Year 2 English · Key Stage 1 · Reading – comprehension

Year 2 reading: stories, poems and non-fiction

In Year 2, children listen to and read a wide range of stories, traditional tales, poems and information books, and learn to talk about them. They work out the order of events, how one thing causes another, and how facts in a non-fiction book are connected. They also meet non-fiction organised in different ways, with contents pages, headings and glossaries, which they use to find what they need rather than reading from front to back.

Stories, poems and non-fiction, explained

A strong part of the Year 2 curriculum is listening. Children are taught to enjoy and learn from poetry, stories and non-fiction, including contemporary and classic works, that are beyond the level they could read for themselves, and to say what they think of them: which they liked, which they didn’t, and why. This matters because a child’s understanding and vocabulary are usually well ahead of what they can decode. Teachers read whole books aloud, not just extracts, so children can follow a plot over days and meet words they would not find in a reading-scheme book. Reading to your child at home does the same job, even when they are a confident reader.

Children are asked to think about the order of events in a book and how pieces of information are connected. For a story, that means beginning, middle and end, and using words such as first, next, then and finally. Teachers also build in cause and effect: why something happened, using “because” and “so”. The same thinking applies to information books. If a book says plants need light and water, a child can explain that a plant left in a dark cupboard might grow pale and weak because it has had no light.

Retelling is another important skill. Children become familiar with a wider range of stories, fairy stories and traditional tales, and practise retelling them in their own words, often using pictures, props, puppets or acting. Which tales they read is the school’s choice, so your child’s class may hear different ones from a friend’s. Traditional tales are useful because they have clear patterns: events in threes, repeated phrases, a problem and a solution. Once children know those patterns, retelling the tale in order becomes easier.

Information books are different from stories, and children need to be taught how they work. In Year 2 they meet non-fiction books organised in different ways: a contents page, an index, headings, captions, labelled diagrams, fact boxes, a glossary, or a question-and-answer layout. They learn that you don’t have to read these from cover to cover. You can use the contents or index to jump to what you need. This skill, finding information quickly, is used in every subject from now on.

Poems are part of the mix too. Children hear and read poems that rhyme and poems that don’t, funny ones and thoughtful ones, and talk about the sound, rhythm and pictures that the words make. The overall aim is pleasure and motivation. Children who enjoy books tend to read more, and reading more is one of the surest ways to get better at it.

Words your child will hear

Retell: Tell a story again in your own words, in the right order.
Sequence: The order in which things happen.
Cause and effect: What made something happen (the cause) and what happened as a result (the effect).
Traditional tale: An old story passed down over time, such as a fairy tale or folk tale.
Contents page: A list at the front of a book showing what is in it and which page it starts on.
Glossary: A list at the back of a non-fiction book explaining important words.
Index: An alphabetical list at the back of a book telling you which pages to find a topic on.

What the National Curriculum says

In Year 2, pupils should be taught to:

Develop pleasure in reading, motivation to read, vocabulary and understanding by listening to, discussing and expressing views about a wide range of contemporary and classic poetry, stories and non-fiction at a level beyond that at which they can read independently
Develop pleasure in reading and understanding by discussing the sequence of events in books and how items of information are related
Develop pleasure in reading by becoming increasingly familiar with and retelling a wider range of stories, fairy stories and traditional tales
Develop understanding by being introduced to non-fiction books that are structured in different ways

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: retelling a tale and finding cause and effect

Your child has heard the traditional tale of the Three Little Pigs. How can they retell it in order and explain why things happened?

Choose four main events and say them in order, using the words first, next, then and in the end. Four events are enough: the aim is the main shape of the story, not every detail.
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1 Three pigs build three houses
2 The wolf blows down two houses
3 The brick house stays standing
4 The wolf is tricked and goes away
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Add cause and effect by asking “why?” for each event. Why did the straw house fall down? Because straw is weak and the wolf could blow hard. Why did the brick house stay up? Because bricks are strong.
Notice the story language. Traditional tales often repeat a phrase, such as “Little pig, little pig, let me come in”. Retell the tale with the repeated lines, as a storyteller would.
Now compare with a non-fiction book about houses or materials. Use the contents page or index to find “bricks” rather than reading from the start. This shows that information books are used in a different way from stories.
Link the two: the information book tells us why brick is a strong material, which is the same reason the third pig’s house survived.

“First, the three pigs built houses of straw, sticks and bricks. Next, the wolf blew down the straw and stick houses because they were not strong. In the end, the brick house stayed standing, so the wolf could not get in.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Retelling every detail, or losing the order

Children are excited about the story and say “and then… and then…”, so they jump back and forth or never reach the end.

What helps: Agree on four key events first, and count them on fingers. Use the words first, next, then and finally, and tell the story once with props.

Saying what happened instead of why

A “what” answer is easier. Asked why the house fell down, a child replies “the wolf blew it”, which is the event and not the reason.

What helps: Prompt with “because”: “The house fell down because…”. Use the same question for information books: “The plant grew pale because…”.

Reading every information book from the first page to the last

Stories are read in order, so children assume all books are. They then lose interest in a long book when they only wanted one fact.

What helps: Pose a question, such as “How big is a blue whale?”, and let your child use the contents page or index to find the answer.

Thinking a poem has to rhyme

Nursery rhymes and many early poems do rhyme, so children expect it, and can think a poem without rhymes is not a poem.

What helps: Read some poems that don’t rhyme. Ask what else makes it a poem: the rhythm, the short lines, the pictures made by the words.

How to help at home

Keep reading aloud. Read a chapter book or a longer picture book at bedtime, even if your child reads well alone. They hear richer language and follow a longer plot than they could read themselves.
Retell with props. Use toys, a few drawings or kitchen objects to retell a favourite tale. Ask your child to put the events in order, and to say why each one happened.
Visit the library and let them choose. Make sure there is a mix: a story, a poem book and an information book. Choice is part of building the habit of reading for pleasure.
Use a contents page to answer a question. Ask something that has an answer in an information book, such as “Which animals live in the desert?” Let your child use the contents or index to find it, and not read from the start.
Ask “what caused that?”. When you read a story or watch something happen in the house or garden, wonder aloud why it happened. “The towel is wet because…” builds the same thinking as cause and effect in books.

Builds on

Year 1: Enjoying stories, rhymes and poems
Year 1: Understanding what we read and hear
Year 1: Talking about books together

Leads on to

Years 3 and 4: Reading widely, myths and legends
Years 3 and 4: Performing poems and plays
Years 3 and 4: Inference, questioning and prediction
Years 3 and 4: Main ideas and non-fiction