Understanding reading comprehension

As children learn to read they are able to decode the text by orchestrating a range of cues. To become fluent readers they must also understand or comprehend what they read. To help them do this they need to be taught a range of reading comprehension strategies and be encouraged to reflect on their own understanding and learning. Such an approach helps children go beyond literal interpretation and recall to explore the complex meanings of a text using inference and deduction. They can begin to learn these strategies from the earliest stages of learning to read.

These three leaflets will help you to understand how readers make sense of what they read, review the research evidence and suggest ways to teach reading comprehension strategies. They also contain ideas for practical activities to use in the classroom.