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Third Grade Reading Comprehension Worksheets

Grade 3 stories and exercises.

Use these free, printable worksheets to practice and improve reading comprehension, vocabulary and writing. Included are fiction and non-fiction passages at a grade 3 level.  All worksheets are pdf files.

Leveled stories & reading worksheets

These leveled stories worksheets are from our series of leveled reading workbooks .  Each successive level provides greater reading challenge. Reading exercises follow each story.

Children's stories

Free children's stories for third grade . Each passages isfollowed by 6 questions. These fiction and non-fiction texts are 350-450 words long.

These historical passages and fables are followed by comprehension questions.  Exercises involve recalling information directly from the text as well as concepts such as prediction, inference and character traits.

Reading comprehension exercises for grade 3

These grade 3 reading worksheets focus on specific comprehension topics such distinguishing fact from opinion and sequencing events.

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English / Reading / Reading Comprehension / Year 3 Reading

These Year 3 reading comprehension worksheets focus on building a learner’s reading and comprehension skills. Worksheets or task cards include a reading passage and related comprehension questions and/or tasks. Some worksheets focus on a specific comprehension strategy (summarising, main idea, inferring, cause & effect, comparing, fact vs opinion, creating images & more). Other worksheets are simply reading passages with general comprehension questions and activities.

Use the filter above to narrow the results by resource type.

‘The Straw Hat’ Comprehension

A level 3 reading passage and comprehension set.

‘Superheroes Interview’ Comprehension

‘Seasons in Australia’ Comprehension

‘Money Matters’ Comprehension

‘Healthy Eating’ Comprehension

‘Grandad’ Comprehension

‘Football Up Above’ Comprehension

‘Excited’ Comprehension

‘Basketball’ Comprehension

‘Time for a Walk’ Comprehension

‘Outer Planets’ Grammar & Comprehension

A level 3 reading passage, comprehension and grammar set.

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• Year 6 Reading Comprehension Worksheets And Resources For Uks2 Literacy

Reading comprehension KS2 – Ultimate resource guide for Years 3-6

Make sure your pupils have all the reading comprehension skills they need with these worksheets, lessons, activities and more…

Unlock the potential of young minds with our ultimate reading comprehension guide, featuring the best worksheets and resources tailored for Years 3, 4, 5, and 6.

(If you teach Year 1 or Year 2, check out our round-up of the best KS1 reading comprehension resources . If you teach KS3, we’ve also got worksheet packs for Year 7 and Year 8 .)

KS2 reading comprehension resources

Year 3 and year 4 reading comprehension, year 5 and year 6 reading comprehension, reading comprehension teaching advice from experts, free beano comprehension worksheets.

This free comic book comprehension resource is great for reluctant readers and more fluent pupils alike, helping children become familiar with narrative structures.

It includes three Beano comic strips, three reading comprehension question worksheets, comic puzzles for working on narrative sequences and a blank comic template.

Real Comprehension curriculum programme for Years 1-6

Real Comprehension is a unique, whole-school reading comprehension programme from Plazoom, designed to develop sophisticated skills of inference and retrieval. It builds rich vocabularies and encourages the identification of themes and comparison between texts from Years 1 to 6.

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.

Reading comprehension worksheets

No matter what book you’re reading in class, use these free worksheets from Oxford University Press to track what’s happening in the plot, new words you come across and characters’ emotions, attributes and relationships.

Classic texts KS2 reading comprehension packs

These reading challenge mats from literacy resources website Plazoom provide a quick burst of comprehension practice, ideal for morning work, a short reading session or even sparking an interest in a classic text.

Each mat contains a brief extract from a classic text. There’s a range of reading challenge questions focusing on the key reading skills of inference, information retrieval and the use of language.

• Pack 1 : The Invisible Man , A Christmas Carol , The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• Pack 2 : Kidnapped , Oliver Twist, The Time Machine
• Pack 3 : Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , Dracula , The Hound of the Baskervilles
• Pack 4 : 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ,  Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe  by Daniel Defoe
• Pack 5 : The Jungle Book , The Railway Children, Doctor Doolittle
• Pack 6 : The Wizard of Oz , Five Children and It, The Wind in the Willows
• Pack 7 : Treasure Island ,  Great Expectations , The War of the Worlds

National Literacy Trust resources

If you’re looking to brush up on your knowledge of reading comprehension strategies, these four free handouts from the National Literacy Trust will prove useful. They cover discussion exercises to try with KS2, different definitions of reading comprehension, a further reading guide and a breakdown of national curriculum reading comprehension objectives.

KS2 fiction and non-fiction question cards

These comprehension cards from Plazoom give example questions to develop a range of comprehension skills when reading fiction and non-fiction texts. This includes:

• understanding vocabulary
• retrieving information
• sequencing events
• making inferences based on what is said and done
• predicting what might happen next
• encouraging positive discussions

Use them in one-to-one reading sessions, group guided or whole class reading sessions. Click here for the  fiction cards  and here for the  non-fiction cards .

Year 3 Marie Curie reading comprehension

This free Year 3 reading comprehension resource includes a Marie Curie fact file from Whizz Pop Bang magazine, plus two question sheets, one for lower-ability pupils and one for higher-ability pupils.

Reading comprehension non-fiction texts

These free Year 4 comprehension worksheets are all about the structure of non-fiction texts. There’s a short text for pupils to read, all about outer space, plus activities to complete.

Reading comprehension fiction worksheets

Each of these Unlocking Inference units from literacy resources website Plazoom focus on a different story, and are designed to support you in your teaching of inference and vocabulary.

They feature extracts which have been annotated with running questions to help you check that children are creating accurate images in their minds, and to clarify their literal understanding (including of key vocabulary) – an essential step towards them making reasoned inferences as they read.

The resources focus on famous stories, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan .

Tier 2 reading comprehension worksheets and vocabulary cards

Tier 2 words are ones which children might encounter in text but are less likely to use in everyday conversation. As these words are often unfamiliar to children, they can sometimes act as a barrier to reading.

Choose from a Year 3 pack and a Year 4 pack , both from literacy resources website Plazoom.

Tier 2 words can be used by children to add more adventurous or formal vocabulary to their writing. The download includes word cards, definition cards, worksheets and answer sheets.

Non-fiction reading comprehension worksheets pack

These packs from literacy resources website Plazoom focus on famous figures in history , Florence Nightingale and Marco Polo.

Each one builds children’s skills of recall and inference, and enhances their vocabulary, and includes a factsheet to work through, as well as an answer sheet.

