Every parent knows the scene: your child sits with a book, their eyes moving diligently across the page. You ask, “What was that chapter about?” and are met with a shrug and a vague, “I don’t know… just some stuff that happened.” Or perhaps they ace the simple, fact-based questions but fall apart when asked why a character acted a certain way or what the author really meant.

This is the universal challenge of reading comprehension. It’s not about reading the words; it’s about understanding, interpreting, and engaging with the meaning behind them. For children facing the 11 Plus or other demanding exams, this skill is the difference between a good score and a great one. More importantly, it’s the foundation for all future learning, across every subject.

The good news is that comprehension is not an innate, fixed talent. It’s a set of muscles that can be strengthened with the right training. Moving beyond passive reading to active engagement is the key.

The Three Levels of Comprehension: What Exams Are Really Testing

To help a child, we must first understand what we’re asking them to do. Comprehension operates on three distinct levels, and exams like the 11 Plus deliberately test all of them:

1. Literal Comprehension (The “What”): This is the foundation. It involves understanding the facts and details explicitly stated in the text—the who, what, where, and when. What colour was the door? What is the main character’s name? While essential, staying on this level is not enough for success.
2. Inferential Comprehension (The “How” and “Why”): This is where true understanding begins. It requires the reader to read between the lines. They must combine clues from the text with their own knowledge to make inferences. How is the character feeling based on their actions? Why did the event happen? What do you think will happen next? This level builds critical thinking.
3. Evaluative Comprehension (The “So What”): This is the highest level, where the reader becomes a critic. It asks them to form their own opinions, analyse the author’s choices, and evaluate the text as a whole. What is the author’s message? Was the character’s decision a good one? How does this text compare to another you’ve read? This is the skill that separates functional readers from lifelong, critical thinkers.

Most comprehension struggles occur when children are stuck at the literal level, unable to make the leap to inference and evaluation.

The Toolkit for Success: Practical Strategies to Use at Home

Building these skills doesn’t require a teaching degree. It requires consistent, conversational practice. Integrate these strategies into your daily reading routine.

1. Master the Art of Prediction (The Before-Reading Strategy)
Before you even start reading, look at the title, the chapter headings, and any pictures. Ask your child:

• “Based on the title, what do you think this will be about?”
• “What kind of story is this? A mystery? An adventure?”
• “What do you already know about this topic?”

This activates their prior knowledge and sets a purpose for reading. They are no longer just decoding words; they are testing a hypothesis.

2. Ask “Why” and “How” Questions (The During-Reading Strategy)
Stop at natural breaks in the text—the end of a paragraph, a page, or a chapter. Ditch the simple “what happened?” and probe deeper with open-ended questions:

• “Why do you think the character said that?”
• “How did the setting contribute to the mood of that scene?”
• “What evidence in the text makes you think that?”
• “If you were in their shoes, what would you have done differently?”

This forces them to move beyond the literal and practice inferential thinking in real-time.

3. Develop the “Word Detective” Mindset
A single unfamiliar word can derail comprehension. Instead of immediately providing a definition, train your child to be a word detective. When they stumble on a new word, encourage them to:

• Look for Context Clues: Read the sentences before and after it. Are there synonyms, antonyms, or examples that hint at the meaning?
• Examine Word Structure: Does it have a familiar root word, prefix, or suffix? (e.g., uncomfortable, predictable).
  This strategy empowers them to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary independently, a crucial exam skill.

4. Create a Visual Representation
For many children, especially visual learners, transforming text into a diagram is a game-changer. This can be as simple as:

• A Story Mountain: Drawing a graph that tracks the plot’s exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution.
• A Character Web: Writing the main character’s name in a circle and drawing lines to their traits, motivations, and relationships, with evidence from the text.
• A Venn Diagram: Comparing two characters, settings, or even different books.

The act of creating a visual organises information and reveals relationships that can be missed in a linear read.

5. The Power of Summarisation
Being able to summarise is the ultimate test of comprehension. It requires a child to identify the main idea and the most crucial supporting details, while ignoring irrelevant information. After reading a section, ask them to:

• “Tell me what happened in two or three sentences.”
• “What was the most important thing we learned on this page?”

This is a difficult skill, so model it first. “Okay, I think the main thing that happened was that the character realised she had a problem she couldn’t solve alone.”

Connecting the Dots: The Vital Link to Creative Writing

It’s impossible to talk about advanced comprehension without mentioning its powerful counterpart: creative writing. The relationship is symbiotic.

When a child writes their own story, they are forced to make the same conscious choices they are trying to detect in published authors. They have to:

• Show, not tell an emotion, which makes them better at inferring emotion in their reading.
• Build a logical plot, which helps them understand and predict narrative structure.
• Develop a character with motives, which trains them to analyse character motivation in comprehension passages.

A child who has struggled to create a believable villain will have a much deeper understanding of a villain’s motives in a text. Encourage creative writing; it is, in essence, stealth comprehension training.

A Final Word for Parents: Building a Culture of Curiosity

The ultimate goal is to foster a mindset where English Reading Comprehension is an interactive conversation, not a passive chore. Your role is not to be an examiner, but a curious fellow reader. Model your own thinking out loud. “Wow, I wonder why the author described the house as ‘lonely’? That’s an interesting word choice.”

Be patient. Mastery of English Reading Comprehension is built brick by brick through consistent, low-pressure practice. By moving beyond the simple questions and embedding these strategies into your child’s reading life, you are doing more than just preparing them for the 11 Plus Exams. You are giving them the greatest gift of all: the ability to engage deeply with the world of ideas, to think critically, and to discover a lifelong love for the power of the written word that will endure long after the 11 Plus Exams are over.