Second-graders have many of the fundamental skills for reading under their belt. This is when second-grade teachers can dig a bit deeper into students' comprehension skills by engaging in reading comprehension activities. Getting creative, reading fun stories, and using a variety of texts (both nonfiction and fiction books included) will keep your students interested and excited to learn.
Throwing in a student's favorite chapter book or having them independently choose what to read can create excitement as well. Draw on the following awesome reading comprehension lessons to give your kids a boost in school and on their way to a lifetime of success.
Hands-On Comprehension Activities
1. Mark Up the Main Idea
Arm the kids with this reading comprehension worksheet that focuses on the main idea and key details. Read the comprehension passage together and answer the exercise questions. You can then move on to other grade-level comprehension passages to find the main idea and key details.
Learn More: K5 Learning
2. Compare-A-Character
This kid-friendly resource gets students thinking about the essential skill, characterization. In this comprehension exercise, the kids will write down what they learn about two of the main characters in the story. They will record the character's differences and similarities.
Learn More: Florida Center for Reading Research
3. Frank's Facts vs. Opie's Opinions
Use this worksheet to teach kids about facts vs. opinions. Have the students use their critical thinking skills to decide whether each statement is either one of Frank’s Facts or Opie’s Opinions. Use an F for fact and O for opinion.
Learn More: Education.com
4. Super Shutterbook Reading Response
Create a shutter book and choose what the kids need to review. There are many things to do with a shutter book, such as summarizing the story. The kids can practice fact vs. fiction or even setting. This engaging activity will be a hit as the kids get to be creative!
Learn More: Upper Elementary Snapshots
5. Comprehension Cootie Catcher for Story Elements
Have kids create this cootie catcher. (There are spots to add in your own questions in case the students need a refresher with other types of comprehension topics.) Pair up the students and have them review the story by answering the questions about story elements.
Learn More: Classroom Game Nook
6. Persuade, Inform, or Entertain?
Completing this activity will teach kids how to recognize the author’s purpose for a text. Print out the cards and have students place the cards that say “persuade,” “inform,” and “entertain” in a row. Then give them the passages and have them place them in the correct column.
Learn More: Florida Center For Reading Research
7. Creating Mind Movies
Share with the students that imagery revolves around their five senses. Then, spend some magical time reading them a story rich with imagery. Have them close their eyes and imagine what the story describes. Ask them questions about the characters and setting and have them explain what they imagined.
Learn More: Reading Rockets
8. Cause and Effect Match Up
Share with the students that imagery revolves around their five senses. Then, spend some magical time reading them a story rich with imagery. Have them close their eyes and imagine what the story describes. Ask them questions about the characters and setting and have them explain what they imagined.
Learn More: Reading Rockets
9. The Retelling Glove
Grab a light-colored glove and permanent marker. On each finger, either write out the story element or draw a picture as described in this activity. Take some read-aloud time and stop periodically to have them answer the questions based on each finger. This will help them practice retelling a story.
Learn More: Michigan State University College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
10. Fiction and Non-Fiction Review: Grab Some Books
Review whether a book is fiction or non-fiction with this activity. Grab some books of different genres and this printout. Have students either use the two larger cards and put each book under the correct genre or have them fill in the titles under the correct genre on the printout.
Learn More: Florida Center For Reading Research
11. Comic Creator
On a blank piece of paper, create three columns, evenly spaced (or print this template). Have students draw a scene from the book in each column. Give them some colored pencils, crayons, and markers, and allow them to get creative. Spend some one-on-one time discussing their choices for each scene.
Learn More: Reading Rockets
12. K-W-L Chart
Using this template (or create one that's similar), have students fill in the Know (K) and Want-to-Know (W) sections in reference to the text they are about to read. Next, read the text and have them fill in the Learned (L) section to see what they grasped from the text.
Learn More: Home Reading Helper
13. Prediction Worksheets
Before reading a book, the students will see the title of the book. Use this worksheet to practice predicting what a book will be about based on its title. Discuss their thoughts on why they chose their prediction.
Learn More: K5 Learning
14. Create a WANTED Poster
Talk about the "bad guy" in the story by having them create a WANTED poster. The students will use details from the story to fill in the poster with both a drawing of the character and some fun writing about why the character is "WANTED." Discuss the poster when finished.
Learn More: Education.com
15. Compare-A-Story
Have students make text-to-text connections by comparing stories using this graphic organizer. Use as many details as possible by thinking about the story elements. Fill in the similarities and the differences between the two stories.
Learn More: Florida Center for Reading Research
Reading Comprehension and Media!
Sometimes, it's hard to get your hands on the perfect comprehension stories and books, thankfully we live in an age where almost everything can be found online. Here are some amazing online activities that have already been completed for you! Save on planning time and spend more time enhancing your students learning with these videos.
16. The Dog and The Joey
Enhance and assess your student's context clue skills with this read-aloud. Read in small groups, as a whole class, or at home. Your students will be engaged throughout the entire story and will surely be excited to answer the questions at the end!
Learn more: Hype Math
17. Ask the W's
In this video, students will go on a journey with an experienced second-grade teacher, learning how to ask proper questions! Honestly, this video not only will be great for students to watch but also very helpful for teachers to get a little refresher on asking questions during comprehension.
Learn more: Hand 2 Mind
18. Story Elements
There's no doubt that teaching story elements isn't an easy task. It takes lots of repetition and visuals to drill story elements into a child's day-to-day thinking. Start or refresh your kiddos with this video in order to give them a different type of fun and engaging visual.
Learn more: Leigha Nunnally
19. Comprehension Read Aloud
My students absolutely love this story. It's engaging and always interesting for students to hear someone else reading to them. It's always important to introduce your kiddos to different styles of reading. This is a great way to see how well they do, listening and comprehending a story read in a different style than your own.
Learn more: Nicole's Speech & Language Consultations, LLC
20. Sparkle Tooth
Pull up this video on your student's Ipads or Chromebooks and have them read aloud to a partner or in small groups. This can also be used as an individual student assessment if desired. Listen to your students read the story for fluency and ask questions at the end to assess their comprehension.
Learn more: KidsEduc – Kids Educational Games
21. Visualize
Creating mental images is so important for students listening to and reading stories. It's important for students to understand exactly how to visualize before they can successfully apply this skill. In this video, students will learn the different ways to visualize. Follow it up with an activity solely focused on visualizing.
Learn more: Shannon McGilloway
22. Comprehension Strategies
Honestly, this is one of my favorite videos on the web. Use this video and imitate it in your classroom by making a poster of all of the different comprehension strategies, or watch it along with your class!
Learn more: Shannon McGilloway
23. I Am A Snail Poem
I Am A Snail is a poem written by an anonymous author, it is both engaging and great for practicing fluency. In this video, read with your students in a variety of repeated reading strategies that will help them to enhance their fluency.
Learn more: Astute Hoot
24. Good Morning Comprehension
This video provides a great start to the day! Reading in the morning will help your students get ready for the day. The Giving Tree is an extremely popular story and most likely you students will have read this book before. Making it even better for comprehension! If you already have this book in the classroom, use this video for some ideas on how to properly use it to boost comprehension.
Learn more: Speech Day with Tiana Mae
25. Character Understanding
Teaching students in 2nd grade to see from another character's point of view isn't always easy. Sometimes, it can take hours of planning and prep to make sure you get your point across. In this case, it's super important to revisit how to teach character understanding. This video will give an overview of exactly what students need to know!
Learn more: Hannah Braun
Sight Words
Are sight words important for student comprehension? Of course, they are! Being able to recognize grade-level sight words will help students to read more fluently. These words are meant to be remembered and immediately read, without students having to sound them out. Save time, and help your students read more fluently by integrating these strategies into your classroom.