Find  Marco Polo here  and  Florence Nightingale here .

Y3/4 dictionary worksheets

These KS2 dictionary worksheets for Year 3 and 4 from Plazoom support children in learning to use dictionaries to check the meaning of words that they have read; a LKS2 curriculum aim for reading comprehension.

Activities include sorting trios of words into alphabetical order, finding the definitions of words and their page numbers and using your own dictionary to check and correct the spelling of words.

KS2 SATs reading assessment practice pack

Get your Year 6 pupils ready for the SAT reading comprehension test with this free reading comprehension pack . There are three texts in the reading booklet: a classic poem, a non-chronological report and a narrative.

Questions have been mapped against the content domains so that you can identify question types and reading curriculum areas that your pupils may need to revisit.

These resource packs from literacy resources website Plazoom features 48 Tier 2 words for Year 5 , and another 48 for Year 6 . Challenge children to add more adventurous or formal vocabulary to their writing and use the included worksheets as a reading comprehension activity.

UKS2 reading comprehension worksheets

As above for the Year 3 and 4 versions, these Unlocking Inference units from literacy resources website Plazoom have been designed to support you in your teaching of inference and vocabulary. They’re based on a carefully scaffolded whole-class reading approach, including multiple iterations. This enables all pupils to access even relatively challenging texts.

Each one is based on an extract from a famous story, including Little Women , The Secret Garden and Treasure Island .

UKS2 ‘Jabberwocky’ poetry resources pack

This poetry pack from literacy resources website Plazoom is based around the classic nonsense poem ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carol. It contains lesson ideas that could be completed over a series of five sessions for Year 5 and Year 6, covering comprehension, vocabulary and composition.

How I boosted comprehension with song lyrics

Sing your way through SATs with Matt Dix’s guide to using popular music to increase children’s literacy skills…

As a Year 6 teacher, I’ve been thinking long and hard about reading, particularly since the SATS tests have become increasingly more difficult, but also because I want to get better at teaching reading itself. Above all, I want my class to read with greater understanding, to use key reading skills and to persevere through tough texts.

Two things have particularly resonated with me during this period. The first was this blog post by teacher Aidan Severs. I was intrigued by the idea of allowing children to retrieve and record information and look for context clues before the inference itself can really take place.

And secondly, I’ve also been inspired lately to give the guided reading carousel the boot and opt instead for whole-class reading.

Whole-class reading

There’s been much research of late describing the benefits of mixed-ability teaching, as well as whole-class reading. One thing has always annoyed me when collating reading resources, though, is the dreaded reading comprehension!

Much like how an independent writing task doesn’t improve writing, neither does an independent reading comprehension task. This is why more and more practitioners are focusing on key skills in a more organised fashion.

Take Rob Smith’s memorable mnemonic, VIPERS (Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise), or Rhoda Wilson’s DERIC (Decode, Explain, Retrieve, Interpret, Choice).

So, with all of this in mind, where exactly did it all take me?

Using lyrics in inference lessons

Well, as a teacher with a huge passion for music of all genres and ages, it occurred to me that the lyrics to many famous songs work as both narratives and poems. I carefully chose ten famous songs and broke each one into four separate reading comprehensions:

• Retrieval and Recording
• Context Clues
• Independent Assessment

First, we read the words and annotate them; then listen to the song, learn and sing a chorus or two; and then crack on with the comprehension.

During an inference lesson about the Tom Waits song ‘What’s He Building?’, I had one child using a range of clues to explain how there could be a murderer in the house, while the other child used identical clues to suggest that it was an elf building toys for Santa!

If anything, the lyrics provided an enlightening respite from the mundanity of SATs papers!

All in all, it allowed children to fully engage with a complex song, analyse its contents and then practise key skills either as a whole class, with a mixed-ability partner, or answer some questions independently. They then had the opportunity to answer an assessment of mixed questions on the last day.

Rather like Maths No Problem , I’m now modelling answers, completing guided questions and then allowing them to complete some questions independently.

All of this is done at snail’s pace, over the course of one week, with one song. This allows for discussion, critical thinking and the constant revisiting of reading strategies.

During the assessment, children also have to circle the correct code which links to a certain reading skill, and then learn the following strategies for each skill, which I have on display if need be.

1 | RR (Retrieval and Recording)

• Underlining key words
• Knowing synonyms of words you are looking for
• Knowing antonyms of words you are looking for
• Copying the word/sentence/phrase accurately

2 | CC (Context Clues)

• Replace the unknown word with a replacement which works
• Look at the rootword for clues
• Identify any prefixes or suffixes
• Identify articles and other words to give to a clue about the word class

3 | INF (Inference)

• Think what you already know about this subject
• Use two or more clues in the text to come up with a new piece of information
• Consider summarising paragraphs to aid general understanding
• Consider a change of thinking

4 | S (Summary)

• What inferences can I make?
• What is the overall ‘feel’ of the piece?
• Summarise a verse/paragraph in a word or short phrase
• Be general rather than specific

By practising a new skill for 30 minutes each day, I can model answers, use suitable vocabulary for inferences (this emphasises…, this suggests…, assumes…, most likely… etc) and transfer these skills into those mixed-skill reading comprehensions which means children flick from one skill to another without the faintest idea they are doing so.

When our SATs results came in, and with a more-challenging set of cohort data than the previous year, we ended up increasing the number of children making the expected standard by 12%. It may simply be down to 30 minutes of reading every day, but the focus on these key skills can only have helped.

Plus, if you can get your class listening to Iron Maiden, Tom Waits and David Bowie in the space of a few weeks, something’s going well!

Matt Dix is a Year 6 teacher and one-third of Manic Street Teachers , a musical trio that create literacy, maths and science songs and accompanying resources.

How I used Adele’s ‘Hello’ for comprehension

Need to improve comprehension? Then draft in Adele as your TA for the day, says Shareen Mayers…

I was recently given the challenge of improving reading comprehension skills in a school where results were particularly low. I knew I’d need to come up with something creative if I wanted the children to be excited and engaged – but when I first presented pop songs to both the Y6 classes, I’m fairly sure the pupils were confused… 

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the idea to catch on, and reading began to dramatically improve as a result. Indeed, the children soon became keen to show off their new comprehension skills.

You can use the activities I devised for guided/group reading and/or whole-class sessions. If you’d like to try them out with your own class, here’s my quick guide to how you can use pop music to stimulate discussion and add a little fun to reading comprehension lessons…

Getting started

First things first, you need to choose a song to play to the children (a fairly clean one!). My song of choice is Paul Damixie’s remix of Adele’s ‘Hello’, because it has a fast beat and almost certainly makes the class want to dance along.

Hello, can you hear me? I’m in California dreaming About who we used to be When we were younger and free I’ve forgotten how it felt Before the world fell at our feet There’s such a difference between us And a million miles

After this, you can ask a range of questions to enable pupils to practise their comprehension skills. Bearing in mind that the bold question stems can be adapted for any other songs, these could include:

• According to the text , where is Adele dreaming?
• How  many miles apart are they?
• Find and copy  one word that means you cannot remember something.
• What  is the main message in this section?

Some pupils might even discover that Adele is not actually in California. Despite what a first listen to the lyrics might suggest, the song is not even intended to be about an ex-boyfriend. Adele is actually talking about reconnecting with herself, as she explains in the tweet below:

pic.twitter.com/dDImEhKt10 — Adele (@Adele) October 21, 2015

Deepening oral responses

To really develop pupils’ reading comprehension skills, I like to scaffold their responses so that they’re able to give extended answers to key questions. A simple way of doing this is to use a three-step approach:

• ‘I think that…’ (views)
• ‘Because…’ (evidence from the text)
• ‘This shows/demonstrates…’ (explanation)

Hello, it’s me I was wondering if after All these years you’d like to meet To go over everything They say time’s supposed to heal ya But I ain’t done much healing

(At this point the grammar police will be unhappy about the non-Standard English, but this is a good teaching point as it adds to the effect of the song).

I have encouraged pupils to write their answers in standard English, which is a great way of embedding grammar skills.

Key question: Explain why Adele is unhappy using evidence from the text

• I think that  she is unhappy
• Because  she says she has not done much healing
• This shows  that she hasn’t got over whatever upset her

Modelling how to answer these questions is very powerful, because it will ensure pupils are using the text to answer questions, and encourage them to explain and justify their answers.

It is important to note that pupils should not repeat their point in their answers. For example:

• This shows  she is unhappy

Encouarge pupils to explain point one, use evidence from the text to justify this and explain what this means.

Apply to a reading comprehension text

Once pupils have practised this orally and are confident with applying this technique to a range of pop songs, film clips or pictures, these skills can be applied to a reading comprehension text. Teachers will therefore be developing pupils’ comprehension skills first, before carrying out written comprehension questions.

Shareen Mayers is an experienced primary school teacher.

The best questions to ask to support children’s reading comprehension

Ascertaining children’s understanding of a text shouldn’t feel like pulling teeth, nor should it require it. Just get creative with effective questioning, say Nikki Gamble and Camilla Garafolo…

It’s hard to imagine a reading lesson where you wouldn’t ask questions to find out what children understand about a text. But since the 1970s, research has shown that asking too many questions without giving the reader time to formulate their own questions or process their thinking can inhibit, rather than support, comprehension.

There are, however, steps you can take to make sure your  questioning  is effective. You can help children formulate their own questions and give them opportunities to pursue the answers.

You can use your questions to respond to pupils’ ideas – to structure and scaffold their thinking so that they come to a deeper understanding of the text. And you can ask appropriate questions before, during and after reading, which develops comprehension more effectively than only asking questions afterwards.

In Richmond, teachers have been taking part in the Developing Excellence in Reading project and reviewing how questions and alternative prompts are used in their classrooms.

What follows are three of the strategies that have proved particularly effective when it comes to improving reading comprehension.

1 | Use question organisers

These help children analyse their own questions. For example, the question quadrant below illustrates how a group of Year 5 children organised their thoughts after reading David Wiesner’s wordless picture book,  Flotsam .

Following a first read-through, they wrote questions about the things that interested or puzzled them and then mapped them onto the grid. (For younger classes, the quadrant may be too complicated. If so, simply use a ‘question organiser’ with two columns – ‘Questions that have one answer’ and ‘Questions that have more than one answer’.)

Initially, the teacher modelled the process, helping the children decide where their questions should be placed and then they completed the task independently in groups.

Working document

When they had finished, the teacher reflected with them. How easy was it to place the questions? Were some more difficult than others? Why?

When the children returned to the text for a second reading, there were ‘pennydrop’ moments as they found answers to their own questions.

At the end of the session, the teacher asked the group to cross through any questions they had been able to answer.

She also asked them whether any new questions had emerged. She wrote these on the grid using a different colour to distinguish them from the first set.

The quadrant had become a useful working document charting the progress of the pupils’ thinking.

Simpler version

One year 4 teacher thought the Question Quadrant was too complex for her class and came up with a solution to simplify the process. She decided to use one large question organiser for the whole class, which she divided into two columns.

The pupils wrote questions on post-it notes and placed these on the organiser. As they read further, they returned to it and removed the questions that they had answered. As the class read further, they added new questions as they arose.

Once your class has filled out a question quadrant or organiser, reflect on which questions will be easiest to answer. See if any question has potential for framing a subsequent guided reading session, or could be pursued as a homework task.

2 | Have a Quescussion

Encourage pupils to question as they read by having a discussion entirely conducted through questions. This technique is called a ‘Quescussion’. Paul Bidwell at the University of Saskatchewan developed this idea.

Quescussions are usually short, around two to five minutes, and involve the class calling out questions, and only questions. It allows many students to make brief contributions without interventions from the teacher.

You just set out the subject (or in this case, text) to explore, and let them raise any questions that will help them to analyse and gain a deeper understanding of the topic. There are only a few simple rules, so pupils quickly get the idea:

• The discussion can only contain questions (they can be asked without the need to raise hands)
• A pupil who asks a question must wait until at least four other questions have been asked before asking another
• The teacher may stop the Quescussion to help the pupils think about the type of questions they are asking. They may be encouraged to ask more open-ended questions eg Why? How?
• If a statement is made instead of a question the whole class will shout STATEMENT! (Rhetorical questions that are thinly-veiled statements should also be policed by the class.)

One of the benefits is that pupils who may be reluctant to talk feel more comfortable to volunteer a question as they are not in the spotlight.

Quescussions encourage more experimental and creative thinking because they are tentative. The teacher takes on the role of scribe to record the questions. These can then be grouped and organised and presented back to the class for future discussion.

Here’s an example taken from a Year 6 Quescussion about a passage from  The Secret Garden . The Quescussion provided an opportunity for the class to ask many questions that are central to understanding the behaviour of character Mary Lennox.

