A2 Key for Schools

Lesson Plan: Reading

This lesson plan accompanies A2 Key for Schools 1, Test 1, Reading and Writing, Part 2, p10 to p11

This lesson is suitable for students towards the end of their A2 Key for Schools course

Lesson Goals
1. Raise awareness of the use of synonyms in the reading paper
2. Help students recognise distractors in the reading paper

Time Interaction
needed

1. Warmer – Resource 1 as a handout to pairs /groups 10 mins

• Instruction 1
Ask students to work in groups and write one book title next to each 5 mins S-S
prompt 1-7. Demonstrate the activity by eliciting a possible book title
for number 1. If necessary, go through the vocabulary in bold with
the class and check the students’ understanding. Reassure the
students that there are no correct or incorrect answers here.
e.g. 1. – The hunger games

• Instruction 2
Whole class feedback. Elicit the titles and encourage students to 5 mins T-S
justify their ideas. Elicit contrasting ideas if possible and write new
emergent vocabulary on the board.

2. Main activities – Individual copies of Resource 2, and Task 2, p9 45 mins

and p10

1. Hand out Resource 2 and ask students to work in pairs. For each 5 mins S-S
question 7-13, students choose the option A-B which
corresponds to the question. Demonstrate the activity with
question 7 and elicit that B is correct. A uses similar words, but
the meaning is different (i.e. the speaker is sad the book is
finished, but says nothing about his opinion of the end of the
story).

A2 Key for Schools Reading Lesson Plan

© Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment 2019
 Whole class feedback. Elicit the correct options and encourage
students to justify their answers.
3 mins T-S
Answers: 7B 8A 9B 10A 11A 12A 13B

3. Now ask the students in pairs or small groups to work together

and write one more correct option for each question. 12 mins S-S
Demonstrate the activity by eliciting a new option for question 7
(e.g. I think the ending was bad.) Monitor and assist as
appropriate.
Possible answers:
7. The last pages are disappointing
8. The drawings were really nice
9. I bought it in a bookshop
10. I enjoyed that the story happens in Turkey, which is
different from my country
11. The boy becomes a wizard and goes to school
12. The novel isn’t famous
13. I cried when I finished the book

4. Ask each pair or small group to read one random sentence they
wrote to the whole class. The other pairs decide which questions
7-13 it matches with. If a student generated sentence doesn’t 10 mins S-S
match any of the questions, use it as an opportunity to raise
awareness of distractors, as in activity 2.

5. Now hand out p9 and p10 and ask the students to match
12 mins T-S
questions 7-13 to Jian, Max and Kojo. Remind the students of the
strategy below.
Students should read each text carefully one by one and
underline the answers they find in the text, before moving on to
3 mins T-S
the next one. Underlining answers will make it easier to spot any
unknown answers at the end of the activity, if there are any.
Whole class feedback. Elicit the correct options and encourage
students to justify their answers.

6. Extension activity – For homework, ask students to write a 60- 5 mins T-S
word text about a book they have enjoyed. They should
include information to answer two of the questions 7-13.

A2 Key for Schools Reading Lesson Plan

© Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment 2019
 7. Collect and correct the texts, ensuring that they answer two of 10 mins S-S
the questions 7-13, then hand them out to other students, at
random. The students read the text they have been given and
underline the two answers they can find. They then find the
author of the text and check their answers with them. During
feedback, use interesting examples from the students’ texts to
highlight the importance of synonyms and paraphrasing in this
part of the test.

A2 Key for Schools Reading Lesson Plan

© Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment 2019
Resource 1

Can you think of...?

A novel with an interesting ending

A book with a good plot (=story)

A book with brilliant (=great) drawings (=pictures)

A book with a lot of pages or chapters

A childrens’ book by a well-known (=famous) author (=writer)

A novel that talks about different cultures

A book that would be a good gift (=present)

A2 Key for Schools Reading Lesson Plan

© Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment 2019
Resource 2

For questions 7-13, choose the correct statement A-B.

7 Who does not like the way the book ends?

A. I didn’t like it when the book ended.

B. I didn’t enjoy the ending.

8 Who enjoyed the pictures in the book?

A. I thought the images were brilliant.

B. The photos helped me understand the book.

9 Who explains how he got the book?

A. I heard about the book on the radio.

B. My dad gave me this novel for my birthday.

10 Who enjoyed learning about lives which are different from his own?

A. I was interested in the characters because they were from a different country.

B. My friend Millie didn’t understand the characters, because they were very different from
her.

11 Who says something about what happens in the story?

A. The main character travels through India and discovers amazing places.

B. The story happens in India, and there are some amazing places there.

12 Who says the book is not very well-known?

A. Not many people have heard about this novel

B. The author is not very famous

13 Who felt sad when he finished the book?

A. I didn’t like it when the book ended.

B. I didn’t enjoy the ending.

A2 Key for Schools Reading Lesson Plan

© Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment 2019
Test 1

PART 2
QUESTIONS 7–13

For each question, choose the correct answer.

Jian Max Kojo

 7 Who does not like the way the book ends? A B C

 8 Who enjoyed the pictures in the book? A B C

 9 Who explains how he got the book? A B C

10 Who enjoyed learning about lives which are A B C

different from his own?

11 Who says something about what happens in A B C

the story?

12 Who says the book is not very well-known? A B C

13 Who felt sad when he finished the book? A B C

10
 Reading and Writing

My favourite book
Jian
This well-known book was in a box of old books that a neighbour
gave me. I wasn’t sure about it when I picked it up because I saw the
pictures and thought it was a book for little children. But I was bored,
so I started reading. After a few pages I couldn’t stop, and when I
got to the last page, I was quite upset that there wasn’t more. It’s
about two friends who play a game, and how it changes their lives.
It’s brilliant!

Max
This was one of the first books I ever had, but it’s still a favourite. Even
before I could read, I loved looking at the drawings as my parents
read the story to me. Now my little sister’s got it, and she loves it too.
The writer has become quite famous, but this is the first book she
wrote, and not many people have heard of it. It’s very different from
the books she wrote later. I suppose what you write about changes as
your life changes.

Kojo
I read this book for the first time when I was about eight. One of the
reasons I liked it was that it was about people growing up in a place
which I knew nothing about. My friend read it too, and our ideas for
games often came from this book. I read it again recently, and I still
think it’s great, except the last few pages. What happens in them
doesn’t seem real.

11
Test 1 answer key
Reading and Writing Further feedback
available in the
Part 1
downloadable
1 B     2 C     3 C     4 A     5 B     6 A resources
Part 2
7 C     8 B     9 A     10 C     11 A     12 B     13 A

Part 3
14 A     15 C     16 A     17 B     18 C

Part 4
19 A     20 C     21 C     22 B     23 A     24 B

Part 5
25 the     26 by     27 a      28 but / (al)though / however     29 than     30 it

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