reading activity for year 1

Supporting reading in Year 1 (Age 5-6)

If you have a child in Year 1 (in England) or Primary 2 (in Scotland), you will probably be pretty familiar with the school’s phonics scheme and many of the characters in their reading scheme books. You child will probably continue to practise phonics on a daily basis at school and will be building up the sounds and their different spellings across the year. Their reading books will become longer and your child will be developing their comprehension skills as they talk about these books.

How to help at home

There are many simple ways in which you can support your child.

Make listening to your child read part of your daily routine

Listening to your child read their reading scheme book daily can seem like a chore. When we’re tired after a day’s work, or our child is frustrated, it can easily become a painful experience. But do try and read every day. It will make a real difference to your child’s progress. Keep it short and up-beat (however you’re feeling) and filled with praise. If you have older children, try sharing the load with them.

Read daily with your child even if their reading book has not changed. Re-reading lets us encounter words and phrases enough times to remember them. It builds confidence and helps the words move from short term to long term memory. Also, once your child is familiar with a story, you have an opportunity to support their comprehension  skills. Talk about the ideas in the book, perhaps noticing things they missed the first time, or making links between the different events in the story.

Find out more about how to share your child’s reading scheme book here .

Read aloud to your child daily

Try and make time every day to read to your child. You could read an adventure story or a non-fiction book about cars or animals. Poetry can be fun too. When you read to your child, they get to experience adventurous language and ideas that they might not have found in their reading books. It builds their horizons and empathy.

Get them involved!

When you’re reading with your child, try to keep them actively involved in the words and the story. Clap out syllables ( pel-i-can, Sep-tem-ber ) or point out words made up of two words (for example the wind and mill in windmill). When reading to your child, encourage your child to join in with phrases, sound effects and actions to make a shared story time fun. Retell the story together, act out parts and bravely put on voices for different characters. Make a fool of yourself!

Talk about books, stories, words and pictures

As you read with your child, talk about the book. Ask them questions about the story – particularly questions you don’t know the answer to. Try to ask open questions that begin with ‘how’ or ‘why’ ( Why did she do that? How is he going to solve this problem? ) Talk about what is happening in a picture, what the characters might be thinking, or what might happen next. These questions all help to support your child’s comprehension  skills.

Read all sorts of books

A mix of fiction and non-fiction, real stories and magical stories, familiar characters and new experiences help to broaden your child’s interests and keep story time fresh. Sometimes you might choose the book, sometimes they might! 

Free eBook Library

Find a huge selection of free eBooks to encourage your child to read and support their reading journey in our library. Take a look >

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Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

1st Grade Reading Comprehension Worksheets

The 1st grade reading comprehension worksheet activities below are coordinated with the 1st grade spelling words curriculum on a week-to-week basis, so both can be used together as part of a comprehensive program, or each part can be used separately. The worksheets include first grade appropriate reading passages and related questions. There are 36 weeks of first grade worksheets, following most standard school year calendars. Click on the title of each worksheets to download the printable PDF. Students should read each passage and then answer related questions. They can also write answers on another page or back of the worksheet.

Be sure to check out all of our reading comprehension worksheets .

A Job For Bob

Week 11 Reading Comprehension (A-11). Focus: Words in the –ob family.

Drop the Mop!

Week 10 Reading Comprehension (A-10). Focus: Words in the –op family.

Feel the Green Grass

Week 36 Reading Comprehension (A-36). Focus: Long “ee” Pattern Words.

Fun in the Sun

Week 15 Reading Comprehension (A-15). Focus: Words in the –un family.

He Bit the Pit

Week 5 Reading Comprehension (A-5). Focus: Words in the –it family.

He Must Take the Bus

Week 24 Reading Comprehension (A-24). Focus: Short “u” Words.

Kick the Brick

Week 8 Reading Comprehension (A-8). Focus: Words in the –ick family.

Look at the Good Wood

Week 33 Reading Comprehension (A-33). Focus: Short “oo” with _oo_ Words.

Make the Same Shape

Week 26 Reading Comprehension (A-26). Focus: Long “a” with _a_e Words.

Mom Will Find the Fox

Week 23 Reading Comprehension (A-23). Focus: Short “o” Words.

My First Hat

Week 21 Reading Comprehension (A-21). Focus: Short “a” Words.

My Sled is Red

Week 18 Reading Comprehension (A-18). Focus: Words in the –ed family.

Ride a Broom to the Moon

Week 35 Reading Comprehension (A-35). Focus: Long “oo” Pattern Words.

She Needs Less Shell

Week 25 Reading Comprehension (A-25). Focus: Short “e” Words.

Shut the Hut

Week 13 Reading Comprehension (A-13). Focus: Words in the –ut family.

Snack in the Sack

Week 4 Reading Comprehension (A-4). Focus: Words in the –ack family.

Tap on the Map

Week 3 Reading Comprehension (A-3). Focus: Words in the –ap family.

Ten Hens in a Pen

Week 19 Reading Comprehension (A-19). Focus: Words in the –en family.

The Big Pig

Week 6 Reading Comprehension (A-6). Focus: Words in the –ig family.

The Brown Cow in the Tower

Week 34 Reading Comprehension (A-34). Focus: “ow” Pattern Words.

Free Printable Reading Worksheets for 1st Year

Reading & Writing: Discover a vast collection of free printable worksheets for Year 1 students, designed to enhance their reading and writing skills. Explore and download resources from Quizizz today!

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Explore printable Reading worksheets for 1st Year

Reading worksheets for Year 1 are essential tools for teachers to help their young students develop strong reading and writing skills. These carefully designed worksheets focus on various aspects of literacy, such as phonics, sight words, comprehension, and sentence structure. By incorporating these Year 1 reading worksheets into their lesson plans, teachers can effectively engage their students in fun and interactive learning activities. Moreover, these resources cater to different learning styles, ensuring that every child gets the opportunity to improve their reading and writing abilities. With a wide variety of topics and themes covered, Year 1 reading worksheets are a valuable asset for teachers to enhance their students' literacy skills.