26. Basic 2nd Grade Sight Words
Here is a video that reads with your students and helps them to read sight words! It's important for students to be able to read and understand these sight words. They are grade level and this is a perfect transition activity if there is a bit more time left at the end of a lesson.
Learn more: Read Kids
27. Make Your List!
This video can be used to make a list of sight words that are grade level. It can often be difficult to find grade-level sight words that aren't included within a program. If your school doesn't provide a spelling program, then create your own list using this video! During free time, have students follow along and read the words.
Learn more: GKL - Golden Kids Learning
28. Sight Word Songs
We all love a good song to incorporate into our classroom. This song may take some time to learn, but listening daily will help students with their listening and spelling comprehension. Break it down and learn it in pieces or have students go big and try to learn it all.
Learn more: Little Fox - Kids Songs and Stories
29. How to Teach Sight Words
If you're new to teaching younger students or just haven't sat down and looked at teaching sight words in a while, review the proper science behind teaching them with this video! Although it may not be a direct activity, it will surely help you to find activities that support the science behind teaching sight words.
Learn more: Susan Jones Teaching
30. Sight Word Memory
This sight word memory game will be so much fun for students! Save yourself some prep time and use it online or make up your own matching game! It might be beneficial to have students write down the words on flashcards while they're playing.
Learn more: Worldwall
31. Build These Words
This is a really fun activity for students in any classroom. I love to use this as a whole-group activity and have students guess the answers by raising their hands or working as teams. They love to join the leaderboard at the end of the lesson as well.
Learn more: Worldwall
32. Sight Word Bingo
There's nothing better than a quick little game of bingo! What a perfect way to call out the sight words, other than pulling up the Random Wheel on your smart board. Students will love to come up and spin the Random Wheel. While finding and marking the sight words on their Bingo cards.
Learn more: Worldwall
33. Color By Sight Word
My students absolutely love color by sight word. This website offers a variety of different sight words coloring sheets that may be perfect to bring into your classroom.
Learn more: Teach Starfall
Classroom Visuals
Making sure to hit each child's learning techniques is vital to a successful classroom. Having visuals set up throughout the classroom is great and necessary for any 2nd grade. Whether you create these together as a whole class or just read through them together, it will surely help students to grasp a better understanding of their reading comprehension skills.
34. Purchase Posters
Purchasing posters and creating an activity to go along with them is a great way to enhance student learning. Your students will love these colorful posters that will help teach them a few different comprehension tricks!
Learn more: Teachers Pay Teachers
35. Reading Wall
A reading word wall like this is both inviting and engaging. Adding this to your classroom will brighten it up and give students a visual board when they are stuck on a certain comprehension skill.
Learn more: Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits
36. Create a Focus Board
Although this is a high prep board, it's totally worth it! This can be a bit overwhelming in the first year of teaching, but once the words and different visualizations are created based on the curriculum, creating this board will become quite simple over the years.
Learn more: Life in First Grade
37. Retell the Story
This is an amazing visual that should really be integrated into any 2nd-grade classroom. Teaching beginning, middle, and end shouldn't be hard. Have this posted in the front of your classroom and students are sure to use it to help them confidently read through their reading passage or answer their comprehension questions.
Learn more: A Walk in the Chalk
38. Reading is Thinking
It's important to make sure that your students know the importance of thinking while reading. This will help them make connections to any comprehension passage. Therefore, having a poster like this displayed somewhere in the classroom, will help them to mark up their paper while reading and make connections.
Learn more: Teachers Pay Teachers
Pick-and-Choose
There are so many great resources out there when it comes to helping second-grade students with reading comprehension skills. Whichever activities you choose, be sure to ask students a lot of questions to help them through. As long as you can get a bit creative and mix up your lessons, the students will be engaged and learning.
25 Activities To Get To Know Your Elementary Students: Games, Art Projects, And Questions