Mary had liked to look at her mother from a distance and she had thought her very pretty, but as she knew very little of her she could scarcely have been expected to love her or to miss her very much when she was gone.

She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was a self-absorbed child she gave her entire thought to herself as she had always done. If she had been older she would no doubt have been very anxious at being left alone in the world, but she was very young, and as she had always been taken care of, she supposed she always would be.

What she thought was that she would like to know if she was going to nice people, who would be polite to her and give her her own way as her Ayah and the other native servants had done?’

Quescussion

• ‘Who is Mary?’
• ‘Where has her mother gone?’
• ‘Has her mother died?’
• ‘Where is her father?’
• ‘How old is Mary?’
• ‘It says she was very young…’ ‘STATEMENT!’
• ‘How young is very young?’
• ‘Why doesn’t she miss her mother?’
• ‘Why is she all alone in the world?’
• ‘Doesn’t she have and brothers or sisters?’
• ‘Does she have any friends?’
• ‘Why is she self-absorbed?’
• ‘What does self-absorbed mean?’
• ‘Why does she only see her mother from a distance?’
• ‘Why is she going away?’
• ‘Where does Mary live?’
• ‘What is an Ayah?’
• ‘Where is this story set?’
• ‘I think it’s set in India’ ‘STATEMENT’
• ‘Is it set in India?’

Have a go by selecting a short text, poem, passage or photograph and organise a Quescussion. Record the questions, then group them into themes, display them, and return to them later – after you have read further.

3 | Make a statement

Asking direct questions isn’t the only way to encourage pupil questioning. Making a statement, especially a declarative one, can often reinvigorate a discussion. Initially, you may need to explain to pupils that statements are an invitation for discussion and are not irrefutable.

When you pose a statement, questions will naturally arise in the discussion that follows. Unlike with questions, where you look for the ‘right’ answer, with declaratives pupils start to question what the statement means, and try to find evidence to either prove or disprove it.

This is especially the case when you present strong statements, which allow for differing points of view and contention. Here are some examples:

• Memorial  by Gary Crewe and Shaun Tan: ‘People’s memories are more important than memorials.’
• The Nightingale and the Rose  by Oscar Wilde: ‘Oscar Wilde thinks education is more important than love.’
• Maggie Dooley  by Charles Causley: ‘Maggie Dooley is lonely and unloved.’
• The Tunnel  by Anthony Browne: ‘The boy is braver than the girl.’

Give groups a number of statements on strips of paper and ask the pupils to determine whether they agree or disagree with the statements, or whether they are undecided. When they have considered all possibilities, they should position the statements on a grid and provide evidence from the text to support their choice.

The table below is an example using statements about Anthony Browne’s Gorilla:

Sense of agency

At Barnes Primary School, using a range of strategies has noticeably developed the pupils’ sense of agency in their own learning. Discussions are more animated and purposeful.

One Year 4 child summed up the class’ thinking nicely: “Last year when we read a book, we would read it and then answer some questions set by the teacher. However, now that we get to ask our own questions, I think more about what the book has said and its meaning.”

Or, to use the words of another child, “I think it has helped me with my understanding, because now I stop when I finish a section of my reading, and check that I understand by asking myself questions.”

Nikki Gamble runs Just Imagine Story Centre. For further information about Developing Excellence in Teaching and Reading 7-14, contact  nikki@justimaginestorycentre .

Teaching children who have excellent decoding skills but weak reading comprehension

If our weaker comprehenders neglect key strategies in the moment of reading, they won’t build basic meaning, says Tony Whatmuff…

Class 5W’s joke book is finally finished. It’s the first read-through and everyone has a copy. I scrutinise my four weaker comprehenders as they read the first joke: The worst job I ever had was drilling holes looking for water. It was well boring.

Not a facial muscle twitches. Nearby, however, hilarity erupts, then spreads throughout the class. My four weaker comprehenders look around bewildered.

I know these four children have a good sense of humour, and all of them can read any word I give them (triceratops, dodecahedron, etc), so what is happening? I’ll tell you. They’re reading in a totally different way to my splitting-their-sides children.

Breaking down the issue

In the moment of reading, these four are either neglecting key strategies or experiencing vocabulary and language difficulties. Here’s my best guess at what’s going on with each child…

Jacob : Jacob has OK vocabulary but fails to spot the important words and integrate them together to build meaning (worst job, looking for water, drilling holes, well, boring). He probably hasn’t made the connection between the first and second sentence either.

Unsurprisingly, as Jacob generally struggles to read with understanding, he reads little and may lack knowledge about the genre of joke reading.

Mala : Mala is still developing vocabulary and oral language as she’s only been in the UK three years. She probably fails to understand the dual meanings of key words, such as ‘well’ and ‘boring’.

Abe : Abe was born in the UK but comes from a language-deprived home and has similar vocabulary and oral language issues to Mala.

Mckenzie : Mckenzie has good oral language but is a passive reader who focuses on decoding and fluency rather than accessing his background knowledge about ‘drilling holes’, ‘well’ and ‘boring’, because he doesn’t know it’s important. The knowledge is there, but he’s not accessing it. This means he’s not activating inferences either.

In the moment of reading

These four children illustrate the multiple risk factors associated with weak reading comprehension, despite having excellent decoding skills.

For effective reading comprehension, children need the following:

• Automatic decoding, fluency and reading miles
• Good vocabulary and oral language
• Active strategies in the moment of reading
• Effective after-text strategies to answer questions

A problem in any one of these areas will result in a problem with reading comprehension. But it’s this ‘in the moment of reading’ idea I want to focus on.

Us adults in school are skilled readers, but the price we pay for our expertise is that the strategies we use have become hidden from us because we activate them so automatically.

For example, have you ever read late at night in bed when you’re feeling really tired, then realised when you reach the end of the page that you’ve taken a word in? In this scenario, you’ve been decoding the words but no key strategies  in the moment of reading  have been activated.

Effective reader strategies

So, what  are  the strategies effective readers use in the moment of reading? Effective readers:

• Use their background knowledge and make links with the text
• Predict or ask questions and then read on to ‘find out’
• Visualise and use inference
• Notice meaning breakdown and use repair strategies to understand
• Notice very important words, phrases and ideas and put these together to build basic meaning

Do we teach these strategies explicitly? Probably not. We’re all pretty good at asking children questions after reading a text to explore deeper meaning, but if our weaker comprehenders neglect key strategies in the moment of reading, they won’t build basic meaning as they read.

