NEWS STORIES WITH COMPREHENSIONS ON ELON MUSK, THE TERRACOTTA ARMY AND THE WORLD’s OLDEST MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE! These reading comprehensions will test your student’s reading skills as they explore three engaging news stories from March 2018. Using research skills and their reporter’s notebooks, the young journalists will find out about: The vandalism of a precious Chinese statue in Philadelphia The discovery of the world’s oldest message in a bottle The world’s most powerful rocket is successfully launched Each story comes with questions and answers, and will require students to summarise stories; think critically and recall facts. A template for a news story is also provided so children can write them up for themselves. A scaffold is included to show them how to fill in the boxes. Finally, posters are enclosed if you want to make the students’ work into a simple, effective display. As a journalist and teacher, it’s my passion that children should have an awareness of what is going on in the world through engaging reading material. CONTENTS 3: TERROR OF TERRACOTTA TREASURES 4: What is the Terracotta Army? 5: IT’S A RECORD BREAKER! World’s oldest message in a bottle. 6: ROCKET MAN! Elon Musk sends car into space. 7-10: Questions 11-14: Answers 15: How to write a newspaper article 16: Newspaper template 17-19: Posters for display

Find out about the mysteries of Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster. Discover the heartbreak of the tsunami and the sinking of the Titanic. Revisit the shooting of JFK and Apollo 13. Marvel at the miraculous escape of the miners in Chile. Find out why we have Christmas trees. Learn about soldiers stories from World War One…and much much more! This collection of reading activities are a selection of some of my favourites. I have put them together as a bigger collection to allow teachers to plan a whole year’s worth of reading comprehensions for their children. Each activity contains a range of challenging questions which test inference, deduction and retrieval skills – ideal preparation for reading assessments. Children are also given an indication of marks on offer for each question, and teachers are provided with answers. As with all of my reading activities, I try to make the subject matter informative as well as engaging. Children get the chance to find out about a whole range of interesting stories and topics that may not be covered in the curriculum. CONTENTS: 2 - 10 Stories of Survival 11 - 22 Mysteries of the World 23 - 30 Soldier’s Stories – World War One 31 - 36 The Queen and the Royal Family 37 – 42 Christmas 43 – 50 Days that made the world stop 51 – 74 Answers I have received excellent feedback, for which I am very grateful. This should give you confidence in the products I offer. Hope you enjoy these!

In December 2015, Star Wars - The Force Awakens was released and became the highest grossing movie at the box office in history. Star Wars is just one of several series of movie blockbusters - and the children in your class can find out all about them in this guided reading compilation! JAWS…STAR WARS…JAMES BOND…HARRY POTTER These guided reading activities, aimed at children aged 10-13 years old, test childrens’ retrieval, inference and deduction skills. Questions and answers are provided, with an indication of how many marks are on offer at the end of each question. This is particularly helpful for children preparing for reading tests and exams, encouraging them to give fuller answers where required. Your children will love finding out about the stories behind some of the world’s movie blockbusters!