The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark: Reading Comprehension

These The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark comprehension lessons for Year 3 will guide your class through all seven chapters of this book and challenge them to answer reading comprehension questions in a variety of ways, including using inference, analysing descriptive language and retelling the story in their own words.

This series of six Year 3 reading comprehension lessons gives your KS2 class the chance not only to get to know this lovable baby barn owl and the story of how he turned from a day bird to a night bird, but also to fine-tune their reading comprehension skills through differentiated comprehension activities. And it's all fully prepared and ready for you to teach!

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Dark is Exciting

The first lesson in this series of The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark reading comprehension lessons introduces your Year 3 class to the lovable Plop as they read the first chapter of this classic story.

Children will use what they have read to answer comprehension questions to assess their understanding, then use clues from the text to infer information about Plop’s character.

This lesson pack comes ready to teach with a detailed lesson plan, an engaging slideshow for the whole-class input, differentiated comprehension activities and a range of printable teaching resources.

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Dark is Kind and Fun

Children will read chapters 2 and 3 of The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark in this Year 3 reading comprehension lesson and answer comprehension questions on what they have read.

They will discuss questions, characters and events orally, giving reasons for their choices and using the text to back up their responses.

This fun and ready-to-teach lesson (that covers the 'Dark is Kind' and 'Dark is Fun' chapters) provides everything you need to deliver this lesson, including a lesson plan, an engaging slideshow for the whole-class input, differentiated comprehension questions and a range of printable teaching resources.

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Answering Questions in Full Sentences

The focus of this lesson is answering questions in full sentences. After your Year 3 class read chapters 4 and 5 of The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark together, they will answer some simple questions to assess their understanding, led by the provided slideshow for the teaching input.

Children explore how they can answer comprehension questions in full, detailed sentences, using all the information within the question to make their answers clear and concise. Not only will your class learn why 'Dark is Necessary' and 'Dark is Fascinating' in this reading comprehension lesson for Year 3, but also how to improve the way in which they answer comprehension questions.

This pack includes a detailed lesson plan, whole-class slideshow, differentiated activities, and printable teaching resources.

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Dark is Wonderful

Your Year 3 class will be making reading predictions in this lesson as they continue to read and explore the story of The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark. They will recap what has happened in the story so far and identify themes and events common to all chapters.

They will then read the first few paragraphs of chapter 6 and make reading predictions about what will happen in the rest of the chapter, based on clues from the text and prior knowledge of chapter structure. Once they have made their predictions, they can then read the rest of the chapter and see how close their predictions were!

This lesson pack contains everything you need: a full lesson plan, an engaging PDF slideshow, differentiated activity ideas, plus a set of ready-to-print resources.

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Dark is Beautiful

Children will read the final chapter of The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark in this lesson and look specifically at the descriptive language used to describe night. Your class will identify expanded noun phrases, similes and metaphors within the text and consider the effect that this has on the reader.

This Year 3 reading comprehension lesson comes completely planned and ready for you to deliver to your class. There's a detailed lesson plan, a fun slideshow for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and a range of printable teaching resources.

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Recapping the Story

Now that your class have read the whole story of The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark, they will have the chance to recall the main events and characters and think about what they most enjoyed about the story and why.

During their independent learning tasks, they can then retell the story in a variety of ways (using a The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark Story Map to help them) or complete a book review of this story.

The final lesson in this Year 3 reading comprehension series comes with an easy-to-follow lesson plan, a slideshow for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and a range of printable teaching resources.

View Lesson 6