Learning Map
EnglishEnglish Thinkingusually ages 6–8

Monitoring Comprehension

Notice the difference between decoding words and actually understanding them — recognise when you've read the words but not grasped the meaning, and do something about it

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

🖨 Print this page to keep the checklist — it prints beautifully.

Try this together

After your child reads a paragraph or listens to an explanation, do they notice when they haven't really understood it — rather than just carrying on as if they had?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on
Reading for Meaningages 5–6Noticing the gap between decoding and understanding requires first having the foundational idea that reading means making meaning
Feeling of not understandingages 6–7Noticing the decoding/understanding gap is the English-specific form of the universal comprehension-monitoring habit
Monitoring Comprehensionthis skill · ages 6–8
Unlocks
Author's word choicesages 7–9Recognising authorial effects requires reading for meaning rather than just decoding — you can only notice the effect of a word choice if you are genuinely engaging with meaning
Inference vs Explicit Meaningages 7–9Distinguishing literal from inferred requires first being able to monitor whether you have actually understood — you must notice comprehension before you can interrogate its source
Self-Correcting While Readingages 5–11Self-correcting while reading requires the awareness that decoding correctly is not the same as understanding

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Candidate matches to official curriculum codes — machine-suggested, unreviewed (v0.1).

Show candidate curriculum codes · 3 ACARA · 2 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9E4LY05medium confidenceYear 4 · Literacy

use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring and questioning to build literal and inferred meaning, to expand topic knowledge and ideas, and evaluate texts

AC9E1LY05medium confidenceYear 1 · Literacy

use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising and questioning when listening, viewing and reading to build literal and inferred meaning by drawing on vocabulary and growing knowledge of context and text structures

AC9E3LY05medium confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

use comprehension strategies when listening and viewing to build literal and inferred meaning, and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

EN1-RECOM-01high confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 1
EN2-RECOM-01high confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 2

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2EFLY12medium confidenceEnglish · Foundation · Literacy strand
VC2E4LY09medium confidenceEnglish · Level 4 · Literacy strand
VC2E3LY10medium confidenceEnglish · Level 3 · Literacy strand

These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.

Nearby on the map

All English Thinking skills →