Use this amazing fictional diary extract with your pupils to better their reading skills.

This Year 6 Penicillin Diaries reading comprehension contains several extracts from the fictional diary of Alexander Fleming detailing the discovery and development of the first antibiotic medicines, and, alongside the poem, there is a variety of comprehension questions covering all eight reading content domains. We've also included some more in-depth questions for more detailed written answers.

With our reading skills resources, you have the flexibility to decide how to use the text and the questions: you can give the whole text and all of the questions, target questions for specific domains, or go page by page using only questions that are related to that part of the text. We've also included a time-saving answer matrix to make marking easier and for making self or peer marking more accessible.

National Curriculum Objectives:

• English Year 5 & Year 6: Maintain positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what is read.
• English Year 5 & Year 6?: Understand what they read by exploring the meaning of words in context; drawing inferences and justifying inferences with evidence; predicting what might happen from details stated and implied; summarising the main ideas drawn from more than one paragraph and identifying key details that support the main ideas; and identifying how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning.
• English Year 5 & Year 6?: Evaluate how authors use language, including figurative language, considering the impact on the reader.