Skip to content

Reading Comprehension Year 3

Reading comprehension is a cornerstone of literacy education in Year 3, as outlined in the National Curriculum for England. At this stage, children are transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn, making it vital to help them develop the skills to understand and interpret texts independently.

The National Curriculum Expectations for Year 3 Reading Comprehension

In Year 3, the National Curriculum emphasises the following key objectives for reading comprehension:

  • Develop positive attitudes towards reading by engaging with a wide range of genres, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and plays.
  • Understand texts at a deeper level by discussing themes, summarising key points, and making inferences.
  • Use evidence from the text to answer questions and justify opinions.
  • Broaden their vocabulary by exploring the meaning of new words in context.
  • Read aloud with fluency and expression, enhancing their ability to grasp tone and mood.
Year 3 boy reading independently

Reading comprehension is an important skill to continue to develop in Year 3

Reading Comprehension Lessons for Year 3

PlanBee has a range of ready-to-teach reading comprehension lessons and schemes of work for Year 3. Each of our lesson packs has been designed to save teachers time by providing everything needed to deliver outstanding reading comprehension lessons, including lesson plans, slideshows and a range of printable activities.

Each of our Year 3 reading comprehension lessons has been designed with the National Curriculum in mind, ensuring that children are given the opportunity to expand their vocabulary, hone their inference and retrieval skills, identify themes and conventions, and critically evaluate a range of different reading materials.

The Worst Witch: Reading Comprehension | Year 3

Based on Jill Murphey's fantastic book 'The Worst Witch', this set of five reading comprehension lessons will introduce your Year 3 class to the disaster-prone Mildred Hubble and the school she attends, Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches! Your children will be encouraged to: discuss characters and events and develop their skills in understanding words in context, explain the thoughts and motives of characters, summarise parts of the text, and predict what might happen next!

Each of the lessons within this Year 3 pack contains:

  • a detailed lesson plan with differentiated activities
  • a slideshow for the teaching input
  • a range of printable resources for independent learning activities

The Worst Witch: Reading Comprehension

Stone Age Boy | Year 3

This set of six Stone Age Boy lessons, based on the brilliant book by Satoshi Kitamura will first help your Year 3 class become familiar with the text, showing their understanding by sequencing the story and answering a range of comprehension questions. They will then explore how to use direct speech and descriptive language, before using this knowledge to plan and write their own version of the book, 'Stone Age Boy'.

Each of the lessons within this Year 3 pack contains:

  • a detailed lesson plan with differentiated activities
  • a slideshow for the teaching input
  • a range of printable resources for independent learning activities

Stone Age Boy

The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark: Reading Comprehension | Year 3

These 'The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark' comprehension lessons for Year 3 will introduce your class to Plop the barn owl and guide your class through all seven chapters of this charming book by Jill Tomlinson. Across the course of these six lessons, children will be challenged to answer reading comprehension questions in a variety of ways, including using inference, analysing descriptive language and retelling the story in their own words.

Each of the lessons within this Year 3 reading comprehension pack contains:

  • a detailed lesson plan with differentiated activities
  • a slideshow for the teaching input
  • a range of printable resources for independent learning activities

The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark: Reading Comprehension

These reading comprehension lessons are part of a larger 'The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark English Pack', additionally covering non-chronological reports, diary entries, narrative and poetry.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Year 3

Step inside the chocolate factory with your class, and experience the magic of the timeless Roald Dahl book, 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', with this set of 7 ready-to-teach reading comprehension lessons for Year 3. Children will become familiar with the characters, looking at how they are each portrayed and exploring their thoughts and feelings using the text. They will then look at how Roald Dahl creates images through his word choices, and use their knowledge of the story to predict what will happen next. Finally, children will have the opportunity to answer questions in character!

Each of the lessons within this Year 3 reading poetry pack contains:

  • a detailed lesson plan with differentiated activities
  • a slideshow for the teaching input
  • a range of printable resources for independent learning activities

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory