How to Best Develop Reading Comprehension Skills

Join Teach Magically for time saving tips, advice, and support!

How to Best Develop Reading Comprehension Skills

Post author:Debora Marines
Post published:March 13, 2022
Post category:Content Area Studies / Seasonal Activities
Post comments:0 Comments

Develop Reading Comprehension with Folktales

I love reading folktales to the students so they can build reading comprehension. By discussing reading comprehension questions, you can help build the sense of story and develop reading comprehension skills! Many folktales are the basis for movies and books so kiddos need the background knowledge to build difficult reading comprehension skills. Discussions, vocabulary, and making connections happen with great stories; therefore, how you best develop reading comprehension skills is by ready great stories.

The very best thing that happens is when kiddos ask a question within the story either about an unknown vocabulary word or a connection with something in their lives. The natural conversations really help build comprehension skills. Click here to get FREE Comprehension Guide with questions to help guide your discussions.

Great stories make kiddos want to retell stories and hear them over and over! It’s so fun to hear them discuss the stories when we are at centers or a different times during the day.

Reading an Irish Folktale

The story Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato by one of my favorite authors, Tomie dePaola is one of my go to stories to develop comprehension. This great story has vocabulary, cool pictures, and the kiddos always laugh and discuss the crazy things that happen.

Click on the picture to find the book on Amazon.

You can also find a great video on YouTube.

Make an Art Connection

The students create shamrocks with tissue paper and gloss acrylic
First, place tissue paper on plain white paper and cover with gloss acrylic. Wait for it to dry. Trace shamrock shape on back with sharpie. Finally, cut along the black lines and turn over for a shiny shamrock.

Developing fine motor skills with an art connection for a story is always fun and purposeful. Click to grab a cutting reminder.

Develop Reading Comprehension with Technology

Kiddos can also choose Chatterpix to make the shamrock talk! It was so much fun to see the growth of language skills from the beginning of the year when we did shark reports. Click here to see the shark reports from the beginning of the year.

Check out the great “Talking Shamrock!”

Many of the students chose to retell the story as the shamrock. Encouraging retelling a great comprehension strategy. Click here to get a few great questions that I keep handy and send home to parents.