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English lesson plan · 4th grade (Year 5 in England) · 45 minutes

Text structure (cause–effect, compare, problem–solution)

Reading Comprehension

CCSS RI.4.5CCSS RI.5.5England: Y5/6 ReadingEngland: KS2 SATs Reading

Objective and success criteria

Students will: Text structure (cause–effect, compare, problem–solution).

  • I can answer questions on today's skill on my own, without help.
  • I can explain each step and say why it works.
  • I can check my answer and spot a mistake.

Before and after

Needs first: Order of events; Main idea and supporting details

Leads to: Analysing structure; Plot stages: exposition to resolution; Foreshadowing, flashback, cliffhanger and red herring

Materials: A short text or extract (one copy each), Highlighters, Question cards, Mini whiteboards, A short model text on the board, Printed student sheet (below).

Warm-up · 5 min

  • Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Order of events; Main idea and supporting details). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
  • Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.
  1. The caterpillar ate and ate. Then it made a cocoon. At last, a butterfly came out. What happened last? (A butterfly came out. / It laid an egg. / The caterpillar ate. / It made a cocoon.) → A butterfly came out.Prompt: Look for time words: first, then, next, after, finally.
  2. Dad cracked two eggs into a bowl. He mixed them. Then he cooked them in a pan. What did Dad do after he mixed the eggs? (bought eggs / washed the bowl / cooked them in a pan / cracked the eggs) → cooked them in a panPrompt: Look for time words: first, then, next, after, finally.
  3. First, Pia put on her socks. Next, she put on her shoes. Then she ran outside. What did Pia do last? (ran outside / put on her socks / went to bed / put on her shoes) → ran outsidePrompt: Look for time words: first, then, next, after, finally.

Hook · 5 min

  • Read the first lines of a short text aloud and ask what students predict will happen and why.
  • Share the objective: Text structure (cause–effect, compare, problem–solution). Read the success criteria together.

I do: model it · 10 min

  • Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
  • Example: The desert is hot and dry. Sand dunes stretch for miles, cacti stand tall, and lizards dart between the rocks. How is this text organised?
  • Step 1: Text structure is how a writer organises ideas.
  • Step 2: So the answer is: description
  • Answer: description
  • Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

We do: guided practice · 10 min

  • Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
  • Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.
  1. The playground was always full of litter. The pupils decided to put more bins around and take turns being litter monitors. Now it is clean. How is this text organised? (compare and contrast / problem and solution / description / cause and effect) → problem and solutionPrompt: How is the information organised?
  2. Because the river flooded, many roads were closed. As a result, the school buses could not run, so school was cancelled. How is this text organised? (cause and effect / description / problem and solution / compare and contrast) → cause and effectPrompt: How is the information organised?

You do: independent practice · 10 min

  • Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
  • Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 8 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

Exit ticket · 5 min

  • Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.
  1. First, the egg hatches into a caterpillar. Next, the caterpillar eats and grows. Then it forms a chrysalis. Finally, a butterfly emerges. How is this text organised? (compare and contrast / cause and effect / chronological order (sequence) / problem and solution) → chronological order (sequence)Prompt: How is the information organised?

Watch out for

  • Answering from memory or opinion instead of evidence in the text.
  • Copying a long quote without explaining what it shows.

Support and stretch

Support

  • Review first: Order of events.
  • Use concrete materials: a short text or extract (one copy each).
  • Give the first step of each question, or a partly worked example to finish.
  • Pair with a confident partner for the guided practice.

Stretch

  • Move on to: Analysing structure; Plot stages: exposition to resolution; Foreshadowing, flashback, cliffhanger and red herring.
  • Explain a common mistake in writing and how to fix it.
  • Write a word problem that uses today's skill, then solve a partner's.

Homework and more practice

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/english/grade-4.

Free lesson plan from eurekami.com/lesson-plan-builder

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Text structure (cause–effect, compare, problem–solution)

Name

Date

Score/ 8

The Fennec Fox

The fennec fox is the smallest fox in the world. It weighs about as much as a bag of sugar. It lives in the Sahara Desert in North Africa, one of the hottest places on Earth. The first thing most people notice about the fennec fox is its enormous ears. They can be as long as 15 centimetres, which is huge for such a small animal. The ears do two important jobs. First, they let heat escape from the fox's body, helping it to stay cool. Second, they are so sensitive that the fox can hear insects moving under the sand. The fennec fox has other ways to survive in the desert, too. Thick fur on the bottoms of its feet protects it from the burning sand. During the hottest part of the day, it rests in a cool burrow underground. It comes out to hunt at night, when the air is cooler. Water is hard to find in the desert, but the fennec fox can go a long time without drinking. It gets most of the water it needs from the food it eats, such as insects, plants and small animals.

