Year 7 English • Reading & Viewing • Te Mātaiaho Phase 3 (Years 7–8) • Comprehension
The journal the ten lessons of Year 7 Foundational Reading Skills keep asking for, in one place. Each lesson names a section; each section here is that section, using the same frames and words the lesson teaches. Print the whole booklet at the start of the unit, or print one section at a time as you reach it. Ākonga write straight onto it.
This journal is your record of the reading you do across the unit. You fill in a section after each lesson, using the text your kaiako gives you — a School Journal article, another piece of Aotearoa non-fiction, or a pūrākau. Write the name of the text at the top of every section so you can find your evidence again later. In Lesson 10 you look back over all ten sections and choose your best work from each one, so keep the whole booklet together.
Lesson 1 · Predicting & activating prior knowledge
Before you read a word of the body text, look at what is around it. Then say what you already know, what you want to find out, and what you predict. After reading, come back and check.
Text title:
Writer (if named): Date I read it:
Preview · which text features did you find?
The one feature that told you the most, and what it told you:
KWL chart
Your schema — anything from home, kura, or another text.
Write these as questions.
Fill this in after reading.
Predictions · use the frame
1. I predict
because the text clue shows
2. I predict
because the text clue shows
Check step · after reading
Prediction 1: ☐ Right ☐ Not right ☐ Partly right
Prediction 2: ☐ Right ☐ Not right ☐ Partly right
In one line, what the text actually did:
Lesson 2 · Decoding vocabulary in context & te reo Māori glossaries
The routine is context guess first, glossary check second. Guess from the words around it before you look anything up — then check, and write down whether your guess held.
Text title:
Four words I did not know
Word 1: Clue type: ☐ Definition ☐ Restatement ☐ Contrast ☐ Cause/effect
The sentence it came from:
My context guess:
Checked meaning (glossary or dictionary):
Guess held? ☐ Yes ☐ Close ☐ No
Word 2: Clue type: ☐ Definition ☐ Restatement ☐ Contrast ☐ Cause/effect
The sentence it came from:
My context guess:
Checked meaning (glossary or dictionary):
Guess held? ☐ Yes ☐ Close ☐ No
Word 3: Clue type: ☐ Definition ☐ Restatement ☐ Contrast ☐ Cause/effect
The sentence it came from:
My context guess:
Checked meaning (glossary or dictionary):
Guess held? ☐ Yes ☐ Close ☐ No
Word 4: Clue type: ☐ Definition ☐ Restatement ☐ Contrast ☐ Cause/effect
The sentence it came from:
My context guess:
Checked meaning (glossary or dictionary):
Guess held? ☐ Yes ☐ Close ☐ No
Word parts · break one long word apart
The lesson uses un-read-able and bio-degradable as examples. Pick a long word from your text and do the same.
So the whole word probably means:
Te reo Māori terms from this text's glossary
Only write terms your text actually uses. Copy the meaning the text's own glossary gives, then write one line on how the term is used in the sentence you found it in.
Term: Glossary meaning:
How it is used here:
Term: Glossary meaning:
How it is used here:
Lesson 3 · Literal comprehension — main ideas & supporting details
A stool needs a seat and legs. The seat is the main idea — what the writer wants you to understand. The legs are the supporting details that hold it up. Say where in the text each leg sits.
Text title:
Topic · one or two words only
The seat · main idea in one sentence
Not what the text is about — what the writer wants you to understand about it.
The legs · three supporting details
Paragraph:
Paragraph:
Paragraph:
Each leg is a: ☐ Fact ☐ Example ☐ Number or statistic ☐ Quotation
Gist statement · about 20 words, in your own words
Do not copy a sentence from the text. Count your words and write the number in the box.
Word count:
Summary paragraph
Start with the main idea, then add the strongest two details, then one closing line.
Lesson 4 · Inferencing with text evidence
The inference equation is text clues + what you already know = inference. Every row must carry a quoted line. If you cannot quote a line, you have guessed rather than inferred.
Text title:
Inference 1
Question I am answering:
Quote the line. Add the paragraph number.
What you bring from your own experience.
The meaning the writer left unsaid.
Inference 2
Question I am answering:
Inference 3 · how a person is feeling, without the writer naming the feeling
Look for actions, body language, and dialogue — the lesson uses trembling hands and a whispered voice as the kind of clue to hunt for.
The line I am using:
I think they feel because the text says
Check your own work
Lesson 5 · Analysing text structures
Name the structure before you analyse it. Hunt the signal words first, circle them in the text, then use the structure to organise what the text says.
Text title:
Signal word hunt · tick the ones you found, then add your own
Cause and effect:
Compare and contrast:
Other signal words I found:
So the structure of this text is
The signal words that told me:
Cause-and-effect flowchart
↓
Effect↓
And then this happenedVenn diagram comparison · two things the text compares
Write the two things being compared, then sort what the text says into the three zones. The middle zone is the overlap — what is true of both.
Thing A: Thing B:
The biggest difference between them:
Lesson 6 · Pūrākau & traditional Māori storytelling
Pūrākau are read here as crafted storytelling with layers. Layer one is the story that is told. Layer two is what the story teaches through its metaphor. Write about what this version of the pūrākau says — and where it does not say something, write "the text does not say".
Pūrākau title:
Who told or wrote this version (if the text names them):
Where the text says it comes from, if it says:
Layer one · the story told
Retell it in three or four sentences, in order.
People in the pūrākau · what they do and why
The natural world in this pūrākau
The lesson looks at how things like tides, weather, and volcanoes are explained through personification and metaphor. Only fill this in if your pūrākau does this.
