News & Adventures

An unfamiliar word can interrupt a story, but it can also become an opportunity to notice how language works.

A word a child does not know can become a useful discovery, but repeated interruptions may make a chapter feel like a vocabulary drill.

Talking about the people in a story can deepen children’s understanding because characters connect events with motives, consequences and feelings.

Remembering and inferring are both part of reading comprehension, but they are not the same task.

Checking whether a child understands a story need not involve a worksheet, a score or a series of questions with only one acceptable answer.

A cliffhanger is designed to make readers want to turn the page.

A personal vocabulary notebook is a place to keep words that a child genuinely wants to understand and use.

The right bedtime story depends as much on the evening as on the book.

Bedtime stories sometimes become part of a long negotiation: one more page, another chapter, a different book or an urgent question just as the light is going off.

Ten peaceful minutes with a book can be worthwhile.

Summarising a chapter means explaining its important developments in a smaller number of words.

Children often remember what happened in a story but find it harder to explain why one event led to another.

Predicting what might happen next is one way readers connect clues, character choices and unresolved questions.

Some children can read a page aloud accurately yet have difficulty explaining what the words mean.

Illustrations offer clues about a story, but they should not replace the words when readers are asked to explain what the text establishes.