Reading comprehension: Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga is a traditional story that comes from Russia. It is a story that has been used to scare children for many decades! Can you read the story and then answer the questions at the end.

How do you teach reading comprehension to a Year 5 child?

Teaching reading comprehension to a Year 5 child involves a combination of strategies that focus on building both decoding skills (the ability to read words) and comprehension skills (the ability to understand and interpret the text). 

Here are some ideas on how to teach reading comprehension skills to your Year 5 child:

• Vocabulary building: start by building your child's vocabulary. Introduce new words encountered in the text and encourage them to use context clues to understand the meaning.
   
• Reading aloud: encourage your child to read aloud regularly. This helps improve fluency, pronunciation, and comprehension. You can take turns reading paragraphs or pages, discussing the content as you go.
   
• Summarising: ask your child to summarise what they've read in their own words. This helps reinforce understanding and retention of key information.
   
• Making connections: help your child make connections between the text and their own experiences, other texts they've read, or the world around them. This deepens their understanding and engagement with the material.
   
• Visualisation: encourage your child to create mental images of the events, characters, and settings described in the text. 
   
• Story elements: introduce your child to story elements such as plot, setting, characters, conflict, and resolution. Discuss how these elements contribute to the overall meaning of the text.
   
• Discussion and reflection: engage your child in discussions about the text, asking open-ended questions that encourage critical thinking and reflection. Allow them to express their opinions and interpretations.
   
• Practise with different texts: provide a variety of texts including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and informational texts. Each type of text presents unique challenges and opportunities for comprehension.

How will this worksheet help build your child's reading comprehension skills?

This extensive and engaging reading comprehension activity was developed by an experienced educator with the purpose of building your child's reading comprehension skills at home. 

The worksheet includes three extracts from a traditional Russian children's story. Each extract is followed by reading comprehension questions for your child to consider and write their answer. 

For more help with Year 5 English, check out our hub page, or challenge your child with more reading comprehension activities, such as Reading comprehension activity: biography of Winston Churchill.