This comprehension pack for pupils in years 3 and 4 retells the tale of ‘The Great Race’, a legend that explains how the names for the Chinese Zodiac were chosen. This story is great to read during the celebrations of Chinese New Year (also known as Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival).
The pack includes a model text and comprehension questions to develop pupils’ skills of retrieval, inference, sequencing and vocabulary understanding and could be used as part of a whole class reading lesson or used with smaller guided groups. The narrative text could also be used as a model for pupils to base similar writing upon or pupils could rehearse an oral retelling of the story.
This primary resource pack includes:
- Model text: The Great Race
- Comprehension questions about the text
- Comprehension question answer sheet
What is reading comprehension?
Reading comprehension is the ability to read and understand a text.
National Curriculum English programme of study links
Pupils should maintain positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what they read by:
- listening to and discussing a wide range of fiction ...
- increasing their familiarity with a wide range of books, including fairy stories, myths and legends, and retelling some of these orally.
Pupils should understand what they read, in books they can read independently by:
- checking it makes sense to them, discussing their understanding and exploring the meaning of words in context.
- drawing inferences such as inferring characters feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions and justifying these with evidence.