NEW AQA Paper 1A exam paper for LESS ABLE students: A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Designed for less able students at Key Stage 3 or 4, this is a practice exam paper for the NEW AQA English Language Paper 1A: Reading Fiction texts. Here, I have adapted an extract taken from Charles Dickens' classic novella, 'A Christmas Carol', simplifying vocabulary and sentencing so that the text is more accessible for pupils whose reading age is significantly lower than their chronological age. (I know it's a 19th C fiction text but it's just to practise the exam skills!)

I've also designed a series of SMART Notebook slides for whole-class interactive teaching of the workbook resource, Q by Q.

The format of the paper is as follows:

Q1 - the same
Q2 - cloze exercise focusing on how the writer uses language
Q3a - sequence a series of statements to show understanding of narrative events / structure
Q3b - cloze activity, modelling Q3 response, for pupils to complete.

I know that the new GCSE paper is untiered and students will not be given this level of support in the exam. However, this resource is intended to provide an appropriate point of access and opportunities for students whose literacy is a barrier to learning to practise the reading response skills demanded by this exam - and to support the teachers who have to deliver it!

I hope that it is of some use to you. I have produced other resources just like this one using extracts from Frankenstein, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Monkey's Paw, The Hobbit, The Sniper, The Pearl, Z for Zachariah, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Machine Gunners, Buddy, Skellig, Dracula and War of the Worlds.

NOTE: I've also uploaded loads of specimen new AQA Language Paper 1 and 2s to my 'shop', all available free of charge.

Please leave a review and help yourself!

Matt :)