Download your free printable homeschool reading comprehension curriculum guide here!
We all want children to be successful readers, and teaching reading comprehension is essential to their success. When you are homeschooling children, creating a reading comprehension curriculum is an essential learning building block.
Before creating your lesson plans, let’s briefly review the definition of reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is understanding more than the words on the page. It is understanding the author’s message and connecting it to something in our own lives.
While the concept of homeschool reading comprehension is quite vast, it doesn’t have to be complicated to teach. In fact, with the right resources, you and your child can enjoy the process of expanding understanding of the world through reading.
Evan-Moor has great resources for teaching reading comprehension for each reading level. Homeschoolers can easily put these together to build an effective homeschool reading comprehension curriculum!
You can choose any or all of these resources to supplement what you are already doing for reading or use them to build your own homeschool reading curriculum!
Warm up
If you are looking for 5–10 minutes of no-prep reading warm-up activities, Evan-Moor has a popular series of books that help kids use their reading comprehension skills in quick daily activities.
Daily Reading Comprehension is organized in weekly units to introduce your child to various reading comprehension strategies and skills.
It is a quick reading activity that can be done in just a few minutes each day with no prep!
These 30 weeks of daily activities can be used to quickly see what skills your child has mastered or might need to review.
Click here for a short video about the features of Daily Reading Comprehension.
Teach
It is important to teach your child to use the appropriate strategy for the type of reading s/he is doing.
Reading fiction and nonfiction requires different types of reading strategies, and teaching both will help your child become a more successful reader.
One time-saving method is to read a fiction and nonfiction book on the same topic – especially topics that your child finds interesting.
Evan-Moor’s Reading Paired Text is a terrific option for your child to practice comprehension strategies and skills while reading fiction and nonfiction material on the same topic.
Reading Paired Text offers ideas and suggested lesson plans to connect the two provided reading selections with engaging student activities.
Reading Informational Text teaches reading comprehension strategies specifically for reading nonfiction. The activities build strong nonfiction reading comprehension skills along with vocabulary, comprehension strategies, and writing activities.
One of my favorite features of Reading Informational Text is that the reading selections are labeled by difficulty. These reading selections have a “reading level.”
This is indicated by Guided Reading Level, which is represented by a letter of the alphabet. Levels begin with “A” and continue through the alphabet as the difficulty increases. This is very helpful, as most grade levels cover more than one reading level.
Practice and Extend
When it is time for your child to practice and extend his/her reading comprehension skills, Evan-Moor has some child-approved resources.
We like to use these reading comprehension curriculum resources for our independent workbox time.
Literature Pockets features inspirational ways to practice comprehension skills and strategies in children’s literature.
Each unit is listed by story or topic, so you can choose the unit that is appropriate for your child. These units can be completed in any order you wish!
The Literature Pockets activities include fun ways to respond to a wide variety of stories such as: Aesop’s Fables, Caldecott Winners, Fiction, Folktales & Fairy Tales, Greek & Roman Myths, Nonfiction, Nursery Rhymes, and Tall Tales.
Skill Sharpeners: Reading is a full-color activity workbook that gives your child extra practice in a fun format.
The workbook is organized by thematic units, so you can select the units that are right for your child.
Each unit also includes a “Test Your Skills” page that can be used as an informal way to assess your child’s knowledge.
My kids enjoy the short stories, and the bright, colorful pages truly do keep the kids more focused!
TeacherFileBox
In case you didn’t know, you can access all of these resources in Evan-Moor’s TeacherFileBox.
TeacherFileBox is a digital subscription to a collection of lessons from over 450 of Evan-Moor’s titles.
Using TeacherFileBox has made our homeschooling focused, simple, and effective. We homeschool in less time because the quality of the material reduces the need for lengthy practice.
TeacherFileBox is also very budget-friendly, with a monthly or annual subscription available. You can subscribe and get the first 30 days free. Or, Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op members can currently save $20 on an annual subscription.
If you would like our free printable homeschool reading curriculum guide, which features the resources in this blog post, you can download it here!
For additional guides by subject area, see Homeschool Curriculum Resources and Guides.
Which of these resources would you like to use most in your homeschool reading comprehension curriculum?
Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com.