I am teaching first class this year. One part of our day that never changes is our morning comprehension at 8:45 every morning after our news. I created a set of fifty reading passages to see me through until December, after which I will created another set. I found it really hard to find any suitable ones online, and the stories in the text book we use are very long. So these are ideal for emerging readers, and for teaching comprehension skills.
The titles are:
- Swimming
- Pets
3.A Trip to Tayto Park
4.The Zoo
5.Cats
6.The Butterfly
7.A Visit to the Dentist
8.Dinosaurs
9.A Rainy Day
- Ben’s Dog
11.Bats
12.The Animal Party
13.A Visit to the Doctor
14.A Camping Trip
15.Fun at the Beach
16.The Farm
17.An Accident
18.Apples
19.The Hedgehog
20.The Big Match
21.Anna’s Party
22.The New Baby
23.The Polar Bear
24.A Trip to the Woods
25.Autumn
26.Halloween
27.Pumpkins
28.Ben’s Big Surprise
29.The Playground
30.Winter
31.The Robin
32.The New Bike
33.Whales
34.The Lion
35.The Elephant
36.Snow Day
37.The New Teacher
38.The Storm
39.Dogs
40.The Sahara Desert
41.Fruit
42.Soil
43.The Missing Poppet
44.Christmas Eve
45.Antarctica
46.The Arctic Fox
47.The Arctic
48 Trees
49 Spring
50 Summer
This comprehension resource was created for first class pupils but second class pupils could use it as a form of revision. There are fifty comprehensions in total. If you do one a day it allows for ten weeks worth of work. I display the comprehension on the interactive whiteboard. We read it together aloud as a class. We answer the questions orally, then the children do the questions in their copies. I write the answers on the whiteboard for some of the children to transcribe. The comprehensions are based on a variety of topics and are relevant to the lives of children attending school in Ireland.
The passages help to encourage reading fluency. They are differentiated with some being more challenging than others. The passages can be used in:
A whole group setting
Small groups ( differentiated stations)
As a homework activity
Independently ( for some children)
High frequency words are used throughout the passages and the questions are simple and text based. Simple inferential questions are asked and many have multiple choice or true or false options. There are words with inflectional endings (s, ed, ing) and decodable words are also used throughout the texts. The passages are a mixture of fact and fiction and some overlap with SESE too.
Through this resource the following comprehension strategies will be taught:
1.Activate prior knowledge
2.Prediction skills
3.Identifying the main idea
4.Making inferences
5.Visualising
6.Retelling
7.Skimming
8.Scanning
9.Determining importance
10.Connecting and comparing.
You can purchase it here, and for this week only it is half price with the code 50OFF!