Reading Comprehension – My Child Needs Help with Cause and Effect

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     Younger students may ask, ‘why is the grass green?’, or ‘why does it snow?’ 

     They may not understand it, but they are seeking causes.  A cause is a reason why something happens and an effect is a thing that happens.

     To understand what they are reading, students must identify causes of events and phenomenon.  Trying to understand cause and effect can be difficult for some students because they are required to sort out important events and then analyze related events to make assumptions about causes.

      Younger students are introduced to cause and effect relationships by simple sentences.  For example, the sentence, ‘I took too long to get dressed so I missed the bus,” contains a cause and an effect.  The cause is the person taking too long to get dressed.  The effect is that the person missed the bus.

     Older students are required to read entire paragraphs, sort out causes, and find their effects.  Quite often, the causes and effects are not in the same sentence.  Students must learn to identify the cause and seek the effect later on in the paragraph.

     As students become proficient at finding causes and effects in paragraphs, they are then exposed to finding causes and effects in themes and storylines.  This requires students to comprehend the entire text, determine the main causes that lead to the main effects.

     You can help your child to understand the process of cause and effect relationship by beginning with simple sentences.   Then have your child find the cause and effect relationship in paragraphs and then ultimately in the entire theme of the text.

     Understanding the cause and effect relationship is an important reading comprehension strategy.  Students will use this strategy when reading fiction and nonfiction.  Students can learn to determine the cause and effects of human relationships in narratives, natural phenomenon in science, and events in history.

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Tutorgiant.com provides Cause and Effect lessons with worksheets.

See some of the lessons in our video library.

CAUSE and EFFECT - Lesson (A) Introduction to Cause and Effect (Grades 1-3)

CAUSE and EFFECT - Lesson (B) Junior (Grades 4-6)

CAUSE and EFFECT - Lesson (C) Intermediate (Grades 7-8)