Select an on-level book for the child to read. By selecting a book that is on the child's reading level, the frustration and loss of comprehension during decoding is resolved.
Assess the child's comprehension by having her read the book aloud for about a minute. At the end of the minute, ask her to restate what she read. Compare the retell to the material that was read.
Over several small and direct lessons, teach the child basic reading strategies, including making connections (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world), visualizing, questioning, inferring, determining importance and synthesizing. Teaching each of these strategies and then giving the child the opportunity to use the learned strategy allows further development of that skill. When the child has mastered all of these basic strategies, he will be able to understand an on-level text at a deeper level.
After teaching each strategy and giving the child a chance to practice, allow her the chance to recheck comprehension the same way as in Step 2.