Asking them questions after a text is like trying to build a block of flats on top of a swamp.

Fortunately, it’s possible to model these ‘in the moment’ strategies to a whole class or group, using teacher ‘think aloud’ bubbles on top of text. Use your whiteboard to do this.

Modelling in this way is called ‘read aloud, think aloud’ and makes the elusive process of comprehension more concrete. Children can then practise these strategies on the same or a follow-on text, then share and discuss so that more meaning and enjoyment is gained from a text.

Tony Whatmuff is a trainer and author with 25 years of teaching experience. He is also a consultant on Oxford Reading Buddy, a digital reading service that develops comprehension by coaching and modelling key strategies. Find out more at  global.oup.com .

How to explicitly teach reading strategies

Boost pupils’ post-pandemic skills by considering how you explicitly teach the strategies that children need to be successful …

Reading is the key to learning. However, if you’re a struggling reader, loving it can be a real challenge. Right now this is even more important, given that according to the DfE, pupils are on average two months behind in their reading learning as a result of the pandemic. For individual children, learning loss may be even greater, so how can we reverse this trend and ensure every child becomes a good reader?

The first step in improving children’s reading comprehension is to identify the exact level at which they’re reading. A diagnostic assessment and gap analysis will give you the information you need.

Try to get a snapshot of each child’s reading attainment, including decoding, fluency and comprehension, by using key reading skills.

Once your assessments are complete, look for patterns in your gap analysis and plan to address these through teaching and intervention.

Comprehension strategy – book choices

When teaching reading, choice of text is very important. Think about the complexity of decoding, vocabulary and content, and of course, engagement. Try not to just use familiar books, but instead focus on widening children’s reading repertoire by exposing them to different texts.

This is where your knowledge of children’s literature comes in. You could even explore paired texts, such as Beetle Boy and The Beetle Collector’s Handbook by MG Leonard so that children can make connections in their reading.

Cultural capital comprehension exercise

Pupils who struggle to read sometimes need to build their background knowledge and vocabulary. A child with good cultural capital will often have more of the prerequisite knowledge and skill needed to understand what they are reading than a disadvantaged child.

Try exploring key concepts and vocabulary before reading. For example, with Beetle Boy, you might discuss mystery stories, beetles, insects and museums first. Then you could teach children key vocabulary such as ‘specimen’ and ‘archaeologist’, giving them strategies to unpick unknown vocabulary.

With ‘archaeologist’, for instance, you could explain that ‘-ist’ means ‘somebody who does or makes’ and gather as many examples as you can which share this pattern, discussing their shared meaning.

Critical thinking and cognitive processes

Every good reader has a range of skills and strategies they use to make meaning. By explicitly teaching these, we can support all children to become resilient readers and give them the knowledge needed to comprehend any text they choose to read. But which skills and strategies need to be taught?

The most important skills of a reader are to retrieve information, define vocabulary in context and make inferences. A good reader will also sequence events, summarise content and predict what comes next. They will consider the effect of language, make comparisons and explore relationships.

These aspects of reading need to be taught progressively and regularly. Skills need to be explicitly taught and modelled, including the metacognitive processes we use when reading. For example, when teaching inference, you could introduce the idea of “‘What I read’ + ‘What I know’ + ‘What I think’ = my inference”.

By breaking down the cognitive processes behind reading, you can show children what a good reader does and give them the strategies they need to create meaning, before they practise and apply them using a range of texts, questions and activities.

Teaching reading skills and strategies is a complex process and can be daunting. Reflecting on your subject knowledge is really important and getting to grips with research such as the EEF Literacy Guidance Reports is a great start.

Reading journey

We know that reading for pleasure has a profound effect on children’s ability to understand what they read. We need to encourage a love of reading whenever we can. Children need daily time to read books they want to read. We need to immerse them in reading opportunities and show them reading role models.

By encouraging children to read for pleasure, we help them read more, and the more they read, the better readers they become. For all children to achieve their full potential, schools must consider their whole-school reading curriculum and whether it teaches the skills needed to decode, understand, and enjoy books.

Supporting a child on their reading journey is about so much more than just academic success. The benefits of reading go far beyond this. When we support every child to be a good reader, the benefits will stretch throughout their lives.

Jo Gray and Laura Lodge are authors of Schofield & Sims’  Complete Comprehension  and education consultants for One Education. Follow Jo on Twitter at  @jo_c_gray  and Laura at  @lauralodge208 .

Turn your students into comprehension ninjas

Use Vocabulary Ninja Andrew Jennings’ ideas to help primary pupils effectively skim, scan and retrieve information…

1 | Effective pre-reading

Prompt children to read with their pencil, meaning that their pencil moves across the page underneath each line as they read it. The benefit of training pupils to do this is that when it comes to underlining a key piece of information, their pencil is already in the correct location – it’s efficient.

2 | Underline key information

If you want pupils to underline key information as they read, they need to know what this means.

Consider the following categories:

• Names of people, places, companies, events, locations, etc
• Dates including days, months, years, times; statistics and numbers including percentages, fractions, amounts, figures, etc
• Words that pupils don’t understand (identifying them may still help pupils answer a question)
• Headings, sub-headings, images and punctuation

These areas can all help direct readers to the correct area of the text when answering a question.

3 | Spot key question words

Teach pupils to spot the key word or phrase in a question. This is a word or phrase that will signpost the pupil where to look in the text to find the answer.

In the following question, the key phrase is ‘Morse code’: ‘How did soldiers effectively use Morse code during the second world war?’.

If pupils have pre-read the text effectively, ‘Morse code’ should be underlined, or they may even remember where it is mentioned.

4 | Skim the text

Skimming a text is like looking at the chapters of a DVD and deciding which section or chapter of the film to start at. We won’t necessarily find the answer, but we hope to locate the correct area of the text and, ideally, the correct paragraph or section.

Ask pupils to first remember whether the information was at the beginning, middle or end. Is there an image or subheading that can signpost pupils to the correct area of the text?

5 | Scan for detail

Scanning is when pupils look at the specific section they’ve identified while skimming with a greater level of scrutiny, possibly looking for a key word or phrase.

Going back to the DVD analogy, this is like watching that specific section or chapter of the film to locate the information we require. Ideally this would be a specific sentence, phrase or word.

6 | Real-world examples

Introduce skimming and scanning by using images, timetables, TV schedules, poems, lists and visual instructions. Search online for ‘hidden word pictures’ and ask pupils to locate specific items, objects or information within them. Add a time limit to increase the fun factor.

