How to Improve Your Child's Reading Comprehension
Proven strategies to help your child understand, remember, and think critically about what they read. Designed for children ages 5-10.
What is Reading Comprehension?
Reading comprehension is the ability to understand, remember, and think about what you read. It's not just decoding words - it's making meaning from text. Strong comprehension skills allow children to learn from books, follow directions, understand stories, and think critically. These skills must be explicitly taught and practiced, starting with simple texts and building to more complex material.
Signs Your Child May Need Comprehension Support
- •Can read words accurately but can't answer questions about what they read
- •Doesn't remember what happened in stories
- •Struggles to summarize or retell what they read
- •Doesn't notice when text doesn't make sense
- •Has difficulty making predictions or inferences
Proven Comprehension Strategies
Strategy 1: Preview Before Reading
Before starting a book, look at the cover, read the title, and flip through pages to see illustrations. Ask your child "What do you think this book will be about?" This activates prior knowledge and sets a purpose for reading. Making predictions engages active thinking from the start.
Strategy 2: Ask Questions During Reading
Pause periodically to ask questions at different levels: Who, What, Where (literal), Why, How (inferential), and What if, How would you feel (evaluative). For example: "Why do you think the character did that?" or "How would you solve this problem?" This keeps your child thinking actively about the text.
Strategy 3: Visualize and Describe
Encourage your child to create mental pictures of what they are reading. Ask "What do you see in your mind?" or "Can you describe what the setting looks like?" Have them draw scenes from the story. Visualization strengthens memory and deeper understanding of text.
Strategy 4: Summarize Key Points
After reading a page, chapter, or book, ask your child to tell you what happened in their own words. For younger children (5-7), focus on beginning, middle, and end. For older children (8-10), include main idea and important details. Summarizing shows whether true understanding occurred.
Strategy 5: Make Connections
Help your child connect the story to their own life (text-to-self), other books (text-to-text), or the world (text-to-world). Ask "Has anything like this happened to you?" or "Does this remind you of another story?" Connections make reading meaningful and memorable.
Strategy 6: Monitor Understanding
Teach your child to notice when they do not understand something. Model this by saying "Wait, I'm confused. Let me reread that." Show them fix-up strategies: reread, look at pictures, think about what makes sense, ask for help. Good readers know when comprehension breaks down.
Strategy 7: Discuss After Reading
Have a conversation about the book beyond basic plot. Discuss characters' feelings and motivations, lessons learned, favorite parts, and what surprised you. Ask opinion questions like "Do you agree with what the character did?" Rich discussions deepen comprehension and critical thinking.
Master Reading Comprehension
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Join FreeAge-Specific Comprehension Focus
Ages 5-7 (Early Readers)
Focus on: Story sequence (beginning, middle, end), identifying main characters, basic predictions, retelling with pictures, making simple connections to own life.
Keep books short with clear plots and plenty of illustrations to support understanding.
Ages 8-10 (Developing Readers)
Focus on: Main idea and supporting details, character motivations and changes, cause and effect, making inferences, comparing and contrasting, distinguishing fact from opinion.
Introduce chapter books, non-fiction texts, and more complex storylines with multiple characters and subplots.
Question Types to Ask
Literal Questions (Right There)
Answers are directly stated in the text. Good for beginning readers and checking basic understanding.
Examples: Who is the main character? Where does the story take place? What happened first?
Inferential Questions (Think and Search)
Require combining information from different parts of the text or reading between the lines.
Examples: Why did the character act that way? How did the character feel? What caused this to happen?
Evaluative Questions (On Your Own)
Ask for opinions and connections beyond the text. No single right answer.
Examples: What would you have done? Do you agree with the character? How does this connect to your life?
Continue Building Reading Skills
Strong comprehension works alongside vocabulary knowledge and reading fluency. Explore our other guides to support your child's complete reading development.