Why Reading Comprehension is Hard. Download this free sample of the reading comprehension worksheets to use with creating a summary. Elementary school students usually have a hard time responding to literature and being engaged in reading comprehension activities. This may be explained by a couple of reasons: Students who are still learning to decode put a lot of effort and attentional resources into reading the letters and words. It goes without saying that thinking beyond the code of text for emerging and beginner readers is often hard. Understanding the text beyond the code (letters, words, sentences) requires metacognition, or thinking about their own thinking. Elementary students just start developing their…