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Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

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Reading comprehension: Visit from outer space

Reading comprehension: Visit from outer space worksheet
A Year 3 reading comprehension text and activity created by an experienced primary school teacher to help children improve their reading skills.

This reading comprehension encourages children to think about the feelings and behaviour of characters in a text. It includes answers to the questions.


Keystage:  KS2, Year 3

What reading skills are developed in Year 3?

Year 3 children typically develop a range of reading skills, all of which build upon their existing knowledge and help them become a more confident and independent reader. 

Here are some key reading skills that are focused on during the academic year:

Fluency

  • Increasing their reading speed and accuracy: Children work on reading more smoothly and accurately, with fewer pauses and errors.
  • Expression and intonation: Children will begin to read aloud with expression and intonation, bringing the text to live and demonstrating an understanding of the intending meaning.

Reading comprehension

  • Understanding texts: Children learn to understand and interpret a variety of texts.
  • Answering questions: Children practise answering questions about what they've read, focusing on both explicit details and implied meanings.
  • Summarising: Children will start to summarise paragraphs or sections of texts.

Vocabulary development

  • Expanding vocabulary: Year 3 students encounter new words and phrases, often through reading a diverse range of texts. 
  • Using contextual clues: Children practise using contextual clues to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Analytical skills

  • Identifying themes: Year 3 children will begin to identify themes, messages and moral lessons in the stories they read.
  • Character and plot analysis: They will start analysing characters' actions and motivations, as well as understanding the structure of the plot.

Phonics

  • Advanced phonics: Year 3 children will continue to develop their phonics skills, learning complex sound patterns and new word structures.
  • Spelling patterns: They will learn and apply common spelling patterns, which helps them to decode new words and improving spelling accuracy.

How will this teacher-made resource help your Year 3 child improve their reading skills?

This reading text and activity mirrors the type of reading challenge that your child will come across at school. They must first read the fictional text about aliens visiting from outer space, and then they will need to use their understanding of the text to answer the questions, which have been developed by an educational expert to improve reading comprehension skills. 

If you're looking for extra help with Year 3 English, check out our hub page, or try a new activity such as our Year 3 English Challenge Pack.