Kindergarten · Reading · RL.K.1, RL.K.2

Reading Comprehension Lesson Plan for Kindergarten

A ready-to-teach reading comprehension lesson for Kindergarten, built around listening to and reading short texts, answering questions about key details, predicting what happens next and drawing to show understanding. Print the plan, print the practice pages, and you are set.

Approximately 47 minutes

Learning objective

Read and comprehend reading comprehension passages independently
Build reading comprehension vocabulary and fluency at the Kindergarten level
Apply key reading strategies through reading comprehension practice

Materials

Cause and effect - Umbrella
What Makes Me Happy - Draw & Write Worksheet
Reading Exercises
Reading Sentences
Children Stories
Leveled Stories
Pencils, and whiteboard space for the modeled examples

Lesson steps

1. Build the background (5 min)
Connect reading comprehension to a book the class already finished. Prior knowledge is doing most of the work in comprehension, so spend the time here.
2. Read aloud and think aloud (I do) (10 min)
Read a short passage aloud and stop twice to narrate your own thinking about reading comprehension. Students are learning the move, not the answer.
3. Guided practice (we do) (12 min)
Read a second passage together. This time students find the evidence and you record it. Push every answer back to the text with "what words told you that?"
4. Independent practice (you do) (15 min)
Hand out "Cause and effect - Umbrella". Students read and answer on their own. Circulate and ask individuals to point to the line in the text that supports their answer.
5. Share and close (5 min)
Two or three students share an answer and the evidence behind it. Restate reading comprehension one final time in the students' own words, not yours.

Check for understanding

Ask each student to point to the evidence in the text for one of their answers. A student who has the right answer but cannot find the line has not yet learned reading comprehension.

Differentiation

Extra support. Students who stall: pull them into a small group and rebuild reading comprehension with concrete materials or a simpler text before asking for the written work again. Do not send the page home as homework, it will just rehearse the misunderstanding.

Extension. Students who finish early: ask them to write their own reading comprehension problem for a partner to solve, then check the partner's work. Creating a problem is harder than solving one and it surfaces whether they really understand reading comprehension.

Skills covered in this lesson

Reading Comprehension · Exercises · Reading Sentences · Childrens Story · Leveled Stories · Paragraphs Passages · Draw and Write · Reading fluency · Predictions

Questions teachers ask about teaching reading comprehension

How do kindergartners build reading comprehension?

Mostly by listening and talking. When an adult reads a story aloud and asks who, what and where questions, the child practices the same thinking used later in independent reading (CCSS RL.K.1). Answering with a circled picture or a drawing lets children show what they understood before they can write much.

What does a kindergarten predictions worksheet look like?

An adult reads two short stories aloud, such as Ben planting a seed or Mom putting on oven mitts when the timer beeps. The child circles the picture of what will happen next and tells a grown-up which clue helped.

What are draw and write comprehension pages?

Each one has a short passage on one topic, three questions and a space to draw and write about it. Children can answer aloud while an adult writes, or write a word or two themselves.