I love making resources that take concepts from the curriculum, and express them in an abstract and engaging way. I have seen great improvements in the grades of the children in the classes as I teach as a result of this labour intensive (but ultimately rewarding) approach.
My big passion is reading. Whether it is a comprehension activity or something with a maths or grammar focus; you can guarantee that reading skills to develop understanding will underpin it.
Richard
Reading for Success
I love making resources that take concepts from the curriculum, and express them in an abstract and engaging way. I have seen great improvements in the grades of the children in the classes as I teach as a result of this labour intensive (but ultimately rewarding) approach.
My big passion is reading. Whether it is a comprehension activity or something with a maths or grammar focus; you can guarantee that reading skills to develop understanding will underpin it.
Richard
Reading for Success
The Paris Olympics will bring the world together for a festival of sport in 2024.
In these reading comprehensions, your students will get to find out about some of the stories about the Olympics.
Find out about:
THE OLYMPICS IN PARIS
THE OLYMPICS IN ANCIENT GREECE
THE HISTORY OF THE MODERN OLYMPICS
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.
As with all of my reading exercises, I try to write content that is interesting and engaging - stories that may not be on the curriculum, but are important for children to know.
Your students will develop reading comprehension skills through a range of retrieval and inference questions, using skills to skim and scan the text. There are also word meaning and text summary questions in the activities.
Just print and go…no prep needed!
Please note - one of the comprehensions here is available as an individual activity. Check my store if you just want one comprehension!***
Who will be the next President of the United States? Will Donald Trump continue for a second term? Or will veteran Democrat Joe Biden beat him to the White House?
These reading comprehension activities, ideal for close reading, will help your students find out about the candidates for the 2020 US presidential election.
Your students will develop reading comprehension skills through a range of retrieval and inference questions, using skills to skim and scan the text. There are also word meaning and text summary questions in the activities.
Just print and go…no prep needed!
I have also included a black and white version of the product to avoid the costs of colour graphics printing,
Thanks for your interest!
AMUSING, ENTERTAINING AND EDUCATIONAL!
These reading comprehensions will test your students’ reading skills as they explore the four greatest April Fools of all time, as ranked by the Museum of Hoaxes. Using research skills and their reporter’s notebooks, the young journalists will find out about:
Spaghetti growing on trees in Switzerland
A fake volcanic eruption in Alaska
Instant Colour TV in Sweden
An iceberg in Sydney Harbour
Each story comes with questions and answers, and will require students to check dictionaries; summarise stories; think critically; retrieve facts; and prioritise statements. They will also generate lively and fun classroom discussion. Would your students fall for these pranks? Can they come up with anything better?
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: SWISS SPAGHETTI HARVEST
4: INSTANT COLOUR TV
5: ERUPTION OF MOUNT EDGECUMBE
6: THE SYDNEY ICEBERG
7-10: Questions
11-14: Answers
15: How to write a newspaper article
16: Newspaper template
17-20: Posters for display
Who is Greta Thunberg?
What is Climate Change?
This pair of reading comprehension activities, ideal for guided reading, are will help your students find out about the teenager who has made the world aware of climate change.
Your students will develop reading comprehension skills through a range of retrieval and inference questions, using skills to skim and scan the text.
In particular, they will learn about:
Greta Thunberg
What is climate change?
What causes it?
What can be done about it?
Just print and go…no prep needed! Answers are provided.
I have also included a black and white version of the product on pages to avoid the costs of colour graphics printing - something I’m sure Greta would approve of!
This activity is part of a set that that I am currently putting together:
Girls who Dare to be Different
Thanks for your interest!
Who will win the 2019 Rugby World Cup?
This reading comprehension activity is aimed at 8-13 year-olds, and focuses on the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
Your students will develop reading comprehension skills through a range of retrieval and inference questions, using skills to skim and scan the text.
In particular, they will learn about:
The history of the tournament
The favourites for to win in 2019
The World Cup trophy
The chances of the United States*
Answers are included.
I have also included a black and white version of the product on pages 5-7 to avoid the costs of colour graphics printing.
Thanks for your interest!
Here is a bundle of my ‘In The News’ stories.
Your students take the role of journalists researching and writing avout the stories involved, which feature April Fools; Elon Musk’s rocket car; the Terracotta Army; and the world’s oldest message in a bottle.
Students start by using reading comprehension skills to read the stories, and can use this as a model to write their own stories.
Highly engaging as a reading, writing or whole class literacy project.
Here is a bundle of five of my bestselling products looking at the following sporting events:
The Olympics
The Winter Olympics
The World Cup
In total, there are sixteen reading comprhehensions exploring the history of these sporting festivals, as well as looking at recent sporting stars like Usain Bolt, Simone Biles and Lionel Messi.
There is a big saving on offer for this bundle - ideal for those readers in your class who love sport!
This guided reading resource includes a pair of texts about Antarctica with four comprehension skills sheets to complete, providing reading passages and questions that are challenging and engaging.
Using the ‘LIMS’ approach, students work through Literal, Inference, Meaning and Summary questions to ensure that in the course of a week, they have practised skills in reading right across the Common Core.
Text is differentiated and an answer scheme is provided.
Suggested itinerary:
Day 1 (30 mins) – Read both texts as a class. Highlight key parts. Discuss together. What have we learned? What do we want know more about? It is worth asking the students to write down any questions they have about the texts and putting them on display.
