This The Worst Witch Characters Reading Comprehension Pack will introduce your Year 3 class to the disaster-prone Mildred Hubble and the school she attends, Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches! This set of five lessons is based on Jill Murphy's fantastic book, The Worst Witch.

Use these five The Worst Witch lesson plans to share The Worst Witch story with your Year 3 class. 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 lesson in this The Worst Witch Characters Reading Comprehension English Pack comes with an easy-to-follow plan, an engaging and informative slide show for the whole class teaching input, as well as differentiated worksheets and activity ideas - everything you need for a magical week of literacy!

Please be aware that, for copyright purposes, we are unable to provide the full text for this scheme of work. Extracts are provided where appropriate.

Words in Context

With this first The Worst Witch lesson plan for Year 3, your class will enter Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches and meet Mildred Hubble!

After reading and discussing The Worst Witch Chapter 1 and 2 together, the lesson focuses on finding the meaning of words in context, with children being challenged to define unfamiliar words from the text by using the strategy of 'reading around' the word, as well as checking the definition using a dictionary.

Everything you need to help your class find the meaning of words in context is included in this lesson pack - a detailed plan, an informative slide show, and differentiated worksheets to suit all ability levels in your class.

View Lesson 1

Understanding Characters

Understanding The Worst Witch characters – their thoughts, feelings and motives – is the focus of this comprehension lesson.

After reading chapters three and four of The Worst Witch as a class, children will be encouraged to think about and discuss the main characters' thoughts, feelings and motives, based on the events of the two chapters. Children will demonstrate their understanding by completing differentiated activities including matching characters and feelings, completing speech bubbles, or performing role-plays.

This Understanding The Worst Witch Characters lesson comes with a detailed plan, an engaging slide show and a range of differentiated worksheets and activity ideas – everything you need for a successful and fun Year 3 English lesson!

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Writing a Summary

Help your Year 3 class to develop their summarising skills with this Writing a Summary KS2 English lesson.

As a class, you will first read and discuss the events within chapters five and six of The Worst Witch, then ask children to summarise the broomstick formation display. Children will assess the effectiveness of three different, given summaries before using their own summarising skills to retell the event from the perspective of one of the characters in either a letter or a diary entry.

An easy-to-follow lesson plan, an engaging set of slides and a range of differentiated resources are all included within this Writing a Summary Year 3 lesson pack.

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Making Predictions

Use this Making Predictions KS2 lesson to assess your Year 3 children's understanding of events in The Worst Witch story so far, and to see what they think will happen next!

As a class, children will read chapters seven and eight together, answering a range of questions and being encouraged to explain their answers. They will then be challenged to make predictions of what might happen next, based on what they have read so far. In the alternative activity provided, children read, discuss and order given scenarios based on what they think is most/least likely to happen.

Included in this Making Predictions KS2 lesson pack is an easy-to-follow plan, a set of informative slides for the teaching input, and differentiated activities.

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Ask and Answer Questions

In this final lesson in The Worst Witch Characters Reading Comprehension scheme of work, your Year 3 class will be encouraged to ask and answer questions.

After reading the final two chapters of the book, your class will discuss their opinions of characters and events. In their independent The Worst Witch activities, children are challenged to portray how the main characters are feeling now, and why, based on events. In the alternative activity provided, children first compile a list of questions they would like to ask each character, and then are challenged to hot-seat each other as these characters, asking and answering the questions they have generated.

Complete with a detailed lesson plan, a set of engaging slides and a range of differentiated resources, this Ask and Answer Questions lesson includes everything you need for a fantastic final lesson!

View Lesson 5