Two factors to raise reading comprehension skills

What are the two factors that a child must come to terms with before tackling a comprehension activity?

By and large, if an activity is enjoyable children find it easier to understand. And indeed vice-versa.

To put this into the context of a lesson, if a child understands what she or he is reading, then they will enjoy the reading.

So it is vital that children are given passages to read that they can both understand and enjoy – passages that are appropriate, engaging, varied and grab their attention.

This is the thinking behind the activities in our reading comprehension series.  The aim is to give children reading that they will enjoy.  And in order to enhance the experience we have varied the type of material provided from newspaper articles and dialogues, to plays, stories and poems.

But there is more, for within this collection we not only ask for simple factual recall and vocabulary work but also for personal responses to open-ended questions so children can learn that not everyone has the same view of each piece of literature.

In short, they are also learning that the literature that they enjoy may not be the same as the literature that others enjoy – and that there is nothing wrong or strange with that.

In the Brilliant Activities for Reading Comprehension series, the comprehension passages cover a range of genres, from newspaper articles and descriptive reports, to plays, stories and poems. The 3rd edition contains over a third new passages, including many new non-fiction pieces linked to the history curriculum. 

The passages and the questions gradually increase in difficulty as you progress through each book, and through the series, encouraging children to develop their ability to read for meaning and use a range of strategies to engage with the text.

The questions for all the passages have been completely rewritten to link more closely to the reading content domains and to ensure a mixture of short and long question types. The extension activities will stretch more able pupils and make differentiation easy.

You can read more about the six books for Years 1–6 and download sample passages and activities in the Brilliant Activities for Reading Comprehension series on our website.

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