How to help your child with reading comprehension

What reading comprehension really is

A child can read every word on a page correctly and still not know what happened. Comprehension is the part that makes reading worthwhile: following the story, picturing it, linking it to what they already know, and noticing when something stops making sense.

It rests on several things at once. A child working hard to sound out every word has little attention left for meaning. A text with an unknown word in every sentence is hard to follow. And readers make sense of new text by connecting it to what they already know. Reading Rockets lists word reading, vocabulary and background knowledge among the usual reasons comprehension breaks down. So the fix is not always more comprehension questions. Sometimes it is phonics, sometimes word knowledge, and sometimes simply reading and talking more about the world.

Before reading: warm up

• Look at the cover and title together and ask, "What do you think this will be about?"
• Ask what your child already knows about the topic. Before a book about volcanoes, "What do you know about volcanoes?" brings the right ideas to mind.
• For nonfiction, flip through the headings, pictures and captions first, so your child sees how the book is organized.
• Mention one or two words that might be new, and say what they mean in plain words.

During reading: stop, picture, check

The aim is a conversation, not a quiz. Pause a few times in a picture book or a chapter, not on every page.

• Think aloud yourself: "Hmm, I thought he was going to tell his mom. I wonder why he didn't." This shows your child what a reader's inner voice sounds like.
• Ask for predictions: "What do you think will happen next? Why?"
• Ask your child to picture a scene in their head and describe it. Which words helped them see it?
• Ask why, not just what: "How do you think she felt? Why?"
• Build the habit of checking. When something stops making sense, go back and reread. Good readers do this all the time.

After reading: retell and talk

Retelling is one of the simplest and most useful things you can ask for. Ask your child to tell you what happened in their own words, in order: beginning, middle and end. If they list every detail, or only the last thing they read, help them find the main thread. Who was it about? What did they want? What got in the way? How did it end?

Those questions follow the parts of a story: characters, setting, problem and resolution. A practice guide for schools from the US Institute of Education Sciences recommends teaching children to use the way a text is organized, such as these story parts, to understand and remember it. Other good questions for after reading:

• "What was the most important thing that happened?"
• "Does this remind you of something that happened to you, or of another book?"
• "What lesson did the character learn?" By third grade, the Common Core expects children to retell stories and work out their central message or lesson.
• For nonfiction: "What are two new things you learned? Can you find where the book says that?"

What to focus on at each age

Ages 4 to 6 (pre-K and kindergarten):

• Read aloud every day, talk about the pictures, and invite your child's questions as well as asking your own.
• Reread favorite books. A familiar story frees a young child to think about meaning and join in.
• Play with sounds: rhymes, clapping the syllables in a name, counting the words in a short spoken sentence. These build the skills that later let a child read words on their own.

Ages 6 to 8 (grades 1 and 2):

• Keep reading aloud after your child can read alone. Books you read to them can be harder than the ones they read themselves, so they still meet rich words and ideas.
• When they read to you, let them sound out tricky words from left to right, then check that the word makes sense in the sentence.
• Take turns reading pages, or read a passage first and let them reread it, so they hear what smooth reading sounds like. Smooth does not mean fast.

Ages 8 to 11 (grades 3 to 5):

• Move from "what happened" to "why": what characters feel and want, and how one event leads to the next.
• Ask them to back up an answer with the book's words: "What part made you think that?"
• Read more nonfiction together. Knowing more about the world makes the next text easier.
• Talk about phrases that don't mean exactly what they say, like "her heart sank".

Ages 11 and up (middle school):

• Talk about what they are reading the way you would with an adult: what they thought, and what they disagreed with.
• For textbooks, show them how to turn each heading into a question and sum up each section in a sentence or two.
• Respect their choices. Graphic novels, sports writing and magazines are reading too.

For older students, a practice guide on adolescent literacy from the US Institute of Education Sciences recommends that schools teach vocabulary and comprehension strategies directly and give time for extended discussion of what texts mean. At home, discussion is the easiest part: ask real questions and listen to the answers.

Build vocabulary as you go

• When a new word comes up, give a child-friendly meaning straight away: "Enormous means really, really big." Then use it again yourself later that day.
• Ask about words in context: "The book says the dog was trembling. What do you think that means here?"
• As your child gets older, point out word parts: un- means not, so unhappy means not happy.
• Don't stop for every new word. One or two per session keeps the story moving.

Choosing books at the right level

Children need two kinds of books: ones they can read on their own fairly comfortably, and harder ones you read aloud together. If a book is full of unknown words and the reading is slow and choppy, save it for reading together, or for later.

One quick check, described by Reading Rockets, is the five finger rule. Your child reads a page and holds up a finger for each word they don't know or aren't sure of. Five or more suggests an easier book for reading alone. Interest matters as much as level, though. A child who loves sharks will work harder at a shark book than at a perfectly leveled story they find boring.

What not to do

• Don't turn every story into a test. A string of questions after every page makes reading feel like homework.
• Don't stop reading aloud just because your child can read alone.
• Don't correct every slip mid-sentence. If a mistake doesn't change the meaning, let it go. If it does, wait until the end of the sentence and ask, "Did that make sense?"
• Don't judge comprehension by speed. A child can read quickly and understand very little.
• Don't use reading as a punishment, or compare your child with siblings or classmates.

When to ask for help

Talk to your child's teacher if, over several weeks, you notice patterns like these:

• They can read the words aloud but cannot tell you what happened.
• They focus on small details and miss the main idea, or struggle to sum up what they read.
• Reading is so slow and effortful that they lose track of the story.
• They often guess words from the first letter or the pictures instead of sounding them out.
• They avoid reading, or reading homework regularly ends in tears.

Ask whether the difficulty is with reading the words, understanding them, or both, what you can practice at home, and whether extra help is available at school. If problems continue despite good teaching, you can ask for an evaluation. In the US, federal special education law (IDEA) lets a parent request an initial evaluation, and once you give consent it must be completed within 60 days or within your state's own timeframe. Put the request in writing. It is also worth having your child's hearing and vision checked.

A few minutes a day

Reading together for 15 minutes a day, with a couple of good questions, does more than an occasional long session. Keep it warm and unhurried, and let your child see you reading for pleasure too.

If you want short texts to practice with, Eurekami's free reading passages are original stories, articles and poems for every grade. Each one can be read aloud, has questions that are checked as your child answers, and prints as a worksheet with an answer key. For beginning readers, the free phonics and sight word pages cover the word-reading side. Whatever you use, the heart of it is the same: read together, talk about it, and keep it enjoyable.