Quizizz offers a comprehensive platform for teachers to access not only reading worksheets for Year 1 but also a plethora of other resources to make learning more enjoyable and effective. With Quizizz, teachers can create customized quizzes, polls, and interactive lessons that align with their curriculum and cater to their students' needs. This platform also provides valuable insights and analytics, allowing teachers to track their students' progress and identify areas that need improvement. In addition to reading and writing resources, Quizizz offers materials for various subjects, such as math, science, and social studies, making it a one-stop solution for all Year 1 educational needs. By incorporating Quizizz into their teaching strategies, educators can ensure a well-rounded and engaging learning experience for their young students.

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• Ks1 Reading Comprehension

KS1 reading comprehension – Best advice, worksheets and resources

Give Year 1 and Year 2 pupils a good grounding in comprehension skills in order for them to get the most from any text with these activities, ideas, lesson plans and other teaching resources…

Whether you’re a Year 1 or Year 2 teacher, enhance your teaching of KS1 reading comprehension with these ideas, resources and worksheets from fellow teachers and education experts.

(If you teach KS2, check out our reading comprehension KS2 round-up).

KS1 reading comprehension pack

Real comprehension curriculum programme, goldilocks inference lesson plan, ks1 reading comprehension with the beano, oxford university press worksheets, school reading comprehension checklist, ks1 reading comprehension book topic, tom and bella ks1 reading comprehension worksheets, bbc bitesize video, using picture books to teach ks1 reading comprehension, how to use role play to enhance ks1 reading comprehension.

The Birthday Duck is a delightful story by Michael Morpurgo. Use this free resource pack to plan a unit of work around this classic story to develop pupils’ reading comprehension and writing skills.

A topic map is provided, suggesting exciting writing opportunities and inspiring ideas from across the curriculum linked to the book.

Comprehension questions, based on short extracts from the book, will develop pupils’ understanding of what they have read, focusing on: retrieval, vocabulary, inference , sequencing and making predictions.

Real Comprehension is a unique, whole-school reading comprehension programme from Plazoom. It’s designed to develop sophisticated skills of inference and retrieval and help children build rich vocabularies. It also encourages the identification of themes and comparison between texts.

Access 54 original fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts by published children’s authors – all age appropriate, thematically linked, and fully annotated for ease of teaching.

Build deeper understanding for children of all abilities through a variety of close-reading and guided reading techniques, plus fully resourced teaching sequences for every text.

Improve pupils’ ability to make high-level inferences and links between texts, and extend their vocabulary with focused lessons.

Inference is a crucial component of reading comprehension. Readers often need to make inferences to fully understand a text, especially when the author does not explicitly state certain information. Explore different versions of the classic tale Goldilocks in this free inference KS1 lesson plan .

Use these fun comprehension activities themed around the Beano with your KS1 class. It’s a great way of getting everyone – including your typically more reluctant readers – to develop their reading skills.

No matter what book you’re reading with your pupils at the moment, you can use these reading comprehension worksheets to help students track:

• what’s happening in the plot
• new words they come across
• characters’ emotions, attributes and relationships

Use this free checklist from the National Literacy Trust to review reading comprehension in your school. It includes tasks for whole school, staff and pupils. For example:

• Comprehension skills are taught right across the curriculum (whole school)
• The quality and effectiveness of shared and guided reading is carefully monitored (staff)
• Pupils are able to draw conclusions and make comparisons across different texts (pupils)

Boost inference and comprehension with Mini Grey’s mouse detective in this free KS1 book topic from Judy Clark, based on the book Hermelin: The Great Mouse Detective.

Pupils will need to scan the book’s illustrations for clues, making it an ideal title for comprehension work. Children will need to explain what they can observe, what they know and what they can infer from that.

This set of six worksheets from Jelly & Bean lets children practise skills like letter formation (both with and without guides), handwriting, comprehension and there are pictures to colour in on each.

We also have lots more examples in our Amazing Handwriting Worksheets resource collection , including comprehension sentences featuring words that end in ‘er’ .

This short BBC Bitesize video helps children to understand that when you read a text, link together the facts and clues to see the bigger picture and understand what’s happening, that this is called comprehension.

It will also help them find out what you need to do to work out what a text means.

Comprehension has an essential place in your phonics lessons, says literacy consultant Jacqueline Harris, and your favourite picturebooks are an ideal jumping off point…

I wholeheartedly approve of systematic phonics teaching, but what with scrutiny from Ofsted and the Y1 check, the focus often shifts almost entirely onto decoding, rather than teaching children to read. In reality it should be a balance between the two.

I am, for example, a good decoder in Spanish as I studied it for a year at school. I know the correct pronunciations. However, I’m not a Spanish reader as I can only make sense of very few words. And my decoding skills are useless without comprehension.

If teaching children phonics is all about giving them the tools for reading, it seems to me that lessons need to focus on comprehension as well as decoding.

Understanding as well as decoding

This is why I use the application section of the lesson to make sure children truly apply their knowledge – that they are able to understand, as well as decode, what they are reading.

In my cautious early days of teaching phonics, I used the sentences in Letters and Sounds – that is until the day Thomas piped up with, “But why are we reading such silly things?”. This was when he was being asked to read, ‘Are fingers as long as arms?’.

He was right, I realised. Why would anyone be interesting in reading that? So I started to use my own sentences for the ‘apply’ section of the lesson.

Choosing the right books

I began by making the sentences more interactive. I gave children a collection of pictures and a selection of sentences, each of which matched one of the images.

There would, however, always be one picture without a matching sentence. The children had to read and understand all the sentences to discover which one.

