Reading Comprehension Activities for Australian Schools

Reading Comprehension Activities for Australian Primary Schools

Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading instruction. A student who can decode every word on the page but can't explain what they've read has not truly "read" the text. In the Australian Curriculum v9, comprehension sits at the heart of the Literacy strand — students are expected to understand, interpret, and evaluate texts of increasing complexity from Foundation through to Year 6 and beyond.

The challenge for teachers is that comprehension is not a single skill. It's a set of interrelated strategies — predicting, questioning, summarising, visualising, connecting, and inferring — that students must learn to apply flexibly across different text types and purposes. A student who comprehends a narrative well may struggle with an information report, and vice versa.

This page brings together practical comprehension strategies, year-level expectations aligned to the Australian Curriculum v9, and classroom-ready resources created by Australian teachers. Whether you're planning a guided reading session, setting up literacy rotations, or looking for comprehension passages for homework, you'll find what you need here.

Effective readers don't just read words — they actively think about text before, during, and after reading. Research consistently identifies six core comprehension strategies that good readers use. Teaching these strategies explicitly gives students a toolkit they can apply to any text.

1. Predicting

Predicting involves using clues from the title, cover, illustrations, headings, and prior knowledge to anticipate what a text will be about. Before reading, students might ask, "What do I think will happen?" During reading, they refine their predictions based on new information. Predicting keeps students engaged and gives them a purpose for reading.

2. Questioning

Good readers ask questions before, during, and after reading. These might be literal questions ("Where did the character go?"), inferential questions ("Why did she make that choice?"), or evaluative questions ("Is this a reliable source?"). Teaching students to generate their own questions — rather than only answering the teacher's — deepens engagement and comprehension.

3. Summarising

Summarising requires students to identify the most important ideas in a text and restate them in their own words. It's one of the hardest comprehension strategies because it demands that students distinguish between main ideas and supporting details. Start with short passages and gradually increase text length as students build confidence.

4. Visualising

Visualising means creating mental images while reading. When students "see" what's happening in a text, they engage more deeply with the content. This strategy is especially powerful for narrative texts — encourage students to picture the setting, characters, and action as they read. It also supports comprehension of descriptive information reports.

5. Connecting

Making connections means linking the text to prior knowledge and experience. There are three types:

• Text-to-self — connecting the text to personal experience
• Text-to-text — connecting the text to other books or texts
• Text-to-world — connecting the text to broader knowledge about the world

Connections help students make meaning from unfamiliar content by anchoring it to what they already know.

Strong oral language is a prerequisite for reading comprehension — students who struggle to understand spoken language will also struggle to understand written text. For ideas on building these foundational skills, see our oral language activities page.

6. Inferring

Inferring is reading "between the lines" — understanding what the author implies but doesn't explicitly state. It requires students to combine text clues with their own background knowledge to draw conclusions. Inferring is often the most difficult strategy for students because the answer isn't directly stated in the text.

The Australian Curriculum v9 sets clear expectations for what students should understand and be able to do with texts at each year level. Below is a summary of comprehension expectations from Foundation through Year 6.

Foundation (Prep/Kindy)

Students listen to and view short, simple texts and begin to identify the main idea. They retell familiar stories in sequence, answer literal questions ("Who was in the story?"), and make simple predictions based on the cover, title, and illustrations. At this stage, most comprehension work happens through read-alouds and shared reading rather than independent reading.

Year 1

Students read short, predictable texts and identify the main character, setting, and key events. They answer literal comprehension questions and begin to make simple inferences ("How do you think the character feels?"). They retell stories with a beginning, middle, and end, and start to identify the purpose of simple informational texts.

Year 2

Students read a wider range of texts including short chapter books and information reports. They identify the main idea and supporting details, make predictions and check them against the text, and sequence events accurately. They begin to compare characters and events across different texts and identify basic text structures (narrative, informational, procedural).

Year 3

Students read and comprehend longer, more complex texts across multiple genres. They summarise key points, distinguish between fact and opinion, and make inferences supported by text evidence. They identify how authors use language features to create meaning and begin to evaluate the reliability of information in non-fiction texts.

