Ask the child basic questions about what happened in the story. These types of questions are referred to as "recall questions." Recall questions include things such as: Who is the main character? What is her name? Her age? Where does this story take place? What are two events that happen in the story? How does the story end?
Review narrative terms. Discuss the definition of character, setting, main idea, supporting details and plot. When asking questions about a story, use narrative vocabulary. Also, ask questions that require higher order thinking, such as, "Why would the main character do this?" or "Can you predict how the story will end?" Lucy McCormick Calkins, author of "The Art of Teaching Reading," suggests questions such as, "What does the author want us to figure out?" to teach inference through context clues. She advises parents to model first by making an inference after reading a page and then later, inviting the child to do the same.
Read a sentence or paragraph with the child and then ask her to visualize what she just heard. Ask details about her visualization. For instance, "You see a cat in a basket? What color is the cat? How big is the basket? Where is the basket? What is the cat doing in the basket?" Asking the child to visualize in detail will help her make sense of what she has just heard. Eventually, this is what she will do independently after reading.
Ask questions not only about books and stories, but about TV shows, conversations, movies, poems, songs, and newspaper and magazine articles. Reading comprehension is not just about stories, but about everything that must be understood and analyzed. This includes all social interactions as well. For example, after a phone conversation, ask the child, "Why did that person call? Did she get what she needed from the phone call?" Use every opportunity to ask recall and higher order thinking questions.