Then, when I was teaching /ar/, I realised I knew a good book, Ruth Brown’s  A Dark, Dark Tale . This book features this Phase 3 sound, and I could use that instead.

I wrote my own version, making sure I used only decodable words with graphemes the children already knew. ‘On a dark, dark night in a dark, dark wood was a dark, dark oak. In the dark, dark oak was a …’.

This was instantly more exciting and successful in motivating them to read, particularly as I projected one of the beautiful illustrations onto the whiteboard.

Then, having read aloud the original book, we enjoyed talking about what the surprise ending might be in the version I had written.

Rewriting in decodable chunks

Some educators think you should not use books unless they have been written specifically for phonics teaching. But I believe you can use any great picture book, so long as you rewrite the story in decodable chunks.

It takes very little time as you are only looking for a couple of sentences to be read independently. Some books can provide greater challenge for more able pupils.

“I believe you can use any great picture book”

There are a limited number of words for the /z/ /zz/ phoneme (Phase 3), but there is a wonderful, memorable book to support this. 

Ben’s Trumpet  by Rachel Isadora is set in the 1920s jazz era. The marvellous black and white illustrations tell the story of Ben whose favourite place is the Zig Zag Jazz Club.

Start off the lesson by listening to jazz – it’s likely that many children will not yet have encountered the word. Then, when it comes to the apply section, you can just edit the book’s opening: ‘Ben sits next to The Zig Zag Jazz Club’.

This book rightly won awards. When using the story as part of a phonics session I’ve found it has far more impact than just reading the example from Letters and Sounds – ‘He did the zip up on Zenat’s jacket’.

Story recommendations for every phase

After trying this method of making the ‘apply’ section of the lesson more meaningful and enjoyable, I began to collect books to use for all the phases.

It’s trickier to find books at this level as the language tends to involve more than just simple CVC words, but there are some good options, including  Duck in a Truck .

‘Duck has no luck, he is stuck.’ It’s not as good as Jez Alborough’s original rhyming text, I’ll admit, but it works well for /ck/.

‘Stuck’ is technically a Phase 4 word as it has adjacent consonants, but most children have no problem decoding it in their enthusiasm to read the story, and there are no new graphemes to untangle.

There’s no shortage of choice here. As well as  The Dark Dark Tale , an obvious choice would be  Shark in the Park  (or  Shark in the Dark ) by Nick Sharratt.

Pig in the Pond by Martin Waddell is another lovely book and some of the pages require very little editing. This works well once children have begun digraphs and need a bit of revision of the early ones.

‘The pig sat in the sun. She looked at the pond. The ducks went “Quack!” The geese went “honk!”’.

Here things get a bit harder once again due to the increasing complexity of texts. However, there are options that highlight adjacent consonants well and help children revise previously learnt graphemes.

Mr Gumpy’s Outing by John Burningham, for instance, is one of those clever books where each word has been chosen with great care, even though at first glance it appears quite simple.

It really lends itself to comprehension. “The goat kicked, the chickens flapped, the pig mucked about…”. There’s a good conversation to be had about the way the word ‘mucked’ is used in that sentence!

This is a return to easier ground. There are dozens of options, with  The Smartest Giant in Town  by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler being one of my favourites, and useful for assessment.

You can be sure that any child who is able to read the letter at the end of the book has a very sound grasp of Phase 5.

Quentin Blake has written a couple of great books suitable for phonics teaching. Mr Magnolia is fantastic for exploring different ways of spelling the / oo/ phoneme (flute, newt, boot and suit). Fantastic Daisy Artichoke  provides lots of options for /oa/ (croak, stroke and folk).

Finally, if you are looking for a book that makes good use of nonsense words, Lynley Dodd’s  The Dudgeon   is Coming is a good example.

Alongside the Dudgeon, other characters have unconventional names that require decoding skills, eg The Bombazine Bear and the Purple Kazoo.

The most important thing to remember when using books is not to give children ‘extractitis’ and always make sure you read and enjoy the whole book together. After all, that is the point of learning phonics!

Jacqueline Harris ( @phonicsandbooks ) is a literacy consultant and passionate advocate of high-quality children’s literature.

Giving time over to drama lessons may feel like a risk, but it’s certain to deepen children’s understanding of fictional narratives, says former primary headteacher Ruth Baker-Leask…

Not every teacher’s encounters with drama are positive. We have all experienced that stomach-lurching moment when, during a training session, an overzealous course leader asks you to try ‘a bit of role play’.

Drama can feel daunting, and it would be easy to leave it in the hands of the talented, uninhibited few. However, many children have an often undiscovered natural talent for drama, and most pupils enjoy and engage with role play activities.

Drama is a useful method for teaching curriculum content, particularly reading and writing. And the well-worn quote from  To Kill a Mockingbird  by Harper Lee illustrates why we should be turning to role play as one of the essential teaching strategies we use to support children’s understanding of narrative:

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Atticus Finch

During the teaching of reading, drama and role play can support children to:

• engage with texts they might otherwise find difficult
• understand plot and action
• understand a story’s setting and how this influences action
• predict and discuss future actions and their consequences
• understand and discuss mood and atmosphere
• understand characters’ traits and infer their feelings, motives and intentions
• explore the language used by characters to express thoughts and feelings

Why role play?

From an early age, children explore worlds, real and imagined, through the act of role play. In Early Years they are provided with a range of opportunities to engage in imaginative play such as role-play areas, puppets and props, and through the act of small world play.

Role play becomes more structured for older children but still provides the same benefits. It strengthens their comprehension skills by supporting them to make connections between a fictional world and their own lives.

It also provides children with opportunities to explore scenarios within stories, considering their importance and consequences.

“Role play becomes more structured for older children but still provides the same benefits”

In addition, role play contributes to children’s language development as well as developing confidence and creative thinking. It also strengthens collaborative relationships within the classroom.

Understanding book characters with Role on the Wall

Role play involves inhabiting the characters and their fictional world. Therefore, it’s best to give children time to explore these characters through book talk and discussion before leaping headfirst into a drama activity.

Role on the Wall is a great way to do this and can be revisited at any point as a story progresses. Here is an example of a KS1 Role on the Wall of Beegu , from the popular book by Alexis Deacon.

Fig 1 shows how the character feels (inside her outline) when she finds herself stranded on a strange planet. Around the outside of her outline are words that illustrate how others perceive Beegu (both her character and her appearance).

Fig 2 shows how you can add to and alter a Role on the Wall as a story progresses. This allows children to notice how characters develop throughout a narrative. Each coloured sticky note represents a different moment in the story.

Role play activities to try

Role play activities can be short and easily delivered during book talk or shared reading lessons, eg quickly hot-seating a character at a crucial moment in a story or taking a moment to explore a character’s thoughts using a freeze frame.

However, sometimes you may wish to make role play the main event. In this case you have to create or find plenty of space (every teacher should have a ‘move the tables back’ plan up their sleeve), and not feel guilty for taking a couple of hours out of the week to indulge in a bit of drama that might not have any form of written outcome.

These are some of the techniques I like to use most often:

Overheard conversations

In groups or pairs, improvise conversations between key characters. The teacher and other class members eavesdrop and report back what they heard.

Telephone conversations

Mock call each other in role as characters from the story using the appropriate tone and language.

Flashback or flashforward

Role-play a scene from before the beginning of a story, or what happens after the story finishes.

In role as a chosen character, the children gossip about each other, making reference to critical events in a story.

Imagined characters

Sometimes it is useful for children to stand back from the action and adopt a different point of view. This is easily done by inserting new characters, who are imagined observers of the story, into a role play. For example:

• Policeman sent to the scene of a crime within the story
• Character’s teacher who is talking about one of the characters during parents’ evening
• Town councillor making an announcement about events that have affected the hometown of the character
• Character’s parent or friend discussing their concerns
• Bystander gossiping about an event in the story
• Local wise woman, etc

Writing in role

Writing in role is a worthwhile extension to most drama activities. It offers children a further opportunity to express a character’s thoughts and feelings and allows them to reflect on the text as a whole.

Writing in role provides children with an authentic purpose for their writing as well as enabling them to write freely, unrestrained by the expectations of more formal writing lessons. They might choose to write in role a:

• Social media post
• Packing checklist
• Travel blog
• TV/radio interview
• Resignation letter
• Informal note to be slipped under a door
• Thank you card or letter etc

Get involved

As you can see, drama and role play can support teachers to deepen children’s understanding of text in varied and engaging ways. This means you can avoid the temptation to only teach reading comprehension through the model of teacher questioning.

Using role play as part of your teacher’s toolkit can be significantly enhanced when you get involved yourself (oh, there’s that familiar stomach lurch!).

“Avoid the temptation to only teach reading comprehension through the model of teacher questioning”

No one likes to make a fool of themselves, but your children would appreciate it if you did. To fully immerse children in any dramatic scenario, you might need to jump in with them.

A former primary head, Ruth Baker-Leask is director of Minerva Learning and chair of the National Association of Advisers in English (NAAE).

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• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

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23 Fun and Easy Guided Reading Activity Ideas

Boost reading skills in small groups.

Guided reading is small-group instruction that supports each reader’s progress with mini-lessons, practice, and feedback. Students read books at their level and engage in activities before and after that help them build core reading skills. Read on to learn how to teach a guided reading lesson, plus see our favorite guided reading activity ideas.

What is included in a guided reading lesson?

You’ll use the same text across multiple guided reading lessons. Depending on the skills you’re teaching and the text, you may plan guided reading lessons that span a few days or a week. The point is to really get into the text and practice reading skills with your feedback and guidance.

Each guided reading lesson is broken into parts:

Mini lesson

A mini lesson that focuses on phonemic awareness, phonics, word reading, fluency, or vocabulary. You can’t hit all of those in one mini lesson, so choose a skill that students will be using in the text they’re reading right after the mini lesson.

Read the book

Students read the decodable book independently. They may whisper-read while you listen, or they may read on their own and read aloud when you ask them to. During this time, you check in with students to make sure they are able to read and understand the text.

Comprehension activities

After students have finished reading, it’s time to talk about what they read. They’ll retell, answer questions, and engage in other comprehension-based activities.

The last part of a guided reading lesson is applying the skills they learned in writing. This could mean practicing writing words from the story, or writing sentences or responses to the story.

Preparing for Guided Reading

Guided reading takes planning—lots of planning. Doing this work on the front end will make guided reading an effective, fun time in your reading block. Here are the three steps you can take to make guided reading work:

Get students into groups

Ashleigh’s Education Journey/guided reading groups via Ashleigh-educationjourney.com

Use data from your school’s universal screening and other assessments to identify which students are working on the same thing for guided reading groups. Maybe you have a group of students who are working on long vowel patterns, while another group is working on reading multi-syllabic words. The text they read will give them a chance to practice what they’re learning, so it’s important to have the right groups.

Choose an appropriate text

Text selection is key during guided reading. Students should be working in text that they can just reach with support since they’re spending their reading time being closely monitored. Look for decodable texts, or texts that have words that students have learned. So, a short-“a” decodable reader would have words that only have the short “a” sound—it won’t include long “a” words or other vowels.

As students get older, finding books that they’re interested in reading continues to be important, but you’ll look for books that have features you want to teach, like text features or text structure.

Set the schedule

Ashleigh’s Education Journey/guided reading schedule

Set a schedule that ensures that each student gets what they need—students who are able to read and work more independently may need a different schedule than students who struggle to work on their own and need additional help with reading. A weekly schedule lets you make sure you’re hitting all the right skills and practice.

A guided reading schedule may also include intervention or Tier 2 groups. Read more about reading intervention .

