Reading Comprehension for Kids | Practice Reading Comprehension Skills and Learn 4 Key Strategies

**Reading Comprehension for Kids**

Do you ever find yourself getting sidetracked while you’re reading? Like, it’s hard to stay focused after a story is over. Do you ever wonder, “What did I just read?” The good news is you’re not alone; that happens to a lot of kids and even adults too. Understanding what you read is called reading comprehension. Did you know that there are skills that can help you understand what you read? In this video, you’ll learn some of those skills.

Let’s begin by reading this sentence together: “The happy dog ran after the cat who was chasing a bird.” Now, try to comprehend or understand what’s happening in this sentence by answering a few questions about it.

1. How does the dog feel?
2. What is the dog doing?
3. What is the cat doing?

Now, let’s take a look at our sentence again and see if we can answer those questions.

– How does the dog feel? The sentence describes the dog as “happy,” so the dog feels happy.
– What is the dog doing? The sentence says the happy dog “ran after the cat,” so the dog is running after the cat.
– What is the cat doing? The cat is “chasing the bird,” right? Great job!

When you’re able to answer questions about what you read, you’re understanding or comprehending what you’re reading. Reading comprehension skills are very important. Think of the game of basketball; there are individual skills needed to play that game, such as shooting, dribbling, and passing. All those skills are important and necessary to play the game successfully. Just like in basketball, there are many different skills that can help you with reading comprehension. These skills can help you learn the correct pronunciation of words as well as what they mean, instead of just reading words. They can help you think about what you’re reading and make connections between what you are reading and things you already know.

Let’s look at four reading comprehension skills:

1. **Ask Questions**: After you read something, ask some questions about what you just read. For example, where is the story taking place? Who is the main character? Are there any problems that this character has?

2. **Look for Details**: Find details in the story that answer your questions. You may have to reread some of the story to do this.

3. **Look for Clues**: Look for sentences or phrases that support your answers. This means finding evidence in the text that helps prove your answer is correct.

4. **Review Your Findings**: Go back and check your answers. Does what you wrote down make sense? If so, great! If not, no problem—just try again.

Now that you know some reading comprehension skills, let’s try using them in a reading comprehension exercise.

Let’s read this summary of the story “Jack and the Beanstalk”:

Jack is a poor boy who lives with his mom on a farm in a small village. She tells Jack to sell their only cow for food. Instead, Jack trades the cow for magic beans. Jack’s mom is very angry and says that the beans are not magic, but Jack plants the beans anyway. The next day, a huge beanstalk has grown in Jack’s yard. Jack climbs the tall beanstalk up and up until he discovers a huge castle at the top, sitting on a cloud. Jack enters the castle and finds a giant sleeping inside. He also finds a goose that lays golden eggs. Jack takes the goose, and the giant wakes up and chases Jack, telling him that he’s going to eat him. He chases Jack down the beanstalk, but Jack cuts the beanstalk down, and the giant falls. Jack and his mom are no longer poor because the goose now lays golden eggs for them.

Are you ready to use those skills we talked about? Grab a pencil and a piece of paper, and let’s get started.

First, let’s make a list of questions using the ones we listed earlier:

1. Where is the story taking place?
2. Who is the main character in the story?
3. Are there any problems that the main character has?

Now, let’s look for details in the story that help us answer those questions.

– **Where is the story taking place?** The story begins with “Jack is a poor boy who lives with his mom on a farm in a small village.” So, the answer is that Jack lives on a farm in a small village.

– **Who is the main character?** The first line states, “Jack is a poor boy who lives with his mom.” So, Jack is the main character.

– **Are there any problems that the main character has?** There are several problems: Jack is poor, they have to sell their only cow, and later, the giant chases Jack.

Now that we have answers to the questions, let’s look for clues that support those answers.

– **Who is the main character?** The title of the story is “Jack and the Beanstalk,” which is a good clue that Jack is the main character.

You can also look for clues to understand the other characters. For example, if you want to know if the giant is friendly or not, you could look back at the details in the story. If the giant is chasing Jack to eat him, that’s a clue that he isn’t friendly.

Sometimes questions about what you’ve read are easy because the answers are clearly shown in a sentence. Other times, a question requires a bit more digging, like asking if the giant was mean or kind. To find this answer, you had to use your reading comprehension skills and look for clues in the story about the giant’s behavior.

Now, let’s review your findings. This means looking back at your questions and answers to see if they make sense. Reading comprehension skills can be really useful, and there are more than just the four we talked about, like making predictions about a story. A prediction is a guess about what you think might happen in a story.

For example, you might predict that the dog is going to chase the cat because dogs like to chase cats. You might also predict that the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk” is not going to like that Jack stole his goose and is probably going to come after him.

Another useful reading comprehension skill is called cause and effect. If a cat teases a dog, the dog might chase the cat. The cat teasing the dog is the cause, and the dog chasing the cat is the effect. Similarly, Jack stealing the goose is the cause, and the effect is the giant running after him.

You can use cause and effect to help you make predictions about what will happen next and understand why a character reacts the way they do.

Reading comprehension skills can help you identify the main idea and details of a story. They can also help you understand what an author wants you to learn from that story. They can help you figure out what genre a story fits into, like a fairy tale, mystery, or fantasy, as well as whether a story is fiction or non-fiction.

Reading comprehension is not simply reading the words in a sentence; it involves using skills to help you understand the meaning of what you’re reading. If you keep practicing those skills, you will get better and better at understanding what you’re reading.

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