Help your Year 6 pupils prepare for the KS2 SATs reading test with this mini practice pack. Each resource is built around a carefully chosen text and includes SATs-style questions covering key reading skills such as vocabulary, retrieval, inference, summarising and predicting, and comparing and explaining.
For more texts and question sets, explore our full KS2 SATs reading collection.
About the text: A Jaguar in the Chicken Coop
This extract from Jon Mayhew’s A Jaguar in the Chicken Coop places readers in a tense night-time encounter on a South American farm. As with all fiction extracts in our SATs practice range, this text comes from our Real Writing collection of high-quality texts by celebrated children’s authors. This gives pupils access to rich vocabulary and engaging narrative craft.
The vivid sensory detail, unfamiliar setting and fast-moving events make this an ideal text for stretching confident readers, while offering clear opportunities to model key SATs skills.
The character’s emotional reactions and the jaguar’s behaviour provide focused material for inference, explanation and retrieval – all of which feature prominently in the KS2 SATs reading test.
Why this text works well for SATs revision
- Inference-heavy narrative: The character’s fear, hesitation and responses to the jaguar provide strong material for reading between the lines.
- Tier 2 vocabulary in context: Words such as uncommon, foreign, scurried and sleek allow direct practice of vocabulary questions.
- Clear retrieval opportunities: Pupils can confidently locate details about setting, animal movement and the sequence of events.
- Small extract, high impact: The short, dramatic scene means pupils can re-read quickly – ideal for revision sessions with tight time limits.
- Natural links to predicting and summarising: The cliffhanger-style ending invites meaningful prediction questions.
What’s included in this resource pack
- Quick Reading Questions PowerPoint
- PDF version of the fiction text
- Vocabulary Questions worksheet
- Retrieval Questions worksheet
- Inference Questions worksheet
- Summarise and Predict Questions worksheet
- Compare and Explain Questions worksheet
- Teacher notes
How to use this pack
Use the PowerPoint for whole-class modelling or small-group intervention, focusing on test technique and question analysis. Each section contains a warm-up question followed by SATs-style questions linked to a specific content domain. Pupils can then apply their understanding using the PDF worksheets, either in class or as homework, using the text to justify their answers.
For more Year 6 reading practice, visit our KS2 SATs resources collection.