Mini-Lesson Activities

Each guided reading lesson will start with a mini-lesson. You don’t have a lot of time, so focus on one aspect of reading that students are going to apply in the book that day.

Build and Write Words

Ashleigh’s Education Journey/guided reading activity via Ashleigh-educationjourney.com

Give students practice forming words with letter tiles or cut-out letter squares. Students choose the letters they need to sound out words that they’ll read in the book. Then, with the model they’ve created, they can write the word in the next column.

Pop and Write

Mrs. Winter’s Bliss/word mapping activity via mrswintersbliss.com

In this guided reading activity, have students use a Pop-It to break a word into sounds. Then, students use a whiteboard marker to write the word. (Could you include more fun things in one activity?!) Combining the Pop-It for phonemic awareness and writing to practice encoding letter sounds is a great way to reinforce two skills at once.

CVC Word Reading

Miss Kindergarten/CVC word reading via misskindergarten.com

Use cards like these from Miss Kindergarten to practice pointing to and blending each sound in a word. Choose words that will be in the book students are reading and point out when they use the same strategy they use during the practice in their actual book reading.

Pre-Teach Vocabulary

The Science Penguin/vocabulary concept building via thesciencepenguin.com

Help students start to organize and remember new vocabulary by having them work with words. In this example from The Science Penguin , students sort new words according to parts of speech to help commit them to memory.

Sight Word Sticker Book

First Grader … at Last/sight word sticker book via Firstgraderatlast.blogspot.com

As students master sight words, have them put stickers by each word. Then, as a warm-up in guided reading, they can review the words they know and practice words they don’t. Set a day as sticker day, when they can prove that they’ve mastered a new word and add more stickers to their book.

Learn more: First Grader … at Last

Fluency Strips

Mrs. Richardson’s Class/fluency Strips via mrsrichardsonsclass.com

In this guided reading activity, have students practice reading fluency with short, manageable strips of a phrase or a sentence or two. You can also print out sentences or short paragraphs from books they’re reading so you can build repeated reading practice into guided reading.

Learn more: Mrs. Richardson’s Class

Read more: Fluency Activities

Word Family Fluency

Miss Kindergarten/word family fluency via misskindergarten.com

Another way to work in some quick fluency practice is with word family sentence strips. Give students the strips for the word family they are working on and have them practice reading through the strips. If you organize them by color like Miss Kindergarten , you can also have a rainbow-sentence option with sentences from all the different word families.

Mrs. Richardson’s Class/phonics practice example via mrsrichardsonsclass.com

Practice making words that have the same spelling pattern—for example, writing all the words that end in -igh. Choose spelling patterns students will see in the book you’re going to read so students can get maximum practice with the spelling patterns.

Read more: Phonics Activities

Preview the Text

Previewing the text, or looking at the main features, is a habit that you’ll want students to have as they read on their own. Use time during guided reading to preview each text before you read it.

Here’s how to preview a text with students:

During reading activities

Teaching With Jennifer Findley/guided reading data tracker via jenniferfindley.com

During guided reading, the most important activity is reading. The teacher’s role is to listen as students read and then give them feedback on their reading. Correct a word here. Prompt them to use a strategy there.

Take notes on how students are reading each session so you have the data to track their progress.

Get it: Free printable guided reading note taker from Jennifer Findley

After reading activities

After students have read the text, it’s time to talk comprehension. They can practice retelling, answering questions, and discussing text with their small group. Their responses will show you how they’re doing in terms of understanding questions and pulling information out of the text.

Retelling Gloves

Buzzing With Ms. B/retelling gloves via buzzingwithmsb.com

Create a retelling glove and have students refer to each of the five fingers for each part of the story they should include in a retelling. This helps students who get lost in telling you all the details. You can have them put each finger down as they tell you that part of the story.

Learn more: Buzzing With Ms. B

Comprehension Fans

Runde’s Room/Comprehension Fans via rundesroom.com

Organize questions onto strips or cards, and put a collection of these questions on a ring to create a “fan” for this guided reading activity. Then have students select a question from the fan to ask a group, or write a response.

Learn more: Runde’s Room

Check out this list of printable questions for book discussions .

Fill In the Graphic Organizer

Courtney Schermerhorn/graphic organizer via teacherspayteachers.com

A graphic organizer is a great way to help students organize information they pull from a text. As students learn how to complete graphic organizers and use text structure to understand text, provide graphic organizers with some parts filled in to model a correct response (read: full sentences) and give students a scaffold to complete the entire organizer.

Buy it: Graphic organizer at Teachers Pay Teachers

Reading Dice

A Love 4 Teaching/reading dice via alove4teaching.blogspot.com

Write open-ended literature response questions on dice. Then, students roll the dice and answer the question that lands on top.

Learn more: A Love 4 Teaching

Comprehension Jenga

Counselor Clique/Questions on a Jenga game via counselorclique.com

Counselor Clique wrote questions for post-career goals in this example, but for guided reading, write questions on Jenga blocks that apply to your students’ age and reading goals. Then, play a game of Jenga—students pull a block from the stacked tower and answer the question they get.

Summarize Together

This Reading Mama/Summarizing Activity via thisreadingmama.com

Students practice summarizing using signal words by using sticky notes and papers that have the key features of a summary: who, what, when, where, why. After students write their signal words, they create a group summary by sticking them onto the paper. Over time, students can do this activity on their own or in a small group without direct supervision.

Read more: This Reading Mama

Bloom Balls

Coffee Cups & Lesson Plans/Bloom Ball activity via coffeecupslessonplans.com

Have older students create a Bloom Ball, a 12-sided ball with space to write on each side. Students write questions they can ask about any text, or projects they can do with any text, on each side. Then, they roll the ball to see which question they answer or which project they do.

Learn more at Coffee Cups & Lesson Plans .

