Information about My Lessons
My Lessons is where children get to practise their comprehension skills. The lessons are divided into 44 maps, catering for children aged 7-13. Each map consists of five lessons and an assessment. The lesson texts cover a wide range of genres, including narratives, fairy tales, folk tales, myths and legends, persuasive texts, informational texts, drama, poetry and transactional writing such as invitations, postcards and letters.
After studying a text in a lesson, children are required to answer comprehension questions. The questions cover the four major categories of questioning and are designed to test children’s ability to understand both the literal meaning of the text as well as the subtext.
At the beginning of each lesson is a selection of pre-reading activities drawn from the list below to help children hone their comprehension skills.
| Name of activity | Question type | Focus and/or purpose of activity |
|---|---|---|
| Cover Story | Inferential: predicts actions and outcomes | Children focus on the cover, its title and illustration, to predict what the book will be about. |
| Dictionary skills | Vocabulary and Usage: understands the meaning of words | Children focus on five or six words. Working with three of the words, children put them in alphabetical order, match each word to its part of speech and choose the sentence that uses the word correctly. |
| Picture this sentence | Inferential: makes connections Literal: matches picture to text |
Children learn that both pictures and text carry meaning in an illustrated book. |
| Blankety Blanks | Literal: finds main idea and supporting details | After reading a part of the text, children choose the correct word to complete a sentence. These sentences either paraphrase the text or ask questions about information within the text. |
| Words in context | Vocabulary and usage: uses context clues to understand complex vocabulary | Children use their knowledge of the text to work out a word's meaning. |
| Drawing conclusions | Inferential: draws conclusions | Children make a judgment based on clues in the text. |
| It’s not there | Inferential: decides relevancy | Children are given a list of objects to find in a picture. They have to identify the object that is not in the picture. |
| Fact or opinion | Critical literacy: identifies facts and opinions | Children identify a fact as being something that is proven to be true and an opinion as being a personal judgment or feeling. |
| Pictures have feelings too | Critical literacy: interprets character feelings | Children interpret how a character is feeling based on clues in the picture. |
| Key words | Vocabulary and usage: understands word meaning | Children match a word from a list of four with its definition. |
| Main idea and details | Literal: identifies main idea and finds supporting details | Children identify the main idea of the text and can support this with evidence from the text. |
| Word wizard | Vocabulary and usage: understands word meaning | Children are given definitions for a list of words, and then use the words to complete sentences. |
| Word trees | Inferential: makes connections | Children identify words that are connected to a core word. |
| Compare and contrast | Inferential: compares and contrasts information to draw conclusions | Children identify the similarities and differences within the text. |
| Making inferences | Inferential: infers meaning | Children make a judgement based on clues in the text. |
| Label the picture | Vocabulary and usage: understands word meaning | Children use a list of words to label objects in a picture. |
| Making connections | Inferential: makes connections | Children are given an extract from a text and have to identify words, objects or ideas that are connected in some way. |
| Talk, shout and whisper | Critical literacy: interprets dialogue | Children look for literary devices and other clues in a character's dialogue to determine tone of voice, feelings and motivation. |
| Point of view | Critical literacy: interprets character behaviour, feelings and motivation | Children identify the different ways of seeing a subject by identifying how the author shows their opinion, or in a fictional story, how each character expresses their opinions and views about a subject. |
| Sequencing events | Literal: determines sequence | Children place events in the order in which they happened. |
| Who, what, where and when? | Literal: finds facts and information | Children use their knowledge of the text to find facts and information. |
| Cause and effect | Inferential: infers cause and effect | Children use clues in the text to determine how an event has both a cause and an effect. |
| Onomatopoeia and alliteration | Critical literacy: identifies literary devices | Children identify examples of onomatopoeia and alliteration in the text. |
| Audience and purpose | Text analysis: identifies audience and purpose | Children identify the target audience and purpose of the text based on content and language used. |
| Word building | Vocabulary and usage: identifies base word, prefixes and suffixes | Children identify the basic form of a word and prefixes and suffixes that have been added to the base word to change its meaning. |
| Similes and metaphors | Critical literacy: identifies literary devices | Children identify similes and metaphors in the text. |
| Captions | Inferential: makes connections | Children match a word to its definition. |
| Mind your behaviour! | Critical literacy: interprets character behaviour, feelings and motivation | Children use clues in the text to determine a character's qualities and motivation for behaving in a certain way. |
| Figure it out | Critical literacy: interprets figurative language | Children identify figures of speech and interpret their meaning and effectiveness in the text. |
| Is it relevant? | Inferential: decides relevancy | Children identify information that is not relevant to a topic. |
The questions in the quizzes closely follow these question types.
Each text contains questions that
- ask for a literal interpretation of the text, such as finding facts and information that are plainly indicated in the text, finding the main idea of a passage with supporting details and determining who the main characters are. This is the most basic level of questioning.
- are designed to help children clarify and deepen their understanding of the text by inferring meaning. These questions are more complex in nature as the answers are not immediately apparent. Children have to use clues in the text to predict outcomes, make connections, infer cause and effect, compare and contrast information and draw conclusions.
- require children to critically analyse the text. Children have to identify the main purpose and target audience of the text, based on its style and structure; differentiate between facts and opinions; interpret character behaviour, feelings and motivation based on clues in the text; interpret dialogue based on literary devices such as punctuation; and identify point of view and text mood.
- test children’s understanding of vocabulary and usage. These questions ask children to work out the meanings of words using context clues and to identify base words, prefixes and suffixes.