  1. Question 1

    Read "The Fennec Fox". How is paragraph 2 mainly organised?

    • A. It tells a story in time order.
    • B. It describes a feature and then explains its uses.
    • C. It compares two kinds of fox.
    • D. It gives instructions.

Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)

The harbour did not so much wake as surrender to the morning. Fog lay over the water like a damp grey blanket that someone had forgotten to fold, and the fishing boats nodded at their moorings, half-asleep, their ropes creaking in complaint. Old Tomas was already there. He was always there. He sat on an upturned crate at the end of the quay, mending a net with fingers that had long ago stopped feeling the cold. His knife flashed, paused, flashed again. Every so often he lifted his head and sniffed the air, as if the sea had written him a letter only he could read. Behind him, the town stirred reluctantly. A shutter rattled up. A dog barked twice and thought better of it. Somewhere a kettle began its thin, rising whistle. The smell of bread drifted from the bakery on Water Lane and mixed with the older, deeper smells of salt, diesel and fish. Then the sun arrived. It did not rise so much as break through – one bright blade splitting the fog, then another, until the whole harbour was suddenly ablaze. The water turned from slate to copper. Gulls exploded upward from the harbour wall, screaming. The boats seemed to sit up straighter. Tomas did not look up. He tied off the last knot, tested it with a sharp tug, and laid the net across his knees like a sleeping cat. Only then did he raise his eyes to the brightening sea, and for a moment, just a moment, his face softened into something very close to a smile.

  1. Question 2

    Read "Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)". How does the focus shift in paragraph 4 compared with paragraph 3?

    • A. from the harbour to a different town
    • B. from Tomas's thoughts to his past
    • C. from quiet, small sounds of the town to a sudden, dramatic burst of light
    • D. from morning to night

  1. Question 3

    First, the egg hatches into a caterpillar. Next, the caterpillar eats and grows. Then it forms a chrysalis. Finally, a butterfly emerges. How is this text organised?

    • A. compare and contrast
    • B. cause and effect
    • C. problem and solution
    • D. chronological order (sequence)

The Long Wall

The Great Wall of China is not one wall at all. It is a network of walls, trenches and watchtowers built and rebuilt over more than two thousand years by different dynasties. If all its sections were laid end to end, they would stretch over 21,000 kilometres – more than half the distance around the Earth. The earliest walls were built from packed earth around the seventh century BCE, when rival Chinese states defended their borders from one another. In about 220 BCE, the first emperor of a united China, Qin Shi Huang, ordered many of these separate walls to be joined together to protect the north from raiding groups. The sections that most visitors see today are far younger. They were built during the Ming dynasty, between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ming builders used bricks and stone, which is why these sections have survived so well. Watchtowers were placed close enough together for soldiers to send signals using smoke by day and fire by night. The wall came at a terrible cost. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, prisoners and farmers were forced to work on it, often in freezing mountains or burning deserts. Many died, and stories and songs about their suffering are still told. Did the wall work? Historians disagree. It slowed down small raids and helped control trade and travel, but determined armies could still break through or simply go around it. Today, its greatest power may be as a symbol – of human effort, of history and of a nation's identity.

  1. Question 4

    Read "The Long Wall". How are paragraphs 2 and 3 mainly organised?