7 | In, before and after

Once pupils have found a key word or phrase in a text, train them to read the sentence before, the one containing the key word and the sentence after. Doing this will give pupils a much greater chance of answering comprehension questions successfully.

8 | Simplify sequencing

Teach pupils to allocate a symbol (square, triangle, rectangle, star, cross, for example) to five different statements. Pupils should then find these statements in the text and draw on the corresponding symbol.

Once they’ve done this, it is extremely easy to look at the text and see which symbol comes first, second, third and so on. This is a very effective strategy to help pupils effectively sequence information.

Andrew Jennings is an assistant headteacher. He launched  Vocabulary Ninja  ( @vocabularyninja ) in 2017. Comprehension Ninja handbooks are available for Y1-6 (£24.99 each, Bloomsbury).

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Reading comprehension: The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur

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Year 3 - Comprehension - Weeks planning/ activity

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Year 3 comprehension work. This includes planning for three lessons during a week.

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Watch CBS News

Aftershocks from Northeast earthquake could continue for a week, seismologists say

By John Dias , Alecia Reid , Mark Prussin

Updated on: April 6, 2024 / 11:51 PM EDT / CBS New York

NEW YORK -- Aftershocks in the New York City area could continue for a week after one of the East Coast's strongest earthquakes in 100 years . 

The 4.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Readington Township, New Jersey rattled homes and buildings across the Northeast at 10:23 a.m. Friday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. 

The earthquake was followed by 32 aftershocks, according to the USGS, including one measured at 3.8 almost seven and a half hours later. All of the aftershocks were centered in New Jersey, but were felt across the East Coast. Seismologists expect more aftershocks over the next week, especially near the epicenter.

"While aftershocks are a concern for this first 24, 36, 72-hour period out to about a week, the entire East Coast is a seismically active area. But most of the earthquakes are relatively small," said Dax Soule, a seismologist and assistant professor at Queens College.

According to authorities, there were no injuries and no major damage to bridges, tunnels or buildings, but inspections continue across the region Saturday.

Late Saturday, CBS New York learned a Brooklyn middle school's gym was deemed unsafe after a Department of Buildings inspection found cracks inside. The rest of the school at 370 Fountain Ave. is OK.

Watch John Dias' report

There were reports of minor damage in the Tri-State Area.  

In Readington, which is approximately 45 miles west of New York City, a tree came crashing down and the upper portion of the Historic Grist Mill, built in 1760, collapsed after the initial jolt. Crews also responded to dozens of reported gas leaks . 

"It sounded like 10 freight trains going at the same time, and I heard, it felt like the house jumped, and then I thought, 'What was that?' And then it started to shake," said Mary Heidersberger.

"It was very scary. It sounded like something a bomb had gone off," said Anne Owen.

In Newark, New Jersey, the earthquake caused power outages and three homes were briefly deemed unsafe before inspectors allowed residents to go back inside. There were fears the foundations had shifted.

By Saturday, power had been restored to all three homes and all families were able to sleep in their own beds.

The earthquake was also blamed for a water main break that sent water gushing into the middle of a street in Randolph, New Jersey. 

"It was like a fountain, like a geyser. Just water spewing up," said Lisa Narcise. 

There are some questions over New York City's response time to the earthquake. A phone emergency alert was sent about 25 minutes after the quake.

Zachary Iscol, commissioner of New York City Emergency Management, stood behind their response.

"Twenty minutes is very, very fast for a public notification," he said.

But in California, where quakes are common, alerts can happen 10 seconds before an earthquake.

Of course, there are some people who say they didn't feel any of Friday's tremors -- and then there were businesses capitalizing off of it, selling t-shirts saying "I survived the New York City earthquake."

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Apple Researchers Reveal New AI System That Can Beat GPT-4

Apple researchers have developed an artificial intelligence system named ReALM (Reference Resolution as Language Modeling) that aims to radically enhance how voice assistants understand and respond to commands.

Reference resolution is an important part of natural language understanding, enabling users to use pronouns and other indirect references in conversation without confusion. For digital assistants, this capability has historically been a significant challenge, limited by the need to interpret a wide range of verbal cues and visual information. Apple's ReALM system seeks to address this by converting the complex process of reference resolution into a pure language modeling problem. In doing so, it can comprehend references to visual elements displayed on a screen and integrate this understanding into the conversational flow.

ReALM reconstructs the visual layout of a screen using textual representations. This involves parsing on-screen entities and their locations to generate a textual format that captures the screen's content and structure. Apple researchers found that this strategy, combined with specific fine-tuning of language models for reference resolution tasks, significantly outperforms traditional methods, including the capabilities of OpenAI's GPT-4.

ReALM could enable users to interact with digital assistants much more efficiently with reference to what is currently displayed on their screen without the need for precise, detailed instructions. This has the potential to make voice assistants much more useful in a variety of settings, such as helping drivers navigate infotainment systems while driving or assisting users with disabilities by providing an easier and more accurate means of indirect interaction.

Apple has now published several AI research papers. Last month, the company revealed a new method for training large language models that seamlessly integrates both text and visual information. Apple is widely expected to unveil an array of AI features at WWDC in June.

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enabling users to use pronouns and other indirect references in conversation without confusion.

It's good if AI understands "Can you repeat that?" properly. /thread

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Imprisoned Palestinian Writer Walid Daqqa Dies of Cancer After 38 Years in Israeli Jails

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Walid Daqqa, one of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody, has died from cancer. The novelist had spent the past 38 years locked up for his involvement with an armed group that abducted and killed an Israeli soldier in 1984. Rights groups had been pressuring Israel to release Daqqa, who had already finished serving his prison term, saying he was in dire need of medical attention. Last month Amnesty International called for his release, saying that since October 7, he had been tortured, humiliated and denied family visits. “Walid Daqqa suffered from medical negligence for years,” says Palestinian politician Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. “The most inhuman behavior was the fact that they did not allow his wife and his daughter, his only daughter, to visit him since the 7th of October, and while knowing he was in terminal stage, just about to die.”

