Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension

Year 5 EnglishReading Comprehension8 pages

About this worksheet

An eight-page Year 5 reading pack built on a report from The Oakridge Chronicle about a new £145,000 skate park. Two residents disagree in print. Mrs Sarah Jenkins calls it the best thing that has ever happened to Oakridge, and Mr Arthur Pendelton calls it a hideous concrete eyesore. Pupils fill a five-row retrieval table and tick fact or opinion for ten statements. Then they look at emotive words and the standfirst, and decide whether the report is balanced. Answers fill the last two pages. It follows England National Curriculum reading comprehension for Year 5.

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Page 1 of 8

Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - page 1
Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - page 2
Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - page 3
Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - page 4
Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - page 5
Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - page 6
Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - page 7
Fact and Opinion: Newspaper Report Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - page 8

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Curriculum objectives covered

Reading - comprehension

“distinguish between statements of fact and opinion”

Question 2 has ten statements taken from the report, five facts and five opinions.

Reading - comprehension

“identify how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning”

Questions 3 and 4 ask about emotive adjectives such as hideous and stunning, and what the standfirst does for the reader.

Reading - comprehension

“retrieve, record and present information from non-fiction”

Question 1 is a table on who opened the park, what it replaced, when, where and how it was funded.

Reading - comprehension

“provide reasoned justifications for their views”

Question 7 asks pupils to tick balanced or biased and back the choice with evidence from the text.

What's inside this worksheet

The Oakridge Skate Park report

A two-column report with a headline, standfirst, byline, photo caption and quotes from two residents on opposite sides.

Retrieval

Pupils fill a table with who opened the park, what it replaced, when and where it opened, and how it was paid for.

Fact or opinion

Ten statements from the report, from the 650 square metre size to the outrageous waste of public money, to tick as fact or opinion.

Language, structure and presentation

Pupils copy three emotive adjectives, explain the job of the standfirst and why both quotes are there, then decide whether the report is balanced or biased.

Answers

The retrieval answers, all ten fact or opinion answers and a model explanation for the balance question.

How teachers use it

Two highlighters

Have pupils highlight everything Mrs Jenkins says in one colour and Mr Pendelton in another before they start the fact or opinion table.

Argue question 7

Split the class on whether the report is balanced. The reporter's own phrase, a brilliant triumph for the town's youth, usually starts the argument.

Make it neutral

As a follow-up, ask pupils to rewrite the paragraph that opens page 2 without opinion words. They see how much one adjective changes a report.

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