How can you tell they’ve got it: Reading for Meaning?

If they’ve got it, you’ll see things like: Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer); reading comprehension research on comprehension-decoding separation. Or just try it together: If your child reads something aloud correctly but then can't tell you what it was about, do they recognise that reading means understanding — not just saying the words?

English English Thinking Ages 5–6

Reading for Meaning

Your child knows that reading means understanding the story — not just saying the words out loud correctly.

In curriculum terms

Understand that reading is about making meaning, not just saying words correctly — a text that can be decoded but not understood has not been read

Ages are typical, not deadlines — follow your child’s pace. How to help at home →

How to tell they’ve got it

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

Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer)
reading comprehension research on comprehension-decoding separation

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Try this together

If your child reads something aloud correctly but then can't tell you what it was about, do they recognise that reading means understanding — not just saying the words?

Where this sits on the map

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

Builds on

Feeling of not understandingages 6–7Understanding that reading means making meaning is the English-domain grounding of the universal habit of noticing when you don't understand

Reading for Meaningthis skill · ages 5–6

Unlocks

Monitoring Comprehensionages 6–8Noticing the gap between decoding and understanding requires first having the foundational idea that reading means making meaning

Connecting reading to experienceages 5–7Linking reading to personal experience depends on approaching reading as a meaning-making activity

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Where this fits in the official school curriculum — our best automated guess, not yet checked by a person.

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

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9E1LY05high 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

AC9E1LY04medium confidenceYear 1 · Literacy

read decodable and authentic texts using developing phonic knowledge, phrasing and fluency, and monitoring meaning using context and grammatical knowledge

AC9E1LY01medium confidenceYear 1 · Literacy

discuss different texts and identify some features that indicate their purposes

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

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

ENE-RECOM-01high confidenceEnglish K-10 · Early Stage 1

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2EFLY12medium confidenceEnglish · Foundation · Literacy strand

VC2E1LY12medium confidenceEnglish · Level 1 · Literacy strand

VC2E2LY07medium confidenceEnglish · Level 2 · 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

Monitoring Comprehensionages 6–8 Author's word choicesages 7–9 Inference vs Explicit Meaningages 7–9 Knowing What You Don't Knowages 8–10

All English Thinking skills →