3 Step Reading Comprehension Lesson for Primary Grades

Welcome to part 2 of my blog series on optimizing your reading comprehension lesson with effective and meaningful instruction!

Want more of this reading comprehension blog series? Check them out at the links below or if you want all of this incredible info sent right to your inbox to use and save? Sign up for the email training here to gain access to all of the freebies associated with this blog series.

#1 Overview of all Comprehension Skills

#2 Three Steps to Scaffolding Lessons

#3 Interactive Think Alouds to Model Comprehension

#4 Using Picture Books to Practice Skills

#5 Comprehension Activities to Apply Reading Strategies

In this post, I am doing to dive into HOW to teach the comprehension reading strategies to the little minds and little hearts in your classroom.

Without further ado… let’s dive in!

My 3 step reading comprehension lesson progression is…

🔁 concrete connection

🖼️ photograph 

📃 text 

These do not all need to be done in one day, they can be phases of your unit, or each can be done a little bit each day. All depends on how your reading time is structured. What works best for me is to do a little each day because I prefer a shared reading and reading centers instructional approach.

📋 Reading Lesson Step #1: Concrete Connection

How was your dinner last night? If you had to rate it 1 to 10, what would it be?

You just evaluated in real life.

What would your students do if you came in wearing a clown costume?

You just predicted in real life.

Can you tell me what happened in the latest episode of your favorite show?

You just summarized in real life.

Ok, I’m sure you get the point now. Concrete connections are bringing an abstract reading strategy to life by grounding it in how we use it everyday. 

Ways I make a reading strategy concrete:

✔️ Associate the strategy with a character (when you put a face & name with something it helps kids remember it)

✔️ Hands on experience with a physical object or gesture that represents the strategy 

✔️ Discussions and activities to explain how the strategy is used in real life

 Let’s walk through this together with teaching making connections.

CHARACTER: Introducing… Connor the Connector!

Connor is a train conductor who is responsible for keeping the train cars attached and connected together to get to the destination efficiently.

Students need to keep all of their thoughts and ideas connected like the train cars as they chug along through a story. 

I even give them a theme song and bring in props or dress up as the character. 😊

🎁 You can get all the printables for your next reading comprehension lesson in these photographs for free here!

HANDS ON: Students can hold a toy chain, a train, or do a hand gesture to represent the links of the train cars together like the links of their experience connecting to the text.

For example, to make a chain with your hands- connect thumb and pointer finger on one hand, connect thumb and pointer finger on the other hand through the first finger chain link.

REAL LIFE: Here is a quick 3-5 minute introduction lesson I do before shared reading while teaching connections.

The goal is for students to explore how they use connections to make new friendships. We want students to see how the skill of making connections is used in real life situations.

You should find various images of kids around the age of your students. These pictures should show various activities or interests. Discuss different elements of the pictures such as location, objects that the children are holding, and images on clothes the children are wearing. Search for activities relatable to your students.

Guiding questions:

• Would you like to be friends with this person? Why or why not?
• Do you think you have anything in common with this person?
• Which picture shows someone you would like for a friend?
• Do any of these kids remind you of anyone you know?
• What are this person’s interests?

Students should make connections to themselves such as ”We would be friends because we both like basketball.”

Guide students to notice details in the picture and make connections of things that remind them of themselves. 

This can lead into talking about Connor the Connector and how he makes text to self connections.  

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📋 Reading Comprehension Lesson Step #2- Photographs

I use photographs as my next reading lesson for a couple of reasons. 📸

1️⃣ They are engaging.

2️⃣ They eliminate the barrier of decoding.

3️⃣ They have so many small details to notice.

🎁 You can get all the printables in these photographs for free here!

IDEAS FOR HOW TO USE PHOTOGRAPHS:

📸 The tricky part with photographs is printing them, right? Who has access to endless color ink? Not me! Some solutions are… displaying them on a tablet, computer screen, or large smart board screen.

📸 The photographs I do print, I laminate and use over and over for every skill I teach! Each time the kids get a fresh perspective- just space them out a few weeks.

📸 Students can use post it notes or recording sheets if they are working in partners or small groups to share their ideas with you. 

It is important to focus discussions with sentence frames. Students easily get distracted in conversations about a specific detail in the photograph and lose focus on applying the skill. Using the sentence frame seems to naturally redirect them to be practicing comprehension. 

“This reminds me of… because…”

Example- “This reminds me of my cousin’s birthday party because he had a blue cake too.”

Graphic organizers are also very helpful in a reading lesson to break down the thought process of the skill. The ones shown in the photograph below demonstrate a few ways I have my students notice the detail then stop to think about the type of connection they can make before they actually make it!

🎁 You can get all the printables in these photographs for free here!

📋 Reading Comprehension Lesson Step #3- Text

The final step in reading lesson is to use the comprehension skill in the text.. You know the READING part of the equation. 😆

EASE INTO IT.

Some of you might be thinking, “Becky, how much slower can we get than all of these steps,” but it is a big jump to go from photographs to a book. 

📚Start with a couple sentence paragraphs like in the task cards pictured above.

📚 Then, move to a short passage.

​​📚 Next, a longer passage.

📚 Finally, a PICTURE BOOK!

🎁 You can get all the printables in these photographs for free here!

Passages like the ones in the photograph above were specifically written to inspire connections. 

The graphic organizers that are below the short passages are the perfect segway from mastering the concrete aspect and what the comprehension strategy means to implementing it with text. 

Repeating this process for all of your reading skills will also help your students become familiar with and recognize each part. It is truly my favorite time of the year when they know so many of the Comprehension Crew characters that they are just casually referring to them by name while showing their deep understanding of the skill. 

So, what questions do you have? I love to chat about this so please let me know what I can clarify for you!

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🎁 You can get all the printables in these photographs for free here!