This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda.’ (Teachers have found them particularly useful in comprehension or guided reading sessions). They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the KS1 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children love learning from these resources, whilst they are also of great use to teachers, as there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that children gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: ‘Feed Bogtrotter!’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘talk about their favourite words and phrases in the story;’ ‘Dahl’s Description’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Explain meanings of words that they know and ask the meaning of new words. Link the meaning of new words to words that they already know;’ ‘The Opening Pages’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Say what might happen next in a story based on what has happened so far;’ ‘Story Mountain’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Enjoy reading and discussing the order of events in books and how items of information are related.’ Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is around 20 pages in length!) I’ve also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included).

This engaging and thought-provoking triple-lesson resource aids students in developing a secure understanding of the chapters 23 to 26 of Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ The comprehensive and colourful PowerPoint presentation enables students to understand the text through: -Retrieving information; -Inferring and deducing hidden meanings; -Explaining key ideas. The sessions include a range of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, explanation and deeper thinking activities. A clear, colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the learning. The lesson also includes an answer key for the retrieval questions, and model answer ideas for the more detailed responses. There’s a lot here (20 slides in total) so I would recommend possibly splitting the content into two or even three lessons. The lessons are suitable for students in KS2 (with only minor adaptations, I have used the resources in the past with children from years 3 to 5).

This engaging and thought-provoking triple-lesson resource aids students in developing a secure understanding of the chapters 5, 6 and 7 of Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ The comprehensive and colourful PowerPoint presentation enables students to understand the text through: -Retrieving information; -Inferring and deducing hidden meanings; -Summarising key events from the text. The sessions include a range of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, explanation and deeper thinking activities. A clear, colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the learning. The lesson also includes an answer key for the retrieval questions, and model answer ideas for the more detailed responses. There’s a lot here (20 slides in total) so I would recommend possibly splitting the content into two or even three lessons. The lessons are suitable for students in KS2 (with only minor adaptations, I have used the resources in the past with children from years 3 to 5).

This engaging and thought-provoking triple-lesson resource aids students in developing a secure understanding of the chapters 14, 15 and 16 of Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ The comprehensive and colourful PowerPoint presentation enables students to understand the text through: -Retrieving information; -Inferring and deducing hidden meanings; -Sequencing events from the text. The sessions include a range of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, explanation and deeper thinking activities. A clear, colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the learning. The lesson also includes an answer key for the retrieval questions, and model answer ideas for the more detailed responses. There’s a lot here (20 slides in total) so I would recommend possibly splitting the content into two or even three lessons. The lessons are suitable for students in KS2 (with only minor adaptations, I have used the resources in the past with children from years 3 to 5).

This engaging and thought-provoking triple-lesson resource aids students in developing a secure understanding of the chapters 11, 12 and 13 of Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ The comprehensive and colourful PowerPoint presentation enables students to understand the text through: -Retrieving information; -Inferring and deducing hidden meanings; -Analysing the writer’s use of language. The sessions include a range of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, explanation and deeper thinking activities. A clear, colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the learning. The lesson also includes an answer key for the retrieval questions, and model answer ideas for the more detailed responses. There’s a lot here (20 slides in total) so I would recommend possibly splitting the content into two or even three lessons. The lessons are suitable for students in KS2 (with only minor adaptations, I have used the resources in the past with children from years 3 to 5).

This engaging and thought-provoking double-lesson resource aids students in developing a secure understanding of the chapters 3 and 4 of Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ The comprehensive and colourful PowerPoint presentation enables students to understand the text through: -Retrieving information; -Inferring and deducing hidden meanings; -Sequencing key events from the text. The sessions include a range of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, explanation and deeper thinking activities. A clear, colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the learning. The lesson also includes an answer key for the retrieval questions, and model answer ideas for the more detailed responses. There’s a lot here (18 slides in total) so I would recommend possibly splitting the content of two lessons. The lessons are suitable for students in KS2 (with only minor adaptations, I have used the resources in the past with children from years 3 to 5).

This engaging and thought-provoking triple-lesson resource aids students in developing a secure understanding of the chapters 20, 21, and 22 of Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ The comprehensive and colourful PowerPoint presentation enables students to understand the text through: -Retrieving information; -Inferring and deducing hidden meanings; -Analysing characters. The sessions include a range of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, explanation and deeper thinking activities. A clear, colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the learning, whilst a character profile template is provided (in both Word and PDF) for the main analysing characters task. The lesson also includes an answer key for the retrieval questions, and model answer ideas for the more detailed responses. There’s a lot here (19 slides in total) so I would recommend possibly splitting the content into two or even three lessons. The lessons are suitable for students in KS2 (with only minor adaptations, I have used the resources in the past with children from years 3 to 5).

This engaging and thought-provoking triple-lesson resource aids students in developing a secure understanding of the chapters 17, 18 and 19 of Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ The comprehensive and colourful PowerPoint presentation enables students to understand the text through: -Retrieving information; -Inferring and deducing hidden meanings; -Explaining key ideas from the text. The sessions include a range of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, explanation and deeper thinking activities. A clear, colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the learning. The lesson also includes an answer key for the retrieval questions, and model answer ideas for the more detailed responses. There’s a lot here (21 slides in total) so I would recommend possibly splitting the content into two or even three lessons. The lessons are suitable for students in KS2 (with only minor adaptations, I have used the resources in the past with children from years 3 to 5).

This engaging and thought-provoking triple-lesson resource aids students in developing a secure understanding of the final chapters (27 to 31) of Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ The comprehensive and colourful PowerPoint presentation enables students to understand the text through: -Retrieving information; -Inferring and deducing hidden meanings; -Summarise key ideas. The sessions include a range of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, explanation and deeper thinking activities. A clear, colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the learning. A storyboard template is also included (in both Word and PDF) for the main storyboard task. The lesson also includes an answer key for the retrieval questions, and model answer ideas for the more detailed responses. There’s a lot here (20 slides in total) so I would recommend possibly splitting the content into two or even three lessons. The lessons are suitable for students in KS2 (with only minor adaptations, I have used the resources in the past with children from years 3 to 5).

This detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning or revising Katherine Rundell’s 'The Explorer.’ It contains comprehensive sections on: Context; Section by Section Summary (with quotes); Main Characters; Themes; Literary Devices; The Author’s Perspective. All key words and ideas are compartmentalised for easy reference. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3 or A4, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use.