Reading needs you to use different skills. This activity allows you to focus on each skill at a time. Each time we use this activity, try to do a different one so that you develop your skills equally.
UnderstandingRead the text and concentrate on thinking about questions. Does it tell you everything? Is there something that the story doesn't tell you? If the storyteller was in front of you, what would you ask them? What happened next? Was there something about the characters that wasn't told? Use phrases like..."I wonder if...." and "what happened to..." to start you off.
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VocabularyAdding new words to your vocabulary is one of the best ways to develop your skills. This means firstly understanding them and secondly knowing how to use them. Skim through the text and find some interesting words. They might be words that you haven't come across before or just words that you think are key to explaining the content of the text. Write them down and look up the dictionary definitions. Then try to create some sentences using the new words in the right way.
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SummarisingWhen you summarise, you re-tell the story in your own words. It needs to be a lot shorter than the original story. The easiest way to do this is to think what you would say if you were telling a friend or family member about the story you read. You could start with a character or a place where the story happened. Think about the main points of the story and use a clear structure so your summary will have a beginning, a middle and an end.
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VisualisingVisualising is creating pictures in your head about a story that you have heard or read. It is easier to remember the images that you have created for yourself than to remember the words from the story. Simply drawing a picture that tells you about a text is a great way to develop your memory skills and also helps you with the other reading skills on this page. It helps to think about how you might make a film out of the story....what scenery would you use? what would your actors do, say or think?
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