Reading Comprehension Lessons and the Common Core Standards
“The Common Core State Standards offer a focus for instruction each year and help ensure that students gain adequate exposure to a range of texts and tasks. Rigor is also infused through the requirement that students read increasingly complex texts through the grades. Students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.”
- Reading Standards for Literature K – 5, Common Core State Standards
“These standards are directed toward fostering students’ understanding and working knowledge of concepts of print, the alphabetic principle, and other basic conventions of the English writing system. These foundational skills are not an end in and of themselves; rather, they are necessary and important components of an effective, comprehensive reading program designed to develop proficient readers with the capacity to comprehend texts across a range of types and disciplines. Instruction should be differentiated: good readers will need much less practice with these concepts than struggling readers will. The point is to teach students what they need to learn and not what they already know—to discern when particular children or activities warrant more or less attention.”
- Reading Standards Foundational Skills K – 5, Common Core State Standards
Kindergarten
Reading Standards for Literature:
Key Ideas and Details
Standard: With Prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in the text.
Standard: With Prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details
Standard: With Prompting and support, identify characters, setting and major events in the story.
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Craft and Structure
Standard: Ask and answer questions about unknown words in the text.
Standard: Recognize Common types of texts (eg, storybooks, poems).
Standard: With Prompting and support,name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons: Important Words to Know and Understand
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: With Prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (eg: what moment in the story an illustration depicts).
Standard: With Prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
First Grade
Reading Standards for Literature:
Key Ideas and Details
Standard: Ask and answer questions about key details in the text.
Standard: Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson
Standard: Describe characters, setting and major events in a story, using key details.
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Craft and Structure
Standard: Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feeling or appeal to the senses.
Standard: Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading or a range of text types.
Standard: Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text.
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons for visualizing and understanding text structure
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting or events.
Standard: Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Second Grade
Reading Standards for Literature:
Key Ideas and Details
Standard: Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in text.
Standard: Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson or moral.
Standard: Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons for retelling ,asking questions, understanding text structure and identifying the author’s message
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Craft and Structure
Standard: Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song
Standard: Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.
Standard: Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons for understanding text structure and making inferences
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot
Standard: Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories and poetry, in the grades 2–3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Third Grade
Reading Standards for Literature:
Key Ideas and Details
Standard: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers
Standard: Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text
Standard: Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Craft and Structure
Standard: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language
Standard: Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections
Standard: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons: Important Words to Know and Understand
- Thinking through Reading Lessons for understanding text structure, identifying the author’s message and determining importance
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: Explain how specific aspects of a text’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g., create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting)
Standard: Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters (e.g., in books from a series)
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons for visualizing and making connections
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 2–3 text complexity band independently and proficiently
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Fourth Grade
Reading Standards for Literature:
Key Ideas and Details
Standard: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text
Standard:Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text
Standard: Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions)
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Craft and Structure
Standard:Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean)
Standard: Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text
Standard: Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons: Important Words to Know and Understand
- Thinking through Reading Lessons for making inferences, understanding text structure, and synthesizing
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text, identifying where each version reflects specific descriptions and directions in the text
Standard: Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics (e.g., opposition of good and evil) and patterns of events (e.g., the quest) in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard:By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, in the grades 4–5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Fifth Grade
Reading Standards for Literature:
Key Ideas and Details
Standard: Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text
Standard: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text
Standard: Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact)
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
Craft and Structure
Standard: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes
Standard: Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story, drama, or poem
Standard: Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons: Important Words to Know and Understand
- Thinking through Reading Lesson Plans
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem)
Standard: Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
- Thinking through Reading Lessons for visualizing, making connections, understanding text structure, synthesizing
- Classroom Materials: Genre Anchor Charts (member only material)
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently
Supporting Reading Comprehension Lesson Resources:
