This Year 3 reading comprehension pack uses The Diary of a Victorian Schoolchild by children's author Lucy Strange to help children explore the lives of working-class children in the Victorian era.
Pupils will read a fictional diary written by nine-year-old Daisy Jarvis, who shares vivid experiences of life at home and at school in Victorian England. The text is ideal for linking reading comprehension to history and for sparking thoughtful discussion.
Three-part sequence
You will find a range of resourced teaching materials to guide a three-part sequence of lessons. These support vocabulary development, inference, prediction, sequencing and retrieval.
Pupils can take part in layered reads, paired discussions, close reading and vocabulary study. They will compare Daisy’s life to their own, explore how her character develops and respond creatively through writing in role.
The resource includes PowerPoints and worksheets to help pupils dig deeper into the text. Tasks include writing diary entries, completing a Victorian school report, developing a “Role on the Wall” for Daisy, and imagining conversations between characters.
Annotated versions of the text help you prompt discussion, model responses and identify key moments for visualisation, drama or clarification.
The unit also encourages cross-curricular links. Pupils can extend their knowledge of the Victorian era through research activities prompted by the story.
Included in this Year 3 pack:
- Original text (PDF): plain, illustrated, and annotated versions
- Original text (PowerPoint): with and without highlighted text
- Images to support understanding
- Teaching notes with full three-part teaching sequence
- Vocabulary Focus PowerPoints
- Big Questions PowerPoints
- Worksheets
- School report writing templates
- “Revisit the text” activities
- Guidance on prior knowledge and suggested drama/discussion prompts
You can teach this resource on its own or as part of our wider sequence exploring the theme The Value of Education. This resource is part of our Real Comprehension programme, which offers thematic fiction, non-fiction and poetry units to develop reading comprehension across KS1 and KS2.