Comprehension Questions to Ask Your Child

The most important part of reading with your child and listening to your child read
to you is to enjoy reading and enjoy the time spent together. You can also help your
child increase his/her reading comprehension by asking a few of the following
questions as he/she reads to you. Just choose 2 or 3 questions per night. The
next night, pick a few different questions from the list. You will help your child get
the most understanding of what he/she is reading.
1) Summarize the story in 3 sentences (beginning, middle, and end).
2) What is the topic of your book?
3) What is the authors purpose (persuade, inform, express, entertain = PIEE)?
Why? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.
4) What do you think is going to happen next (make a prediction)? Why? Use
evidence from the text to support your answer. Was your prediction correct?
5) Find any significant text features (e.g. tables, photographs with captions,
graphs; more prevalent in nonfiction texts). What does this picture tell you (look at
captions)?
6) Why do you think the author italicized bolded or underlined certain words in the
text?
7) Compare and contrast 2 characters in the story. How are they different? How
are they similar?
8) What is the setting in the story (where and when it takes place)?
9) What is the theme (authors message)?
10) Identify some causes and effects in the story.
11) Did you learn any new vocabulary? If so, what?
12) What is the main characters MAIN PROBLEM in the story? How would you
describe the main character (list some characteristics)?

13) How is the problem solved in the story?

14) What is the main idea of the story? (Or, what is the article MOSTLY about?)
Or, what BEST tells what the story is about?)
15) Retell the story in your own words.
16) Is this a fiction or nonfiction book? How can you tell?
17) What do you think the main character would MOST LIKELY do if?
(inferring/draw conclusions)
18) Why does the main character MOST LIKELY do?
19) What lesson does the main character learn by the end of the story?
20) What is the MOST LIKELY reason that ________ happened?
21) What did the main character do FIRST (sequencing)?
22) What would be another good title for this story? Why?

**Please check and make sure your child is reading books at his/her level. You can
use http://www.scholastic.com/bookwizard/ to see if the book is correct. A level
30 for DRA is the beginning of third grade level. Students should be at 34 by the
middle of third grade and 38 or 40 at the end of third grade.

**I also suggest having your child read aloud for 5-10 minutes every night. Make
sure child is practicing fluency (e.g. stopping at periods) and reading with
expression.