Starter
Fiction vs Non-fiction
KS3 English
Language Reading
Lesson 1: Identifying
and Interpreting
Teaching Ideas
Learning Objective:
To identify and interpret
information in texts using
different reading skills.
Success Criteria:
• To recap on the differences
between fiction and non-
fiction texts.
• To understand what is
meant by “skimming” and
“scanning”.
• To apply skimming and
scanning skills to identify
and interpret information in
texts.
Context
This is the first lesson in a
KS3 unit of work focussing on
KS4 English Language reading
assessment objectives. This
lesson, the focus is on AO1:
• Identify and interpret explicit
and implicit information and
ideas.
• Select and synthesise
evidence from different
texts.
Students will test their skills of
skimming and scanning.
In groups, can students come up with a sentence that summarises the differences
between fiction and non-fiction texts? How many examples of non-fiction texts
can they think of? What are their favourite fiction texts?
Main Activities
The House of Terror Text
Give out the The House of Terror Text, which is contemporary non-fiction, and
ask students to read it in pairs.
Scanning
What do we mean by “scanning”? Check students’ understanding of the concept
(allowing our eyes to move quickly over a text to find specific information), and
then you could use the The House of Terror Questions (available in higher and
lower ability versions higher ability students’ questions are not in chronological
order, for extra challenge) to tests students’ scanning skills. How quickly can they
identify information within the texts? You could turn this into a competition to
add an extra element of challenge!
Once students have finished, discuss what strategies they used to help locate
information (for example, knowing that the answer would be a number can help
to find it quickly).
Moving House
Now, students could be presented with the Moving House Text, which is
contemporary fiction. Before they read it, introduce the concept of skimming
(moving from word to word to get an overview but not a deep understanding of a
text). Can they skim the text and summarise what it is about in a short paragraph?
Skimming
Now, you could use the Moving House Questions to test students’ skimming
skills. These questions require students to interpret as well as identify information.
Plenary
Skim or Scan?
Finally, you could return to the learning objective. How do skimming and scanning
help us with identifying and then interpreting information? Students could fill in
the Skimming and Scanning Summary Sheet.