This course will cover the key areas which children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.

The emphasis will be on discussion, questioning and searching for meaning.

Throughout the course, we will be using extracts from the following texts:
'The Diary of a Killer Cat' by Anne Fine
'The Tear Thief' by Carol Ann Duffy
'The Hodgeheg' by Dick King-Smith
Several short texts of my own.


Session 1: Making Connections 
Making connections between the text and the students' existing knowledge, in order to gain a greater understanding of the content.

Session 2: Retrieving Information
Answering questions like 'Who did...?', 'Where did...?', 'How did...?', 'What happened when...?' 

Session 3: Explaining
Answering questions like 'Who is your favourite character? Why?', 'Would you like to live in this setting? Why?/Why not?'

Session 4: Summarizing / Predicting
Identifying key words to summarize a text and making predictions beyond the text. 

Sessions 5: Inference
'Reading between the lines' to discover meaning which is implicit rather than explicit in a text.

Session 6: Consolidation of skills 
Students will apply all of the above skills to previously unseen texts.

Throughout the course, students will be taught the importance of questioning and researching the meaning of unknown vocabulary.