Skip to main content Opens in a new tab

English Reading · Key Stage 1 Year 2

Year 2 Reading: Stories

By the end, your child can read a story aloud with expression, explain how and why a character feels, describe settings, retell events in order, answer and prove answers from the text, predict from clues and compare two stories.

Half a term8 lessons1 assessmentIntermediateNichole Bygraves
This topic has a free lesson to tryNo account needed for lesson 1. The rest of the topic opens on the free trial.
Start your free trial

About this topic

This course helps Year 2 children read longer stories closely and talk about them with growing confidence. It is built around one story about Bea the badger, who rescues a mouse in a storm, with a second story about Otto the otter for practice in a new setting. Each lesson starts by going back over the step before, then adds one new skill. Lesson 1 reads with expression, using punctuation and feeling words as clues. Lesson 2 works out how a character feels from what they do, and why they act as they do. Lesson 3 describes the setting and shows how a place can change the mood. Lesson 4 picks out the main events and retells them in order. Lesson 5 answers who, what, where, when and why questions. Lesson 6 is the heart of the course: children point to the exact words that prove their answer, and spot proof that does not fit. Lesson 7 predicts what happens next using clues and what they know about a character. Lesson 8 brings everything together by comparing the two stories and linking them to stories children already know. Every routine is short, numbered and worded the same each time it returns. A quick check ends each part of every lesson, a tapping quiz follows each lesson, and the course finishes with a final test and a ten minute spoken task.

What you will learn

  • Read a story aloud with expression, using punctuation and feeling words as clues.
  • Say how a character feels at different points in a story and why they act as they do.
  • Describe the setting of a story, including where and when, and how it makes the reader feel.
  • Pick out the main events of a story and retell them in order.
  • Answer who, what, where, when and why questions about a story.
  • Point to the exact words in a story that prove an answer is right.
  • Predict what will happen next using clues and what is known about a character.
  • Compare two stories, saying what is the same, what is not, and which is preferred and why.

Lessons

8 lessons · 10 minutes each
  1. 1Reading with expressionFree to try
  2. 2How does the character feel Locked
  3. 3Where the story is set Locked
  4. 4The main events in order Locked
  5. 5Answering questions Locked
  6. 6Finding the proof in the text Locked
  7. 7Predicting from clues Locked
  8. 8Comparing two stories Locked

Lesson 1 is free to try. The other lessons, the quiz and the worksheets open on the free trial.