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AMY GOODMAN : Before we end, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, I wanted to ask you about one of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners who has been jailed. He’s died from cancer in an Israeli prison. The novelist Walid Daqqa had spent the past 38 years locked up for his involvement with an armed group that abducted and killed an Israeli soldier in 1984. Rights groups had been pressuring Israel to release him, saying he was in dire need of medical attention. Last month, Amnesty International called for his release, saying that since October 7th, he had been tortured, humiliated and denied family visits. Can you tell us about Walid Daqqa and the effect of his death in prison?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI : Well, Walid Daqqa is a 14th prisoner who dies in jail, in Israeli prison, since 7th of October. The 13 others were beaten to death. In this case, Walid died because of cancer. But Walid Daqqa suffered from medical negligence for years, not only recently, but especially recently. Walid Daqqa finished his term, by the way. He was — the ruling was that he would be in jail for 37 years, and that period finished, but they wouldn’t release him. They kept him through new military orders, knowing that he’s having cancer and that he needs urgent treatment and he needs to be with his family.

But the most inhuman behavior was the fact that they did not allow his wife and his daughter, his only daughter, to visit him since the 7th of October. And while knowing that he was in terminal stage, just about to die, they refused to let them even come to his prison and say goodbye to him and see him for the last time. That kind of behavior is selfish. And I think that’s the nature of the treatment.

And to add insult to injury, Ben-Gvir, this fascist minister of interior security, who is in charge of prisons, Israeli prisons, declared that he is sorry that Walid Daqqa, this famous novelist and writer, and who especially wrote for children, he said that he’s — Ben-Gvir said he was sorry that Walid Daqqa died because of cancer and was not executed by the Israeli military. This is the kind of mentality we have to deal with.

And by the way, I mean, while we are talking, I have to really mention, I’ve just been recently able to visit some of the injured people from Gaza who are being treated in other countries. And these are not just numbers, when we say 75,000 people injured. There are 11,000 people in need to be treated outside because there is no treatment for them in Gaza, like the 10,000 cases of cancer. But the people who got out, I met some of them. One of them was a woman who lost her hand, lost her leg, lost her husband, lost her two children — three children, actually. And now she’s left alone. Another one lost her sight. A third one is now paraplegic because she was hit in the back. And so on and so forth. It’s a terrible situation.

And, you know, what hurts me a lot is that when six white people, from Poland, Australia and Britain, were killed by the same Israeli army — and, of course, we are absolutely shocked that they were killed while they were trying to provide humanitarian aid — but because these six people who are internationals are not Palestinians, the whole world was up in arms, and the United States was criticizing Israel. But we didn’t see the same reaction to the 40,000 Palestinians killed so far, including almost 15,000 children — and including, by the way, the seventh person from this international group who was a Palestinian.

I think this kind of discrimination and racism is something we should all stand up against, because at the end of the day, what Palestinians want is very simple. We want freedom. We want self-determination. We want to be equal to everybody. We want to be treated as equal human beings. And it is the duty and responsibility of every person in this world who believes in humanity to be on the side of the Palestinian people. This is not a time to be neutral or to ignore this terrible genocide that is taking place against the population of Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN : Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, I want to thank you for being with us, physician and politician, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, and Muhammad Shehada, writer and analyst, communications chief at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, speaking to us from Copenhagen, Dr. Barghouti speaking to us from Ramallah. And I should add that Ben-Gvir, the cabinet minister, who is threatening to pull out of the government if Netanyahu doesn’t have the Israeli troops invade Rafah, was himself convicted of inciting anti-Arab racism and hatred and supporting a terrorist group.

Coming up, millions of people across the U.S. will be donning protective glasses today to witness the total solar eclipse. We’ll speak with a NASA climate scientist about the phenomenon and about the climate catastrophe. Stay with us.

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From the solar eclipse to global heating, dr. peter kalmus on the importance of science, “killing people around the clock”: dr. mustafa barghouti & muhammad shehada on 6 months of war on gaza.

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Speaking events, monday, 3:45 pm, recent news.

Headlines for April 8

• Palestinians Return to a Decimated Khan Younis as Hunger Grips Gaza, Death Toll Tops 31,000
• “Al-Shifa Has Become a Graveyard”: Video Reveals Complete Destruction of Gaza Hospital by Israel
• Nicaragua Accuses Germany of Enabling Genocide in Gaza at World Court
• 40 Democratic Lawmakers, Including Pelosi, Urge Biden to Halt Arms Transfers to Israel
• Ceasefire Talks Continue in Cairo as Gaza Death Toll Mounts
• Israelis Escalate Protests Against Benjamin Netanyahu
• Prominent Palestinian Political Prisoner and Novelist Walid Daqqa Dies of Cancer
• 20 Pomona College Students Arrested After Occupying President’s Office
• IAEA Warns Drone Attacks on Zaporizhzhia Could Lead to Nuclear Disaster
• Biden to Host Japanese & Filipino Leaders as Nations Hold War Games in South China Sea
• Mexico Cuts Diplomatic Ties with Ecuador After Raid on Mexican Embassy in Quito
• “International Community Failed All of Us”: Rwanda Marks 30 Years Since 1994 Genocide
• Trump Raises $50M in Lavish Fundraiser as He Promises More Billionaire Tax Cuts If Reelected
• Police Arrest Suspect in Act of Arson on Bernie Sanders’s Vermont Office
• FAA Probing Loss of Engine Cover During Takeoff on Southwest Airlines Boeing Aircraft
• 6 New York Inmates Will View Eclipse from Prison Courtyard After Winning Case Against Lockdown

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When and where the solar eclipse will be crossing the U.S.

A total solar eclipse will grace the skies over North America on Monday, one of the most hotly anticipated sky-watching events in recent years.

Weather permitting , millions of people in Mexico, 15 U.S. states and eastern Canada will have the chance to see the moon slip between Earth and sun, temporarily blocking the sun’s light .

The total solar eclipse will be visible along a “path of totality” that measures more than 100 miles wide and extends across the continent. Along that path, the moon will fully obscure the sun, causing afternoon skies to darken for a few minutes.

Follow live updates on the solar eclipse

In all other parts of the continental U.S., a partial solar eclipse will be visible, with the moon appearing to take a bite out of the sun. Exactly how big a bite depends on the location.

The first spot in North America that will experience totality on Monday is on Mexico’s Pacific coast at around 11:07 a.m. PT, according to NASA .

After moving northeast across Mexico, the eclipse’s path travels through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Slivers of Michigan and Tennessee will also be able to witness totality if conditions are clear.

In Canada, the eclipse will be visible in parts of southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton, at the eastern end of Nova Scotia.

The timing of the eclipse and the duration of totality varies by location. Most places will experience around 2 minutes of darkness, but the longest periods of totality are typically in the center of the eclipse’s path.

