Fiction Comprehension for Small Groups

Focus on fiction comprehension with this collection of free, printable literature comprehension activities perfect for centers or small group work.

This is another free resource for teachers from The Curriculum Corner.

These fiction comprehension practice activities are a part of The Curriculum Corner’s Small Group Reading Instruction Toolkit.

You will find your reading fluency practice activities at the bottom of this post. Look for: Literature Comprehension.

How will these resources help?

We have created these resources so that you have some go-to comprehension activities and ideas. Using these, you will be ready for any of your small guided reading groups.

Simply print, cut out and laminate the items you feel you might use consistently with your groups and place them close to where you meet with your groups.  

It is our hope that having these things printed and ready will help to cut down on some of your planning time.

Resources within this Fiction Comprehension Collection:

Connection Cards

Use these so students can read and think of different types of connections to share during a discussion of the text.

Students will take a card and jot down some words that will help them remember their connections.  

Making Predictions Board

This poster is a place where students will put Post-its containing their predictions before or during stories in your small group.  

The predictions can be placed on the poster and then revisited throughout the reading of the story. Encourage students to confirm or revise predictions.

Author’s Purpose Poster

This poster can be used to help your students understand the different reasons authors might have for writing.

After initial instruction on author’s purpose, this poster can be used as a springboard for group discussions.

Questioning Mat

We always want to encourage our readers to ask questions as they read.

 Print and laminate these question mats. Have them available for students to record questions they may have.

Story Spinners

We have created two levels of spinners.

Choose the one that is best suited to the text and small group you are working with. 

Retelling Ladder

This page is a teaching tool and visual reminder of the things you want students to include in a retell of a story.  

We believe retells involve more detail than a simple summary. This ladder can be used to help students remember the parts they should include in a retell of a story.

Share Marks

This is a set of 9 bookmarks students can choose to use as they are reading the story independently.

Students can mark something funny, exciting, confusing, scary, etc.  

The idea is that once the group begins discussing the text, the students can use these share marks to remember their thoughts.

(We have left one of the bookmarks blank so that you can add your own share mark.)

“My Share” Cards

Use these Share Cards as a way to spark discussions in your small groups.

 Choose the ones that work well with the story you are reading.  

Place them face down in a stack.  

Each student chooses a card before reading and then prepares to answer the question during a discussion about the text.

Story Summary Sentence Frames 

Teaching students how to summarize stories can be difficult.  

Many students end up retelling the story and details, when we want them to be more general in their descriptions for summaries.  

We want to begin our teaching of summarizing by simplifying the skill as much as possible.  

Use these frames in your initial teaching of summarizing.  Model the sentence frames with several stories together to help students understand the difference between a retelling and a summary.

Two different formats are provided for your modeling.

Story Details Bookmarks for Fiction Comprehension

This is a set of five simple bookmarks that students can use as they read to signify & mark various story elements in the text.  

They can simply put the bookmarks into their books in order to share during a conference. Or, you can have them write more specifics about the story elements on the bookmarks.

I’m Stuck!

When we are working our way around our small groups to read with specific students, we want the rest of the group to be engaged in reading.  

Unfortunately, if students run into problems that can be difficult as they attempt to get our attention for help.  

This chart will give students reminders of what they might do until the teacher can help.  

Reading Job Cards

These jobs are meant to set a purpose for student reading.

They can also be a guide for a discussion after reading.  

Choose the cards that suit the story and students you are working with.

You can download the complete, free collection here:

• Literature Resources (color)
• Literature Resources (black & white)

Looking for additional small group reading resources? Start here:

Small Group Toolkit

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If you haven’t used highlighter tape like this, we highly suggest you check it out! It is great for when you want your students to highlight but they are using real books. (Contains affiliate link.) 

As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.