The aim of this paper is to explicate the structures and levels of reading the expository texts at the elementary schools. The structures and levels of reading the expository texts can be classified into 2 kinds and 4 levels as follows: Structure I (Reading the texts literally), Structure II (Reading the texts critically); and level 1 (Reading the contents of the texts literally), level 2 (Reading the logical structure of the texts literally), level 3 (Reading the contents of the texts critically), and level 4 (Reading the logical structureb of the texts critically). In many classrooms, ‘Understanding' means the reading of the text at level 1 or level 2, but to become independent readers, children should read the text critically, as they do in the daily lives outside the Japanese language classrooms and schools which mean ‘authentic situation'. In this paper, I have proposed some methods to improve the qualities of reading the texts.