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Uncover the secrets behind the original story ‘Dining Room Drama’ in this immersive, murder mystery-themed reading comprehension pack, ideal for upper KS2. Dining Room Drama is a chilling short story that grips readers from the opening line—perfect for developing inference, mood analysis, vocabulary understanding, and retrieval skills.

This 4-lesson unit guides learners through structured reading analysis with modelled teaching slides, discussion tasks, and engaging comprehension questions that target key National Curriculum objectives.

What’s Included:

Original short story: Dining Room Drama (PDF and editable Word formats)

Lesson 1 – Setting the Mood:

Focus: Language that creates atmosphere

Interactive analysis of descriptive phrases

Engaging video introduction + whole-class discussion

Independent task: identifying mood-rich vocabulary

Lesson 2 – Word Choice and Author’s Intent:

Focus: Why authors choose specific words

Game: “Why This Word?” (with definitions and context)

Speech comparison task with performance element

Lesson 3 – Character Inference:

Focus: Understanding thoughts, feelings, and motives

Inference questions on key excerpts

Drama plenary: act out a tense interview from the text

Lesson 4 – Retrieval and Summarising:

Focus: Text understanding and summary writing

Retrieval questions from short extracts

Summarising task with writing support

Key Features:

Original short story written for KS2/LKS3

Fully editable ActivInspire slides (and PDF)

Differentiated questioning built in

Encourages deeper reading and discussion

Supports National Curriculum objectives in reading comprehension

Perfect For:
KS2 / LKS3 learners (Years 5–8 / Grades 4–7)

Whole-class literacy lessons

Guided reading groups

Cover lessons or homework