or "why" questions as well. Then, you can prompt them to picture the sentence in their mind and share the details of what they see with you to demonstrate their understanding.
Build Background Knowledge Together with a Virtual Field Trip!
The conversations, adventures, family stories and books you share each day are already building your child’s understanding of the world. That knowledge is a powerful support for reading comprehension. You can continue to spark curiousity and build knowledge alongside your child by taking a virtual field trip! These short videos create a great foundation for reading about topics from dinosours to ice skating.
Different Ways to Read
Books are the best way to expose children to new vocabulary, stories and higher-level thinking skills. But reading on their own is not the only way to access stories.
Read alouds and audio books offer the same benefits and let children enjoy a great book. The OUSD Digital Library offers hundreds of audiobooks that let your child hear stories and build their reading skills.
