Reading is a complex psychological activity which enables receiving the information in written form and its comprehension. The perception of signs has a major importance in the beginning of reading, but, as the child improves, it relies more on the content of reading. Enabling pupils in elementary school to realize and understand the facts in the text and the whole text, and to develop individual comprehension of the text, can significantly improve their school success, and , generally life success. It is of great importance for elementary school pupils to overcome all levels of reading, starting with remembering the shape of letters, connecting the letters and the sounds, recognizing the letters and their bonding in one unity, connecting words into sentences, learning the basic reading techniques, speed reading and reading to oneself with full comprehension of the read text. The aim of this paper is to explore the connection between understanding the read text and the general success of pupils. The survey includes 196 pupils of the fifth grade in Elementary schools „Huso Hodžić“, „1.mart“ and “9.septembar”. In this paper, several methods were used, such as theoretical analysis and descriptive method. Besides the research methods, two research techniques were used: testing and interviewing. Within the testing technique, the test of knowledge was used, so called „test of understanding the read text“. Considering the distribution of frequency and percentage in the contingency table, as well as the chi square value and the contingency coefficient, we can make a conclusion that there is a statistical connection between understanding the read text and school success at the end of the fourth grade.