Buy it: Bloom Ball template at Teachers Pay Teachers

Prediction Practice

Raise the Bar Reading/making predictions activity via teacherspayteachers.com

Making predictions using information from the text is an important skill students use to maintain comprehension. Use a template, like this one from Raise the Bar Reading , to help students identify the information from the text, then use that information to make predictions.

Buy it: Making Predictions printable at Teachers Pay Teachers

Student-Led Groups

The Mountain Teacher/student-led reading groups via themountainteacher.com

As students get older and learn how to discuss text on their own, put them into groups to discuss. Having roles in the group can help some students stay on task, and ensures that everyone has something to be accountable for.

Learn more: The Mountain Teacher

Guided Writing

The last part of guided reading is writing! This is when students are able to consolidate everything they learned, put it into their own words, and maybe add some more ideas.

Letter Writing

Whimsy Workshop Teaching/letter-writing examples via whimsyworkshopteaching.com

Letter writing is a great way to have students retell and engage with text. You can have students write a letter to a character (like the example from Whimsy Workshop Teaching ). Or have students put themselves in the mind of one character and write a letter to another character in the book from that point of view. This activity is good for after students read an especially dramatic part in the story and one character has a secret or new information they can’t wait to share.

Newspaper Article

Kirsten’s Kaboodle/newspaper template via kirstenskaboodle.com

Newspaper writing is retelling for older students. This activity has students retell what happened in the day’s or week’s reading in a newspaper article format. Use a graphic organizer to make sure that students include all the relevant sections.

Buy it: Kirsten’s Kaboodle newspaper template

Pitch a Sequel

In this guided reading activity, have students write an idea for a sequel to the book or story they just read. Where would they take the characters next? What conflict would these characters get into next?

Comic Strip Retell

Mrs. RM/comic strip retelling via Pinterest

Another way to retell for older students: Use a comic strip format to show the beginning, middle, and end of a story or scene. For longer texts, you could have students build out a comic strip across multiple guided reading lessons, or have students work collaboratively to turn the entire story into a comic.

Graph Character Arc

This one will really engage students’ creativity. Students choose a type of graph (pie graph, chart, etc.) and track the character’s emotions or level of conflict in a scene or book. Label the graph with information from the story.

What are your favorite guided reading activity ideas? Share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group  on Facebook.

Check it out: 49 anchor charts all about reading comprehension ..

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English Reading Comprehension Printable Worksheets for Grade 1 Free

Subject: Whole school

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

17 May 2024

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This English comprehension ebook can be a great tool to help a child learn and improve their English comprehension skills. Here are a few ways a child can benefit from using an English comprehension ebook:

To get full version of this printable , Kindly open this link: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/english-reading-comprehension-printable-worksheets-for-grade-1-13003519

The ebook can provide interactive exercises and activities that can help the child practice and apply what they are learning. The ebook can include audio recordings of the text, which can help the child improve their listening comprehension skills. The ebook can provide access to a wide range of texts, including stories, articles, and poems, which can help the child learn new vocabulary and improve their reading comprehension skills. The ebook can include explanations and examples that can help the child understand complex concepts and improve their overall comprehension of the English language. The ebook can be accessed on a variety of devices, which can make it easy for the child to learn and practice their English comprehension skills at home or on the go.

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We hope you have enjoyed the lite version of English Comprehension eBook. Good news is we have full English Reading Comprehension for Grade 1 eBook too, in very minimum price. Check out the full version here: English Reading Comprehension for Grade 1

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US economic output hits 2-year high

The US economy is defying expectations amid concerns of a slowdown. 

S&P Global's flash US composite PMI , which captures activity in both the services and manufacturing sectors, came in at 54.4 in May, up from 51.3 in April. Economists had expected the index to remain largely unchanged in May. Instead, it hit a 25-month high.

Both the services and manufacturing sectors were in expansion mode, with services driving most of the gains for the composite index. The services component of S&P's report showed the index registered 54.8 this month, up from 54.2 in April. Manufacturing activity hit a reading of 50.9, up from 50 in April. 

Any reading above 50 for these indexes represents expansion in the sector; readings below 50 indicate contraction.

“The US economic upturn has accelerated again after two months of slower growth, with the early PMI data signaling the fastest expansion for just over two years in May," S&P Global Market Intelligence chief business economist Chris Williamson wrote in the release. "The data put the US economy back on course for another solid GDP gain in the second quarter."

Other recent data had indicated the economy is cooling. The April jobs report showed fewer job additions than expected and a pickup in the unemployment rate, while the preliminary reading of first quarter GDP showed the US economy grew at a slower pace than initially thought.

Largely, the market had digested that data as a welcome sign for the Fed's fight against inflation. On Thursday, the hot PMI reading sent stocks to their lows of the session while the 10-year Treasury yield ( ^TNX ) quickly added 3 basis points to hit 4.46%. Notably, the interest rate-sensitive Russell 2000 ( ^RUT ) turned negative after the print, falling more than 0.5%.

"[Services] is obviously a very interest rate [sensitive] part of the economy, and that acceleration in growth is clearly one that is going to worry the central bank in particular that you've got some building demand pressures here in the economy again," Williamson told Yahoo Finance. 

Williamson noted that input prices continued to rise in May. Manufacturers saw the largest cost increase in a year and a half. 

"This last mile to target [inflation of 2%] is proving really frustrating," Williamson said.

Josh Schafer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X @_joshschafer .

Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices .

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

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• About Adverse Childhood Experiences
• Risk and Protective Factors
• Program: Essentials for Childhood: Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences through Data to Action
• Adverse childhood experiences can have long-term impacts on health, opportunity and well-being.
• Adverse childhood experiences are common and some groups experience them more than others.

What are adverse childhood experiences?

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). Examples include: 1

• Experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect.
• Witnessing violence in the home or community.
• Having a family member attempt or die by suicide.