What in the natural world does this pūrākau explain?
How the text explains it:
Layer two · what the metaphor teaches
One sentence, in your own words. Not "the moral is" — what does this pūrākau want the listener to understand?
Values the text shows · tick and give your evidence
☐ Kaitiakitanga (guardianship) — the line that shows it:
☐ Whanaungatanga (relationship) — the line that shows it:
☐ Tikanga (custom) — the line that shows it:
☐ Another value the text shows: — evidence:
One question I would want to ask
If something about this pūrākau is not in the text, write your question here rather than filling the gap yourself. Your kaiako can tell you who to ask.
Lesson 7 · Fact vs opinion & author bias in media texts
The test is simple: can it be checked? If it can be checked, it is a fact — even if it turns out to be wrong. If it depends on what someone believes or feels, it is an opinion. Apply the test out loud, line by line.
Media text title:
Where it was published: Date:
Sorting matrix · four statements from the text
☐ Yes → Fact
☐ No → Opinion
☐ Yes → Fact
☐ No → Opinion
☐ Yes → Fact
☐ No → Opinion
☐ Yes → Fact
☐ No → Opinion
Loaded words
A loaded word carries a feeling with it. The lesson's example is calling the same action reckless or bold — same action, opposite feeling. Find three in your text.
Bias audit · three questions
Who wrote this?
Why did they write it — what do they want the reader to think or do?
Whose voice is missing from this text?
One line on the writer's point of view, with the evidence that shows it:
Lesson 8 · Evaluating text purpose & target audience
Ask who this text is for, and how you know. You need three named features before you make the claim — word choice, images and design, and what the text wants you to do next.
Text title:
Text type: ☐ Advertisement ☐ News report ☐ Poem ☐ Pūrākau ☐ Other:
Purpose · PIE, plus explain and instruct
A text can have more than one purpose. If you tick two, say which one is the main one.
Main purpose, and why:
Three features that reveal the purpose and audience
What it reveals:
What it reveals:
What it reveals:
Audience profile
Register · how formal is the language?
The words or sentences that show it:
My claim
This text is written for
and I know because
If the audience changed
Pick one different audience. Name one thing the writer would have to change.
Lesson 9 · Synthesising information across multiple texts
Synthesis starts small: two texts, one question, one paragraph that uses both. Fill in the matrix first — it makes the combining visible before you write.
The one question both texts help answer:
The sources
Title:
Type: ☐ Article ☐ Pūrākau ☐ Infographic ☐ Other
One key sentence from it:
Title:
Type: ☐ Article ☐ Pūrākau ☐ Infographic ☐ Other
One key sentence from it:
Source C, if you used a third:
Synthesis matrix
Integrated summary paragraph · use the frame
Source A shows
while Source B adds
Putting them together,
Check your own work
Lesson 10 · Capstone portfolio & reflection
Look back through the whole journal. For each strategy, find your best example and say in one line why it shows the skill. This is the record you present at the showcase.
Independent close reading · a text nobody taught you
Title:
The strategy I chose to use on it:
What I found, and the evidence for it:
How my reading has changed
One thing you do now that you did not do in Lesson 1.
My reading goal for next term
My goal:
The first step I will take:
A book or text I would recommend to someone else in the class, and why:
This journal is your own record of your reading. In the showcase you choose which entries you share — you never have to share a whole section. In Section 6 you write about what the pūrākau in front of you says; you are not being asked to speak for anyone's whānau, hapū, or iwi, and "the text does not say" is a correct answer. If any text in this unit is uncomfortable to work with, kōrero with your kaiako and use a different one.
Ngā kōrero kaiako · Teacher notes — everything below supports the handout; it is not part of the printed worksheet.
The journal is classroom-ready as it stands. If your kura wants it rebuilt around local texts, a version pitched at a supported reading group, or a te reo Māori edition, Te Wānanga can reshape it while keeping the ten-section spine intact.
If a lesson tells ākonga to complete a numbered journal section, that section already exists here — you do not need to build it.
Comprehension strategies are easy to name and hard to hold onto. A journal makes the strategy visible: the same frame turns up in the same place every lesson, so ākonga stop being asked to remember the routine and start being asked to use it. By Lesson 10 they have ten weeks of their own evidence to reason about rather than a mark someone else gave them.
The unit's texts are Aotearoa texts — School Journal articles, local non-fiction, pūrākau — so the journal is also a record of reading that belongs here. Section 6 keeps the two-layer reading the lesson teaches while holding the line that cultural context is taught from the text, not assumed and not supplied by the ākonga in the room.
Two things to watch. First, the journal is a personal record: at the Lesson 10 showcase let ākonga choose which entries they read out rather than handing the whole booklet around. Second, in Section 6 do not position Māori ākonga as the class authority who confirms whether a pūrākau has been read correctly — that burden is not theirs to carry. The sheet asks what the text says and offers "the text does not say" as a correct answer for exactly this reason. If a question about a pūrākau cannot be settled from the text, treat it as a question to take to the right person, not a gap for the class to fill in.
Section 6 treats pūrākau as literature with layers, which is how Lesson 6 frames it — the story told, and what the metaphor teaches. It does not supply a pūrākau, define mātauranga Māori, or offer a values scale. The values ākonga tick (kaitiakitanga, whanaungatanga, tikanga) are the three the lesson names, and each one has to be evidenced from a line in the text in front of them. Where the pūrākau does not name its own source or rohe, ākonga write that it does not, rather than filling the gap. Use a published pūrākau with its source acknowledged, and if your kura has a relationship with mana whenua, that relationship — not this sheet — governs which pūrākau are appropriate to study.