Day 2 (30 mins) – Literal sheet
Day 3 (30 mins) – Inference sheet (or meaning sheet if you prefer)
Day 4 (30 mins) – Meaning sheet (or inference sheet if you prefer)
Day 5 (45 mins) – Summary sheet and looking back at questions from the start of the week.
This is the first in a series of Paired text resources looking at the seven continents of the world. Keep an eye on my store.
**
Differentiation:**
All questions are the same, which should make marking easier! However, the texts differ, with asterisks in the bottom right corner indicating the reading level.
Reading Comprehension Package for Qatar World Cup, with four individual activities.
Whether you love soccer or not, the World Cup will dominate the headlines in the coming weeks.
This collection of four guided reading activities, aimed at 9 to 14 year olds, tests children’s comprehension, retrieval, inference and deduction skills. There are also questions on word meaning. It will promote lively and engaging classroom discussion as children decide for themselves who will win the World Cup 2022, and indeed, if the tournament should be taking place at all!
Each activity has questions and answers, 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.
Contents
The World Cup 2022
General information about the World Cup in Qatar and the history of the tournament.
Qatar 2022: Controversies
A look at why the hosting of the World Cup to Qatar has led to much criticism.
Heroes & Villains
I’ve chosen six players from previous tournaments, but who are the heroes and villains, and why?
Do you know?
From an oracle octopus to a dog that found the world cup, here are a few quirky stories from World Cup history!
Have you ever wondered how far Mary and Joseph travelled on the donkey? Or why Bethlehem was so busy at the time of Jesus birth? Or what myrrh actually is?
Your students will find out these and more through these fascinating stories from the Nativity. From Mary and Joseph to the shepherds and wise men, these accounts paint the picture of what life must have been like in Nazareth and Bethlehem at this time.
Each passage comes with a series of questions that will test students’ comprehension skills through fact retrieval, word meaning and inference and deduction.
This is a small part of a much bigger reading package on Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. If you like these reading activities, then there is much more available in ‘The Fawkes Files’ which is available at the price of £2 from my store. The paid version also includes an answer key and several writing activities, as well as another six documents (like those in this free resource) with reading comprehension questions.
In this reading pack, your students will develop their reading skills through a range of specially created documents about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. These include:
Fawkes’ birth certificate
His school report
Minutes of the meeting of conspirators
A letter to his mother
A testimony of the King’s Guard
Fawkes’ confession
His death certificate
Ideal as a booklet for the week running up to November 5th, these activities, aimed at children aged 8-11 years old, test skills in retrieval; inference and deduction; and summarising. It will also promote lively and engaging classroom discussion as children explore the tale of Guy Fawkes in greater depth than ever before.
Each activity has questions and answers, 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.
These reading comprehensions will test your students’ reading skills as they explore three engaging news stories from February 2017. Using research skills and their reporters notebooks, the young journalists will find out about:
Mass whale stranding in New Zealand
World War Two Bomb panic in Greece
Miraculous survival of Australian farmer
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.
CONTENTS
3: INCHES FROM DEATH!
4: Heartbreak of the Whales
5: PANIC IN GREECE!
6-8: Questions
9-11: Answers
12: How to write a newspaper article
13: Newspaper template
14-16: Posters for display
The birth of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA is celebrated during Black History Month. But do your students know the full story behind Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King?
This collection of four guided reading activities, aimed at children aged 10-13 years old, tests children in the Common Core and National Curriculum reading skills. They will learn to:
Determine the meaning of words such as segregation and discrimination.
Refer to examples in the text, both explicitly and implied.
Compare the values of characters like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
Identify what is happening in images.
Comment on the wider historical implications of the stories.
Each activity has questions and answers, 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.
As with all of my reading
comprehensions, I aim to make
them engaging and challenging.
The characters may be well
known, but your students will
fully understand the broader
context of their actions in history
through these in-depth character
studies.
CONTENTS
Rosa Parks
The Bus Boycott
The Civil Rights Movement
“I have a dream” and Black Power.
Children have been captivated by the animals of Africa for decades. In this reading package, you can find out all about the ‘big five’ animals to spot; their habitats and behaviour; and how we can help to save them from extinction.
There are eight reading activities, aimed at 8, 9, 10 and 11 year olds, testing children’s reading skills right across the curriculum.
As with all of my reading comprehension projects, my aim is to create stimulating text that will actually get children into reading. I started writing my own material in 2014 after feeling bored by a lot of the comprehensions on offer. Using this approach, I have introduced my students to many stories and topics that may not be on the curriculum, but are important for young people to know.
Contents
Lion Factfile – Group facts about lions into categories
Meet a Lion – Look at words and phrases in context
Save The Elephants – Summarise main idea and extra detail
The Man and The Elephant - Sequence a fable
The Big Five – Identify cause, effect and solution
Decline of the Black Rhino - Analyse information in a graph
Big Five – Who’s not on the list? – Compare, select and justify using evidence
Who am I – Use cryptic clues and keywords to identify animals
Answers
BONUS KAHOOT QUIZ!
In the teacher notes for this item, there is a link to a Kahoot quiz which can be used at the end of the unit. It tests retention of facts from the texts and speed processing skills. A fantastic way to finish the material!
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This product has been designed to put you in control. There is a Powerpoint file, so you can edit it, delete slides, change the order, print it or share it digitally. The great benefit of this is that your children can complete this as a worksheet or on a digital device – or even a bit of both!
I often share this with children on tablets, but obviously I copy the file and remove the answers first! Sometimes, they read the text on a tablet and answer the questions on a sheet.
However you use this, I’m sure you will find a way that works for your students – and save some paper and photocopying costs in the process.