Also included are aspects of the child’s environment that can undermine their sense of safety, stability, and bonding. Examples can include growing up in a household with: 1

• Substance use problems.
• Mental health problems.
• Instability due to parental separation.
• Instability due to household members being in jail or prison.

The examples above are not a complete list of adverse experiences. Many other traumatic experiences could impact health and well-being. This can include not having enough food to eat, experiencing homelessness or unstable housing, or experiencing discrimination. 2 3 4 5 6

Quick facts and stats

ACEs are common. About 64% of adults in the United States reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE before age 18. Nearly one in six (17.3%) adults reported they had experienced four or more types of ACEs. 7

Preventing ACEs could potentially reduce many health conditions. Estimates show up to 1.9 million heart disease cases and 21 million depression cases potentially could have been avoided by preventing ACEs. 1

Some people are at greater risk of experiencing one or more ACEs than others. While all children are at risk of ACEs, numerous studies show inequities in such experiences. These inequalities are linked to the historical, social, and economic environments in which some families live. 5 6 ACEs were highest among females, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native adults, and adults who are unemployed or unable to work. 7

ACEs are costly. ACEs-related health consequences cost an estimated economic burden of $748 billion annually in Bermuda, Canada, and the United States. 8

ACEs can have lasting effects on health and well-being in childhood and life opportunities well into adulthood. 9 Life opportunities include things like education and job potential. These experiences can increase the risks of injury, sexually transmitted infections, and involvement in sex trafficking. They can also increase risks for maternal and child health problems including teen pregnancy, pregnancy complications, and fetal death. Also included are a range of chronic diseases and leading causes of death, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and suicide. 1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

ACEs and associated social determinants of health, such as living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods, can cause toxic stress. Toxic stress, or extended or prolonged stress, from ACEs can negatively affect children’s brain development, immune systems, and stress-response systems. These changes can affect children’s attention, decision-making, and learning. 18

Children growing up with toxic stress may have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships. They may also have unstable work histories as adults and struggle with finances, jobs, and depression throughout life. 18 These effects can also be passed on to their own children. 19 20 21 Some children may face further exposure to toxic stress from historical and ongoing traumas. These historical and ongoing traumas refer to experiences of racial discrimination or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities. 1 6

Adverse childhood experiences can be prevented. Certain factors may increase or decrease the risk of experiencing adverse childhood experiences.

Preventing adverse childhood experiences requires understanding and addressing the factors that put people at risk for or protect them from violence.

Creating safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children can prevent ACEs and help all children reach their full potential. We all have a role to play.

• Merrick MT, Ford DC, Ports KA, et al. Vital Signs: Estimated Proportion of Adult Health Problems Attributable to Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Prevention — 25 States, 2015–2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68:999-1005. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6844e1 .
• Cain KS, Meyer SC, Cummer E, Patel KK, Casacchia NJ, Montez K, Palakshappa D, Brown CL. Association of Food Insecurity with Mental Health Outcomes in Parents and Children. Science Direct. 2022; 22:7; 1105-1114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2022.04.010 .
• Smith-Grant J, Kilmer G, Brener N, Robin L, Underwood M. Risk Behaviors and Experiences Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness—Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 23 U.S. States and 11 Local School Districts. Journal of Community Health. 2022; 47: 324-333.
• Experiencing discrimination: Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Impacts of Racism on the Foundations of Health | Annual Review of Public Health https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-090419-101940 .
• Sedlak A, Mettenburg J, Basena M, et al. Fourth national incidence study of child abuse and neglect (NIS-4): Report to Congress. Executive Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health an Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.; 2010.
• Font S, Maguire-Jack K. Pathways from childhood abuse and other adversities to adult health risks: The role of adult socioeconomic conditions. Child Abuse Negl. 2016;51:390-399.
• Swedo EA, Aslam MV, Dahlberg LL, et al. Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among U.S. Adults — Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2011–2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:707–715. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7226a2 .
• Bellis, MA, et al. Life Course Health Consequences and Associated Annual Costs of Adverse Childhood Experiences Across Europe and North America: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Lancet Public Health 2019.
• Adverse Childhood Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Associations with Poor Mental Health and Suicidal Behaviors Among High School Students — Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, United States, January–June 2021 | MMWR
• Hillis SD, Anda RF, Dube SR, Felitti VJ, Marchbanks PA, Marks JS. The association between adverse childhood experiences and adolescent pregnancy, long-term psychosocial consequences, and fetal death. Pediatrics. 2004 Feb;113(2):320-7.
• Miller ES, Fleming O, Ekpe EE, Grobman WA, Heard-Garris N. Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes. Obstetrics & Gynecology . 2021;138(5):770-776. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000004570 .
• Sulaiman S, Premji SS, Tavangar F, et al. Total Adverse Childhood Experiences and Preterm Birth: A Systematic Review. Matern Child Health J . 2021;25(10):1581-1594. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-021-03176-6 .
• Ciciolla L, Shreffler KM, Tiemeyer S. Maternal Childhood Adversity as a Risk for Perinatal Complications and NICU Hospitalization. Journal of Pediatric Psychology . 2021;46(7):801-813. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsab027 .
• Mersky JP, Lee CP. Adverse childhood experiences and poor birth outcomes in a diverse, low-income sample. BMC pregnancy and childbirth. 2019;19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-019-2560-8 .
• Reid JA, Baglivio MT, Piquero AR, Greenwald MA, Epps N. No youth left behind to human trafficking: Exploring profiles of risk. American journal of orthopsychiatry. 2019;89(6):704.
• Diamond-Welch B, Kosloski AE. Adverse childhood experiences and propensity to participate in the commercialized sex market. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2020 Jun 1;104:104468.
• Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care, & Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2663
• Narayan AJ, Kalstabakken AW, Labella MH, Nerenberg LS, Monn AR, Masten AS. Intergenerational continuity of adverse childhood experiences in homeless families: unpacking exposure to maltreatment versus family dysfunction. Am J Orthopsych. 2017;87(1):3. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000133 .
• Schofield TJ, Donnellan MB, Merrick MT, Ports KA, Klevens J, Leeb R. Intergenerational continuity in adverse childhood experiences and rural community environments. Am J Public Health. 2018;108(9):1148-1152. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304598 .
• Schofield TJ, Lee RD, Merrick MT. Safe, stable, nurturing relationships as a moderator of intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment: a meta-analysis. J Adolesc Health. 2013;53(4 Suppl):S32-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.05.004 .

