Year 4 · Reading and understanding
Practice: reading a whole story extract
Draw inferences such as inferring characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justify inferences with evidence
Lesson overview
What you'll learn in this lesson
Draw inferences such as inferring characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justify inferences with evidence
Key learning points
- • The extract
- • Gathering clues
- • Answering with point, evidence, explain
- • Reading between the lines about others
This lesson at a glance
- 20 minutes
- 18 parts to scroll through
- 4 quick checks
- No marked quiz yet
- Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses
Words to know
Scroll down — the lesson carries on below
Watch & discover
Part 1 of 18
Watch first
Practice: reading a whole story extract
Be a reading detective and work out the clues the words don't say.
In a nutshell
Draw inferences such as inferring characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justify inferences with evidence
What you already know
Part 2 of 18
Before we start
What you already know
You can explain how a character feels using clues from the text.
Key words
Part 3 of 18
Key words
Words you'll need today
- inference
- A sensible guess built on clues in the text.
- evidence
- The exact words you point at to prove your idea.
- justify
- Explain why your answer must be right.
Learning cycle
Part 4 of 18
Learning cycle 1 of 2
Part 1 — Read and gather clues
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 5 of 18
Learn
The extract
Nell counted the steps up to the door again. Twelve. She had counted twelve every morning for a week, and every morning the number had felt smaller. Today it felt like nothing at all. She pushed the door with one hand and did not look back at the gate, where her brother was still standing with the lunchbox she had forgotten.
Explore the idea
Part 6 of 18
Learn
Gathering clues
Three clues stand out: she counts the steps every morning, the number 'felt smaller', and she does not look back. The first shows a habit and nerves; the second shows she is getting used to it; the third shows a change — either confidence or something she is avoiding.
Quick check
Part 7 of 18
Quick check
How does Nell feel by the end of the extract?
Reset break
Part 8 of 18
Pause
That's sitting 1 of 2 done
Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.
Quick check
Part 9 of 18
Quick check
Which is the best evidence for that?
Learning cycle
Part 10 of 18
Learning cycle 2 of 2
Part 2 — Answer with evidence
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 11 of 18
Learn
Answering with point, evidence, explain
Point: Nell is more confident than she was. Evidence: 'Today it felt like nothing at all.' Explain: if the steps used to feel like something and now feel like nothing, she must be less nervous. Three sentences, and it is a full answer.
Explore the idea
Part 12 of 18
Learn
Reading between the lines about others
Her brother is left holding the forgotten lunchbox. We are never told he is annoyed or worried, but the fact he is 'still standing' there suggests he is waiting for her to turn round. Good inference sticks close to the words on the page.
Quick check
Part 13 of 18
Quick check
Why might her brother still be standing at the gate?
Quick check
Part 14 of 18
Quick check
What does counting the steps every morning suggest?
Common mix-ups
Part 15 of 18
Common mix-ups
Things people often get wrong
- Guessing something the text gives no clue about at all.
- Copying a whole paragraph instead of choosing a few words as evidence.
- Giving a point with no explanation of why the evidence proves it.
Challenge round
Part 16 of 18
Game · Sort it
Which of these are true?
Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.
True
Not true
Mastery quiz
Part 17 of 18
No quiz for this one
This lesson has no marked quiz attached yet.
Lesson round-up
Part 18 of 18
Lesson round-up
Ready when you are
Quiz score
Not sat
Games
Not played
Points this lesson
0
Best run
0 in a row
Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?
Ask LunaDo the work
Your written work for this lesson
This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.
The last bus
The bus shelter smelled of wet coats. Mira pressed her timetable flat against the glass, as though staring at the numbers might make the 9:42 appear. Rain tapped the roof in small, impatient fingers. Somewhere behind her, a shop shutter came down with a sound like a full stop.
She had been brave all day. She had been brave in the corridor, brave at lunch, brave when the register reached her name and nobody looked up. Being brave, she decided, was mostly a matter of keeping your face still.
Headlights swung around the corner and lit the puddles gold. Mira picked up her bag. Tomorrow she would say something. Tonight she would simply go home.
Original extract written for Good Learning Co.
Reading questions
- Find two words or phrases that show how Mira is feeling, and explain what each one suggests.
- How does the writer use the weather and the sounds to build the mood? Use a short quotation.
- Write the next paragraph in the same style, keeping the writer's short sentences at the moments that matter.
Reading response
ReadingRead the extract again, then write about how the writer makes you feel that way. Use a short quotation and explain your choice of words.
2 paragraphs (PEE)
Extended writing
WritingWrite your piece in full, then redraft the opening so it hooks the reader.
250–350 words
Reading log
ReadingNote the book, the pages you read and one thing you noticed about the writing.
20 minutes' reading
Saved as you type.
Part 1 of 18 · Watch & discover