Even in elementary school, I felt that reading comprehension tests were little more than exercises in restating the obvious. These tests often seemed to measure little more than our ability to regurgitate facts and details rather than allowing us to truly engage with the material. For me, the sign of good writing is if you find your own notions and preconceptions about reality challenged, or if you begin to ask fresh questions because of what you read.

When it comes to testing reading comprehension, I’ve always felt that the better exercise is to share what questions you had about the ideas and concepts in what you were assigned. It’s also crucial to decide if what you just read is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ writing; if it didn’t engage you, it’s important to understand why that is, because knowing this makes you a more active and discerning reader. Yet, all teachers wanted to do was grade you on your understanding of assigned passages, based on often seemingly arbitrary data points you were supposed to revisit.  

This is why we must shift the focus of reading comprehension tests to critical evaluation and personal engagement with the text. When I was faced with “critical thinking” questions even in the 90’s, I found them common sense and surface-level questions. Of course, I didn’t yet have the terminology to describe what I felt, but in retrospect, that’s why I didn’t feel engaged with what we were reading in school. So, this is likely even more true for my peers, none of whom were nearly the bookworm I was.

Great literature is meant to provoke thought and inspire curiosity. So, it’s crucial that when we read, especially during our formative years, we must be encouraged to question what we know and to expand our understanding of the world through the eyes of others. True critical thinking skills when we read must be something that’s instilled from our earliest days in education.

Yet, I grew up in many classrooms featuring multiple-choice quizzes on the main idea or supporting details. Instead, I believe students should be asked, “What new ideas did this passage spark for you?” or “How did this story challenge your previous beliefs?” Such an approach encourages students to enjoy a deeper connection to the text, making reading a productive and enlightening activity. 

Reading should be an active, dynamic process, rather than the passive one it often becomes in school. Such a paradigm shift in how reading comprehension is taught would drastically transform our education system. It would create a generation of thinkers and innovators unafraid to question the status quo and seek out new knowledge in unexpected places. 

Come to think of it, this is likely what schools don’t want: a world of independent thinkers that doesn’t need them to stay in school until their mid-twenties only to be saddled with crippling student debt. Apparently, we don’t want to bring back the idea that reading, writing, and basic arithmetic is all you need to be a functional member of society. But, this is precisely what this world needs in a world more overflowing with knowledge than ever before. So, here are three practical ways to implement this approach, not just in classrooms, but in our own individual reading, too.

1. Write down three questions that came to your mind while reading. These questions could be about the content itself, the author’s intent in writing the piece, or connections to your own experiences. For example, after reading a passage from a novel, you might ask, “Why did the protagonist make this choice?” or “How does this setting affect my own enjoyment of the story?”
2. Keep a journal for your thoughts while and directly after you read. Each entry doesn’t have to be lengthy, even just a question or two, or a brief observation. Never be afraid to ask ‘stupid’ or ‘wrong’ questions, What else is education for but learning how to find answers for our questions?
3. Put yourself in the shoes of the protagonist or author. For extra credit, ask yourself questions that require deeper analysis and critical thinking by either putting yourself in the shoes of the protagonist or the author. These questions could include “How would you have acted in the protagonist’s situation?” or “What alternative endings can you imagine for this story?” You could explore different outcomes for main characters based on their decisions within the narrative, or decide whether the story could (or even should) have been told from a different perspective or in a different setting.

I know that teachers are hamstrung considerably by increasingly strict government regulation on curricula. But outside of school, you have so much freedom in getting yourself ahead of the increasingly stunted growth curve of our world’s intellectual future. 

If you’re in education or you’re a parent, I implore you to consider these few thoughts I have about reading comprehension. If you’re neither, I still encourage you to take this advice and apply it to everything you read yourself. You’ll be ahead of pretty much everybody else who settled on only reading the bare minimum. Reading is the best way to further our own education, not just in subject matter we care about, but in learning how to think more critically and deeply. That’s a skill we need a lot more of in today’s world.

~ Amelia Desertsong

This is an updated version of an essay originally written on May 20, 2025.