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

ACEs can have a tremendous impact on lifelong health and opportunity. CDC works to understand ACEs and prevent them.

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Solar storm hits Earth, producing colorful light shows across Northern Hemisphere

A strong solar storm dazzled stargazers with an unusually strong northern lights display across much of the Midwestern United States. (AP video: Mark Vancleave)

An unusually strong solar storm hitting Earth could produce northern lights in the U.S. and potentially disrupt power and communications this weekend. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning Friday.

The northern lights flare in the sky over a farmhouse, late Friday, May 10, 2024, in Brunswick, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

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Northern lights appear in the night sky above the Brocken early Saturday, May 11, 2024, in Schierke, northern Germany. (Matthias Bein/dpa via AP)

In this long exposure photograph, a car drives past and illuminates poplars as the northern lights glow in the night sky above the village of Daillens, Switzerland, early Saturday, May 11, 2024. (Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP)

An old tombstone stands against the northern lights at a cemetery early Saturday, May 11, 2024, near Skidmore, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Old tombstones stand against the northern lights at a cemetery early Saturday, May 11, 2024, near Skidmore, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

The northern lights glow in the sky over St. Croix State Forest near Markville, Minn., late Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

Northern lights appear over the Dreisamtal valley in the Black Forest near Freiburg, Germany, Friday evening, May 10, 2024. (Valentin Gensch/dpa via AP)

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, glow on the horizon at St. Mary’s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay on the North East coast, England, Friday, May 10, 2024. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)

This image provided by NASA shows a solar flare, as seen in the bright flash in the lower right, captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on May 9, 2024. A severe geomagnetic storm watch has been issued for Earth starting Friday and lasting all weekend _ the first in nearly 20 years. (NASA/SDO via AP)

The northern lights shine over Portsmouth, N.H., Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

Northern lights shine over Portsmouth, N.H., Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

Northern lights glow in the night sky above the village of Daillens, Switzerland, early Saturday, May 11, 2024. (Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP)

Northern lights appear in the night sky over the Pferdskopf near Treisberg in the Hochtaunus district of Hesse, Germany, early Saturday, May 11, 2024. (Lando Hass/dpa via AP)

The crescent moon sets below the northern lights Saturday, May 11, 2024, near Skidmore, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Northern lights glow in the sky near Kroschel, Minn., late Friday, May 10, 2024. (Owen Caputo Sullivan via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An unusually strong solar storm hitting Earth produced stunning displays of color in the skies across the Northern Hemisphere early Saturday, with no immediate reports of disruptions to power and communications.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated. The effects of the Northern Lights, which were prominently on display in Britain, were due to last through the weekend and possibly into next week.

Missed Friday’s Northern Lights? The global light show, in photos

Many in the U.K. shared phone snaps of the lights on social media early Saturday, with the phenomenon seen as far south as London and southern England.

There were sightings “from top to tail across the country,” said Chris Snell, a meteorologist at the Met Office, Britain’s weather agency. He added that the office received photos and information from other European locations including Prague and Barcelona.

NOAA alerted operators of power plants and spacecraft in orbit, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to take precautions.

“For most people here on planet Earth, they won’t have to do anything,” said Rob Steenburgh, a scientist with NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

The storm could produce northern lights as far south in the U.S. as Alabama and Northern California, NOAA said. But it was hard to predict and experts stressed it would not be the dramatic curtains of color normally associated with the northern lights, but more like splashes of greenish hues.

“That’s really the gift from space weather: the aurora,” Steenburgh said. He and his colleagues said the best aurora views may come from phone cameras, which are better at capturing light than the naked eye.

AP AUDIO: Strong solar storm could disrupt communications and produce northern lights in US

AP correspondent Shelley Adler reports a solar storm may have an effect on the U.S.

Snap a picture of the sky and “there might be actually a nice little treat there for you,” said Mike Bettwy, operations chief for the prediction center.

The most intense solar storm in recorded history, in 1859, prompted auroras in central America and possibly even Hawaii. “We are not anticipating that” but it could come close, NOAA space weather forecaster Shawn Dahl said.

This storm poses a risk for high-voltage transmission lines for power grids, not the electrical lines ordinarily found in people’s homes, Dahl told reporters. Satellites also could be affected, which in turn could disrupt navigation and communication services here on Earth.

An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003, for example, took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.

Even when the storm is over, signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers could be scrambled or lost, according to NOAA. But there are so many navigation satellites that any outages should not last long, Steenburgh noted.

The sun has produced strong solar flares since Wednesday, resulting in at least seven outbursts of plasma. Each eruption, known as a coronal mass ejection, can contain billions of tons of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona.

The flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that’s 16 times the diameter of Earth, NOAA said. It is all part of the solar activity ramping up as the sun approaches the peak of its 11-year cycle.

NASA said the storm posed no serious threat to the seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The biggest concern is the increased radiation levels, and the crew could move to a better shielded part of the station if necessary, according to Steenburgh.

Increased radiation also could threaten some of NASA’s science satellites. Extremely sensitive instruments will be turned off, if necessary, to avoid damage, said Antti Pulkkinen, director of the space agency’s heliophysics science division.

Several sun-focused spacecraft are monitoring all the action.

“This is exactly the kinds of things we want to observe,” Pulkkinen said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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