This year, the longest stretch of totality will last 4 minutes and 28 seconds in an area northwest of Torreón, Mexico.

Below is a list of timings for some U.S. cities along the path of totality, according to NASA .

• Dallas: Partial eclipse begins at 12:23 p.m. CT and totality at 1:40 p.m. CT.
• Idabel, Oklahoma: Partial eclipse begins at 12:28 p.m. CT and totality at 1:45 p.m. CT.
• Little Rock, Arkansas: Partial eclipse begins at 12:33 p.m. CT and totality at 1:51 p.m. CT.
• Poplar Bluff, Missouri: Partial eclipse begins at 12:39 p.m. CT and totality at 1:56 p.m. CT.
• Paducah, Kentucky: Partial eclipse begins at 12:42 p.m. CT and totality at 2:00 p.m. CT.
• Carbondale, Illinois: Partial eclipse begins at 12:42 p.m. CT and totality at 1:59 p.m. CT.
• Evansville, Indiana: Partial eclipse begins at 12:45 p.m. CT and totality at 2:02 p.m. CT.
• Cleveland: Partial eclipse begins at 1:59 p.m. ET and totality at 3:13 p.m.
• Erie, Pennsylvania: Partial eclipse begins at 2:02 p.m. ET and totality at 3:16 p.m. ET.
• Buffalo, New York: Partial eclipse begins at 2:04 p.m. ET and totality at 3:18 p.m.
• Burlington, Vermont: Partial eclipse begins at 2:14 p.m. ET and totality at 3:26 p.m. ET.
• Lancaster, New Hampshire: Partial eclipse begins at 2:16 p.m. ET and totality at 3:27 p.m.
• Caribou, Maine: Partial eclipse begins at 2:22 p.m. ET and totality at 3:32 p.m. ET.

Other resources can also help you figure out when the various phases of the eclipse will be visible where you live, including NationalEclipse.com and TimeandDate.com .

If you plan to watch the celestial event, remember that it’s never safe to look directly at the sun, including through binoculars, telescopes or camera lenses. Special eclipse glasses are required to safely view solar eclipses and prevent permanent eye damage.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

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Septic Installer Is Sentenced to 7 Years for Urging Jan. 6 Mob With Megaphone

Taylor James Johnatakis, 40, coordinated rioters to rush a police barricade at the Southwest stairs to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

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By Emily Schmall

A Washington State man has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, where prosecutors said he used a megaphone to urge other rioters to barge through a police line.

The man, Taylor James Johnatakis, 40, of Kingston, Wash., was sentenced Wednesday after being convicted last fall of three felony charges — obstruction of an official proceeding, interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder and assaulting law enforcement — and four misdemeanor charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia .

Before Jan. 6, Mr. Johnatakis posted numerous messages on social media expressing his desire to interfere with the election certification process at the Capitol. “That’s why I am going to D.C., to CHANGE the course of HISTORY #stopthesteal,” he wrote in one post, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Wearing a red MAGA hat and backpack and carrying a megaphone, Mr. Johnatakis led a group of people up to a police line on the Capitol’s Southwest stairs on Jan. 6, urging rioters to “push them out of here,” according to a court filing .

Officer body camera footage showed Mr. Johnatakis lifting a metal barricade and pushing it into officers as he led a countdown over his megaphone, “One, two, three, go!”

Other footage showed Mr. Johnatakis grabbing an officer’s arm.

Marc D’Avignon, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department, testified at Mr. Johnatakis’s trial that the confrontation on the Southwest stairs had been “frightening.”

“I thought they were going to come through,” Mr. D’Avignon said. “I thought we were going to be trampled. I thought we were going to be hurt. I thought we were going to die.”

After the police secured a perimeter around the Capitol in the evening on Jan. 6, Mr. Johnatakis recorded videos of himself walking away and posted them on social media.

“I was on the front line,” he said in one, according to court records. “I was on the gate. I organized a push up to the Capitol because I felt like that is exactly what we needed.”

Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Mr. Johnatakis, a self-employed septic systems installer, to nine years in prison — longer than federal sentencing guidelines — arguing that he played an outsize role in the riot.

“Johnatakis was not just any rioter,” prosecutors said. “He led, organized and encouraged the assault of officers at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.”

Ahead of the sentencing, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth received about 20 letters from friends and family of Mr. Johnatakis, attesting to his good character, according to notes that accompanied the sentence .

Like several other Jan. 6 defendants, Mr. Johnatakis represented himself at trial. Though he expressed contrition in the courtroom, Judge Lamberth said, he had taken a different tone in speeches, letters and podcast interviews from the District of Columbia Jail, where he has been held since he was convicted in a jury trial last November.

“He changes his story depending on the audience,” Judge Lamberth said, adding that “there can be no room in our country for this sort of political violence.”

Marie Johnatakis, Mr. Johnatakis’s wife, said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C., on Thursday that the court case had forced “quite a transition” for the couple and their five children.

“He’s actually a really good person,” Ms. Johnatakis, who has been journaling about the experience on a personal website, said of her husband.

“As a nation we’ve been super divided, and we see people as good and bad,” she said, adding that “it’s just so important that we see people as humans.”

Mr. Johnatakis is one of more than 1,350 people who have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, in which angry demonstrators, urged on by President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen, attempted to halt the certification of the results. Federal prosecutors have described the ongoing criminal investigation into the events of that day as the largest in the history of the Justice Department.

Mr. Trump was indicted last August on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

A March trial date was canceled after an appeal from Mr. Trump argued that he was immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in that case later this month.

Emily Schmall is a correspondent for The Times. More about Emily Schmall

Our Coverage of the Capitol Riot and its Fallout

T he Events on Jan. 6

Timeline:  On Jan. 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump raided the U.S. Capitol . Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded .

A Day of Rage:  Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a New York Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why .

Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died  in connection with the attack.

Jan. 6 Attendees:  To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, Jan. 6 wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start .

The Federal Case Against Trump

The Indictment:  Trump was indicted on Aug. 1  after a sprawling federal investigation into his attempts to cling to power  after losing the 2020 election. Here is how the indictment was structured .

Trump’s Immunity Claim:  The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Trump is immune from prosecution  on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. The justices scheduled arguments for the week of April 22 .

The Trial:  In February, the federal judge in the case decided to delay the trial , which was set to start on March 4. In doing so, she acknowledged that time had run out to get the proceeding going, mostly because of the wrangling over Trump’s immunity claim .