Comprehensive comprehension

Last updated: 15/11/2023
Contributor: Jane Coe
Comprehensive comprehension
Main Subject
Key stage
Category
Reading skills: Comprehension
Resource type
Assessment
Author
Roald Dahl

Based on Roald Dahl's short story, 'Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat', this hugely popular teaching resource includes a detailed set of 16 different comprehension questions on this accessible prose text.  

It is designed to test a variety of reading skills including information retrieval, inference and evidence-based opinion.

This classroom resource could be used for building reading skills or for an unseen fiction lesson.  

 

Example questions from the teaching worksheet: 

  1. Where does Mrs Bixby go ‘once a month … on Friday afternoons’, and what reason is given for her trips?  
  2. What different impressions are we given of Mrs Bixby by the way she describes how the two different men in her life make her feel?  Using your own words write a sentence or two for how each man makes her feel about herself.  Support your ideas with quotations from the story.  
  3. What single word sums up the Colonel’s motivation in giving Mrs Bixby the coat?
  4. How would you describe the tone of the Colonel’s note?  Pick the most appropriate description then write a sentence or two to explain your choice: 
  • Loving and affectionate
  • Impersonal and polite
  • Sad and regretful

 

All reviews

Have you used this resource?

1
Totally useless without a reading source, not to mention, pointless.

Glenn Gordon

05/12/2022

Response from Teachit editor
Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment. Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions, we cannot include a copy of Dahl's short story in the resource, but you can find it very easily via a google search.
wassup g strings this helped my vocab alot wagwans peacooe out broski

my guy

28/11/2020

5

17/09/2020

5

23/11/2019