Introduction

Your child can read the words on the page, but when you ask what happened in the story or what the passage meant, they struggle to explain it. They may forget important details, rush through the text, or understand individual sentences without connecting the bigger idea. For many parents, this raises an important question: How can I help my child with reading comprehension when they seem able to read?

Reading and understanding are related, but they are not exactly the same skill. A child may be able to recognize and read words while still needing support with vocabulary, making connections, identifying key ideas, visualizing information or remembering what they have read. For families in Montreal, recognizing where comprehension begins to break down is an important first step toward choosing strategies and support that match the child’s needs.

Why Do Some Children Struggle With Reading Comprehension?

Reading comprehension involves more than recognizing or sounding out words. A child also needs to understand vocabulary, connect ideas, use background knowledge, remember relevant information and make sense of what the author is communicating. This means reading comprehension problems can look different from one child to another. For example, a student may:

• read accurately but struggle to explain what they just read
• remember individual details but miss the main idea
• understand familiar topics but struggle when vocabulary becomes more complex
• have difficulty making inferences or understanding information that is not directly stated
• lose track of earlier information as a passage becomes longer
• spend so much effort decoding words that less attention is available for understanding meaning

Attention, working memory, language skills, decoding difficulties and learning differences can all influence comprehension. The important step is identifying which part of the reading process is creating difficulty for the individual child, rather than assuming every comprehension problem has the same cause.

A Structured Approach to Building Reading Comprehension

Once the source of the difficulty is clearer, reading support can focus on the specific skills the student needs rather than simply asking them to read more. Depending on the child, this may involve several areas working together:

• Strengthen accurate reading: When decoding is difficult, practising sound-symbol relationships and increasingly complex words can help make reading more fluent and leave more attention available for meaning.
• Build vocabulary and background knowledge: Understanding unfamiliar words and having enough context about a topic can make a passage much easier to follow.
• Teach comprehension strategies directly: Students can learn to pause, ask questions, identify important information, make predictions, summarize what they have read and check whether the text still makes sense.
• Create mental images while reading: Learning to visualize what a passage describes can help some students connect details and develop a clearer understanding of the whole text.
• Model the thinking process: A parent, teacher or specialist can demonstrate how an experienced reader pauses, notices confusion, makes connections and works through meaning while reading.
• Practise in manageable sections: Shorter passages allow students to practise one strategy at a time and receive feedback before moving to more complex material.

How Parents Can Help Improve Reading Comprehension at Home

Parents can play an important role in helping children build stronger reading comprehension skills at home. The goal is not simply to have your child read more pages, but to encourage them to stop, think about the text and check whether they actually understand what they are reading.

A few simple strategies can help:

• Pause and ask questions: Ask who, what, when, why and how questions as you read together.
• Ask your child to retell: After a short section, have them explain what happened or summarize the main idea in their own words.
• Build vocabulary: Pause at unfamiliar words and use the sentence or surrounding text to work out their meaning.
• Make connections: Connect the text with something your child has experienced, learned at school or read previously.
• Practise visualization: Ask your child what they picture in their mind while reading and which details from the text helped create that image.
• Check understanding: Encourage your child to notice when something stops making sense and go back to the part where they became confused.

Keep reading sessions manageable and use a mix of fiction, nonfiction and age-appropriate material that interests your child. The best way to improve reading comprehension will depend on where the difficulty occurs, so pay attention to patterns rather than simply increasing reading time.

If your child continues to struggle despite regular practice, a more structured reading intervention program may help identify and work on the specific reading skills that need support.

Reading Comprehension and ADHD

Children with ADHD may experience additional challenges with reading comprehension, particularly when maintaining attention, remembering information or connecting ideas across a longer passage becomes difficult. A child may be able to read the words accurately but reach the end of a paragraph without remembering enough information to explain what it meant. Longer passages can become increasingly difficult when new details need to be connected with information introduced earlier. Parents can try strategies such as:

• reading shorter sections before pausing
• setting a clear purpose before reading
• highlighting or noting important details
• using graphic organizers to connect information
• asking the child to summarize each section
• creating a mental image of what the text describes
• using planned breaks during longer reading periods

For children with ADHD, effective reading comprehension strategies should make it easier to maintain meaning throughout the text rather than simply requiring the child to reread the same passage repeatedly. If attention and executive-function difficulties are affecting reading alongside other areas of schoolwork, ADHD-specific academic support may also need to be considered separately from reading tutoring.

Reading Comprehension and Dyslexia

Children with dyslexia may experience difficulty with reading accuracy, fluency and decoding. When considerable effort is required to identify and read individual words, less attention may be available for understanding the meaning of the passage. This is why reading support should distinguish between decoding difficulties and reading comprehension difficulties rather than treating every reading problem in the same way.

For students who need support with foundational reading skills, structured reading intervention programs can focus on areas such as decoding, phonemic awareness, reading accuracy and fluency. At the same time, comprehension should continue to develop through vocabulary work, discussion, retelling, visualization and direct comprehension strategies. As decoding becomes more accurate and efficient, students can devote more attention to understanding, connecting and remembering what they read.

When Should You Consider Reading Tutoring or Comprehension Support?

Some children improve with consistent reading practice and support at home. However, when reading comprehension problems continue over time, it may be useful to identify exactly where the reading process is breaking down. Consider additional support if your child consistently:

• reads words accurately but struggles to explain what they have read
• cannot identify the main idea or important details
• has difficulty retelling a short passage
• struggles to make inferences or connect ideas
• forgets information shortly after reading it
• avoids reading because it has become frustrating
• struggles with increasingly complex school texts
• continues to have difficulty despite regular support at home

The type of support should match the difficulty. If your child struggles primarily with decoding, reading accuracy or fluency, a structured reading program or reading tutoring approach may be appropriate.

If your child can read the words but struggles to visualize information, understand language, connect ideas or explain the meaning of what they have read, the difficulty may be more specifically related to comprehension. A Visualizing and Verbalizing program focuses on developing concept imagery to support language comprehension and thinking, helping students create mental representations of what they read or hear and put that understanding into words.

Helping Your Child Become a Stronger, More Confident Reader

Reading comprehension develops when children learn to do more than recognize words on a page. They need to connect ideas, build vocabulary, visualize information, identify important details and recognize when something they have read does not make sense.

For some children, regular practice and the right strategies at home can make a meaningful difference. Others may need more structured reading tutoring or a reading intervention program to strengthen foundational reading skills. When a child can read the words but continues to struggle with understanding and explaining what they have read, a Visualizing and Verbalizing program may provide more targeted support for language comprehension.

The important step is understanding where your child is struggling and matching the support to that specific need rather than treating every reading difficulty in the same way.

Strategic Learning Clinic works with children and families in Montreal who need support with reading and comprehension. If you are unsure which type of support is appropriate for your child, our team can help you understand the available options.