Year 4

Students analyse texts for purpose, audience, and structure. They identify how language choices influence the reader and recognise persuasive techniques. They make inferences and predictions supported by evidence from the text and their own knowledge. They compare how different texts represent the same topic or theme.

Year 5

Students critically analyse texts, evaluating the author's perspective and purpose. They identify bias and distinguish between fact and opinion in complex texts. They synthesise information from multiple sources, identify themes across texts, and analyse how language features contribute to meaning. They articulate and justify their interpretations using text evidence.

Year 6

Students evaluate texts for credibility, bias, and effectiveness. They analyse how authors use text structures and language features for specific purposes and audiences. They synthesise information across multiple complex texts, form and defend their own interpretations, and identify how cultural context influences meaning. By Year 6, students are expected to engage critically with texts across all curriculum areas, not just in English.

Knowing the strategies is one thing — embedding them into daily classroom practice is another. Here are practical approaches that Australian teachers use to build comprehension across the school day.

Before, During, and After Reading

Structure every reading session around three phases:

• Before reading: Activate prior knowledge, introduce key vocabulary, set a purpose for reading, and make predictions. This prepares students to engage with the text.
• During reading: Pause at key points to check understanding, ask questions, make connections, and revise predictions. Use sticky notes or reading journals for students to record their thinking.
• After reading: Summarise the text, discuss key ideas, answer comprehension questions, and reflect on whether predictions were confirmed. This consolidates understanding and builds metacognitive awareness.

Think-Alouds

Think-alouds are one of the most powerful tools for comprehension instruction. The teacher reads a text aloud and verbalises their thinking process: "I'm wondering why the character did that... I think it might be because... Let me read on to check." This makes invisible thinking visible and gives students a model for how skilled readers process text.

Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching is a structured group approach where students take turns leading a discussion using four strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarising. Each student takes on a role (Predictor, Questioner, Clarifier, Summariser) and the roles rotate with each section of text. It works well from Year 2 onwards and builds independence quickly.

Literature Circles

Literature circles give students ownership of their reading. Small groups read the same text and meet regularly to discuss it, with each student taking on a rotating role (Discussion Director, Connector, Summariser, Word Wizard, Illustrator). Literature circles build comprehension, discussion skills, and a love of reading simultaneously.

Comprehension Passages and Worksheets

Short comprehension passages with targeted questions are a staple of literacy rotations and homework. The most effective passages include a mix of:

• Literal questions — answers found directly in the text
• Inferential questions — answers that require reading between the lines
• Evaluative questions — answers that require the student to form and justify an opinion

Look for passages that use Australian contexts and are aligned to the text types students encounter in the Australian Curriculum.

Graphic Organisers

Graphic organisers help students organise their thinking visually. Useful organisers for comprehension include:

• Story maps — character, setting, problem, solution
• Venn diagrams — comparing two texts or characters
• Main idea and details charts — identifying key information
• Cause and effect diagrams — understanding relationships in informational texts
• Sequencing charts — ordering events

Reading comprehension develops over years, not weeks — and the single most impactful thing you can do at home is talk about books with your child.

Here are some practical ways to support comprehension at home:

• Read aloud together — even after your child can read independently. Read-alouds expose children to richer vocabulary and more complex sentence structures than they can access on their own, and the conversations you have about the text build comprehension naturally.
• Ask open-ended questions — instead of "Did you like the book?", try "Why do you think the character made that choice?" or "What would you have done differently?" Questions that require thinking — not just yes or no — build deeper understanding.
• Talk about non-fiction too — comprehension isn't just about stories. Discuss news articles, recipes, instruction manuals, and signs. These everyday texts help children apply comprehension strategies across different contexts.
• Don't worry if your child prefers "easy" books — children who choose books they enjoy will read more, and volume of reading is one of the strongest predictors of comprehension growth. Let them re-read favourites, too.
• If you're concerned, speak with your child's teacher early. Comprehension difficulties can look different from decoding difficulties — a child may read fluently aloud but not understand what they've read. The teacher can assess where the breakdown is happening.

For more on reading development, see our Reading Levels Chart to understand where your child sits, and our Decodable Readers page if your child is still building foundational decoding skills.