A Tail for Talia: A Modern Mermaid Text with Reading & Literacy Activities

This reading text is an extract from the beginning of my modern-day version of the Little Mermaid story. It begins when Talia receives a mysterious mermaid tail for her thirteenth birthday. Fabric mermaid tails are popular with young girls and teenagers, and I thought it would be fun to write a story which centres around one which actually turns out to be real!

To accompany the extract, I have included the following resources:

A set of reading comprehension questions, with an answer key

A plot sequencing task

Two creative writing tasks; complete the story & write a diary entry as Talia

There are also two questions for group discussion and suggestions for art work

The resource is aimed at upper primary classes. While mermaids are quite often more popular with girls than boys, one of the discussion questions does ask ‘How would the story be different if there were three brothers rather than three sisters?’

I hope you find this take on the Little Mermaid interesting and that your class will enjoy it reading it and carrying out the activities.