JUNIPER'S CHRISTMAS Novel Study and Reading Comprehension BOOK COMPANION

A NOVEL STUDY and Reading Comprehension Unit for JUNIPER’S CHRISTMAS by Eoin Colfer.

This 77 page BOOK COMPANION is a highly engaging and comprehensive literature unit that allows your students to respond to a story by using a wide range of reading comprehension strategies and skills.

With comprehension questions and activities for each chapter, students will cover a wide range of the English Curriculum Standards in context.

The unit can be followed chapter by chapter, with no extra preparation or planning required by the teacher. Chapters have been grouped for comprehension questions as some chapters in this book are only one page long. Follow-up activities include a comprehension follow up and one to three extra literacy task for each group of chapters. The extra activities allow for students to demonstrate their understanding through tasks that require them to synthesise, analyse and apply, drawing from their understanding of the story.

The responses in the unit have been planned and arranged so that your students will practise a wide range of comprehension strategies in context. It has been designed to promote thinking and comprehension. Tasks can be completed independently, collaboratively or alongside a teacher. The unit has been planned so that over the course of the book, students will become familiar with and well-practised in using comprehension strategies to make meaning from text.

Activities include:

COMPREHENSION ACTIVITIES FOR EACH CHAPTER
Comprehension strategies - inference, prediction , visualizing, questioning, retrieving information, activating prior knowledge, making connections, summarizing, analyzing, synthesizing, understanding vocabulary in context.
Literacy Skills - sequencing, cause and effect, main idea and events, compare and contrast, point of view.
Story elements - character descriptions, character analysis, character emotions, character challenges, setting, plot, theme.
Book response - creative responses, critical thinking, partner discussion response, written responses.
Vocabulary - a focus on vocabulary words in context, word work.
Applying and Synthesising
Research - relevant to the story and children’s interests
Written tasks - using a range of genres as relevant to the story
Creative Thinking - engaging activities allowing student to apply their own knowledge and themes from the story to be creative.
Critical Thinking - using themes from the story to consider wider issues
Answers for comprehension questions included.
All activities have been designed with student engagement at the forefront. In responding to the book, students will be required to think both within and beyond the text. Children learn best when they are having fun! Even better that they are learning the love of books at the same time!

This product is not associated with this book’s author or publishing company. The book must be purchased separately in order to be used alongside this product.