Reading Comprehension Activities
Reading comprehension activities help your child understand what they are reading. In school comprehension is tested in many ways. At home, you and your child can work on comprehension and the enjoyment of reading in many creative ways! I hope these reading comprehension activities will be a starting point for you and your child to having fun with what you are reading together.
Comic Strip ActivityBeing able to sequence the events of a story is an important part of understanding ehat your have been reading. This reading comprehension activity uses comic strips to help with sequencing skills.Cut a comic out of the newspaper. I often use the Sunday comics because they are larger and in color. Then, glue the comic to a sheet of construction paper. I would use a glue stick for even coverage of glue. Next, cut the segments apart, mix them up, and then have your child put them back in order. A fun variation of this would be to choose a comic that only has pictures and write a story to go along with it, or to white out the words and make up your own words for the characters. If you receive the newspaper during the week, you'll notice a storyline. Your child can also cut these out, glue them in a notebook and make their own small book. They can add a narrative to the story to make it more interesting. Have a Book Talk!The easiest activity for reading comprehension is to talk about what you have read.First, read the book with your child and then talk about the story. When talking about the story, use words from the story, this will help your child remember the story and understand the story better the next time you share it together. Second, relate something that happened in the story to an event in you and your child’s life. For example, say you just finished Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This story might remind you of the time one of you ate something that was too hot, too cold or just right. Maybe you went shopping for a bed and had to try a few before you found the one that was just right! Third, even if your child is reading chapter books, talk about the books as you read the chapters. Since you read these books over a longer period of time this will help them understand more about the book, for example with character development as the story progresses.
Here is a fun website with even more activities to enjoy with your child!
Fun Learning Activities for Children This user-friendly website is filled with plenty of fun and practical learning activities and teaching ideas to use as you grow alongside your child. Click here to find out how to make a Reading Comprehension Board Game! Writing ActivitiesAn important and fun reading comprehension activity is to write or draw about what your child has read. Here are some suggestions to get you started!You and your child could keep a journal while you are reading a book. In this journal, write down predictions of what you think will happen in the story and note in your journal if those predictions came true. Keep a character journal: Make a journal by folding a sheet of construction paper in half and then placing some notebook paper inside and stapling the folded edge. Choose a character from the story to write about, then after reading a chapter or a few pages, write about what happened in that chapter, relate it to a previous chapter, even make a prediction about what will happen in the next chapter. If you are reading an adventure, crumple the paper before you fold it to give it a leathery appearance. If you are reading a mystery, use one of those little notebooks with the spiral at the top and keep a record of the clues in the story as you read. It is also important to decorate the journal either with stickers or drawings, even in the journal have your child draw an important scene from the story and then write about it and why it was so important.
You can also take the journal concept and write the journal from another character’s point of view. For example, we know Goldilocks’ point of view about the story but what about the Bears’ point of view? What did Mama Bear think about this stranger coming in her home and making such a mess? What did Papa Bear think about it? How did Baby Bear feel when all his porridge was gone, his chair broken and his bed being slept in by a stranger? Questions like these can be discussed with your child; they can draw pictures about them, or write about them in a journal. Reading comprehension activities like these and others are to help your child understand and make connections with what they are reading either for school or for their own pleasure.
Click here to learn more about the parts of a story. I would love to know what you think about these ideas! For fluency ideas that will compliment these reading comprehension activities, click here. Click here for more Comprehension Tips. Click here for more Comprehension Ideas. Click here to see a list of reading comprehension books.
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