First Day of School Reading Comprehension - Short Story Questions and Activities

Use this first day of school reading comprehension for short story question practice with activities included too. This pack includes 3 short stories for KS2.

Each story has a set of comprehension questions for KS2. There is also a set of questions about all the stories, allowing students to compare and contrast the characters across all three stories. It can be really hard to find short stories which really encompass all those complex first day of school feelings! Children may well find themselves nodding along with Kaitlynn’s, Gracey’s or Alberto’s stories (or perhaps even all three), as they empathize with their first day of school emotions! These two-page stories are short enough to be accessible, but long enough to be able to really get a feel for the characters and their situations. The three sets of questions (one for each story) are written to be standards-based. There is a focus on author perspective, inference and retrieval, comparing and contrasting characters and the main ideas of the stories.

Here’s what you’ll get:

-3 stories: colour and black and white versions
-3 sets of questions (one set per story), again in color and black and white
-Answers for all questions
-Set of questions about all three stories - colour and black and white
-Activity sheet about all three stories

Your class will love reading the fun first day of the new school year stories and getting to know the characters. You’ll love the assessment opportunity this will give you straight away. It’s a win-win!

One of the real benefits of this set of stories and comprehension questions is the fact that there’s also a set of questions about all three stories. This means there can be questions comparing and contrasting characters across stories with a similar theme. It can be really hard to find opportunities to do this, so there is a great chance to do this here.

What’s more, the two activities included also focus on the characters. Children must find similarities between two different characters. There is also an activity where they track the mood of a character of their choice. You may wish to give the children more than one copy of this worksheet so that they can cover even more characters.

Prep is no problem. Simply print the stories and questions, hand everything out and find out more about what your class knows.