Reading comprehension - Mass whale stranding in New Zealand, Feb 2017

Relevant, topical and engaging.

This reading comprehension will test your students’ reading skills as they explore an engaging news story from February 2017. Using research skills and their reporter’s notebook, the young journalists will find out about the sad story of the pilot whales that got stranded on Farewell Spit, New Zealand in February 2017. It was one of the largest whale strandings in recorded history, and hundreds of people tried in vain to help.

Your students will establish the facts of the story; find out all about pilot whales and work out why it might have happened.

This is part of a bigger pack of news stories, which can be found in my store.

IN THE NEWS, February 2017

This pack includes the story about the Australian farmer, Dan Miller, who survived for five hours with his nose above the surface of the water after being trapped beneath a digger in Australia; and the story about the discovery of a World War Two bomb in Thesalonica, Greece, which led to the evacuation of 75,000 people.

Each story comes with questions and answers, and will require students to check dictionaries; summarise stories; think critically; retrieve facts; and prioritise statements.

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.