    • A. as a comparison of two countries
    • B. as a list of opinions
    • C. as a problem and solution
    • D. in chronological order

The Clever Octopus

If you wanted to design an intelligent animal from scratch, you probably would not start with a creature that has no bones, three hearts and blue blood. Yet the octopus is one of the most remarkable problem-solvers in the animal kingdom. In laboratories, octopuses have learned to unscrew jar lids to reach crabs inside. Some have escaped from their tanks at night, crept across the floor to a neighbouring tank to eat the fish, and then returned home before morning. In the wild, veined octopuses have been filmed collecting coconut shells, carrying them across the seabed and assembling them into a portable shelter – one of the few known examples of tool use by an invertebrate. What makes this intelligence so surprising is how different the octopus brain is from ours. About two-thirds of its roughly 500 million nerve cells are not in its head at all but in its eight arms. Each arm can taste, touch and even make simple decisions on its own. Scientists are still debating what it might feel like to be an animal whose thinking is spread throughout its body. The octopus's cleverness may be linked to its lifestyle. Without a shell for protection, it must outwit predators by hiding, changing colour in a fraction of a second, or squeezing through gaps no bigger than its beak. Survival depends on flexible thinking. Strangely, most octopuses live only one or two years. They have no parents to teach them and usually die soon after laying eggs. Every skill they show, they must largely work out for themselves.

  1. Question 5

    Read "The Clever Octopus". What is the relationship between paragraph 4 and the rest of the text?

    • A. It suggests a cause for the octopus's intelligence.
    • B. It introduces a counterargument.
    • C. It describes how to keep an octopus.
    • D. It tells a story about a single octopus.

Rethinking Screen Time

Few debates generate as much anxiety among parents as the question of screen time. Headlines warn that smartphones are "destroying a generation", while technology companies insist that their products connect and empower young people. The truth, as so often, is more complicated than either side admits. Part of the problem is that "screen time" is a crude measure. An hour spent video-calling a grandparent, coding a game or researching a school project is not the same as an hour spent scrolling through an endless feed of short videos. Researchers increasingly argue that what young people do on screens matters more than how long they spend on them. That said, quantity is not irrelevant. Several large studies have linked very heavy use – more than five or six hours a day of recreational screen time – to poorer sleep and lower wellbeing. Screens can displace other activities that support health: exercise, face-to-face friendship and, crucially, sleep. Light from devices and the stimulation of social media late at night can delay sleep for teenagers, whose body clocks already push them towards later bedtimes. It is worth noting, however, that most of these studies show correlation, not causation. Teenagers who are already unhappy may turn to their phones more, rather than their phones making them unhappy. Untangling cause and effect is notoriously difficult. What, then, should families do? Rather than fixating on a single number, experts suggest asking three questions. Is screen use getting in the way of sleep? Is it crowding out exercise and real-world relationships? And does the young person feel in control of it, or controlled by it? If the answers are reassuring, the exact number of minutes may matter less than we fear.

  1. Question 6

    Read "Rethinking Screen Time". What is the function of paragraph 4?

    • A. It adds a caution about how to interpret the research in paragraph 3.
    • B. It describes a specific family.
    • C. It introduces the topic for the first time.
    • D. It gives the writer's final advice.

Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility

Good morning, everyone. Last Saturday, twenty-three pupils from this school spent three hours on Sandy Bay beach. We collected forty-one bags of rubbish. Forty-one. Bottles, crisp packets, fishing line, a shoe, and – I promise you this is true – an entire garden chair. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. "It's not my rubbish. Why should I pick it up?" And you're right: most of us didn't drop it. But here's the thing. The seal pup that gets tangled in that fishing line doesn't care whose fault it was. The toddler who cuts her foot on broken glass doesn't care either. That beach belongs to all of us. We swim there in summer. We walk our dogs there in winter. Some of us learned to ride our bikes on the promenade. If it belongs to all of us, then looking after it belongs to all of us too. So I'm asking you for just one thing. Not money. Not your whole weekend. Just two hours, on the first Saturday of next month. Bring gloves, bring a friend, bring your little brother if you have to. Because if twenty-three of us can fill forty-one bags, imagine what four hundred of us could do. Thank you.

  1. Question 7

    Read "Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility". How does the speaker make the ending powerful?

    • A. She tells a sad story.
    • B. She introduces a new problem.
    • C. She lists rules for the clean-up.
    • D. She uses the earlier numbers to imagine a much bigger result.

The Lemonade Stand

Marcus wanted a new bike helmet, but it cost twenty dollars. He had only five. "Why not set up a lemonade stand?" suggested his grandmother. She helped him squeeze a big bowl of lemons and stir in sugar and cold water. Marcus painted a sign that said LEMONADE – 50 CENTS. On Saturday morning, Marcus put his table at the end of the driveway. For the first hour, nobody came. Cars zoomed past. Marcus began to think it was a silly idea. Then he noticed that people were walking to the park across the road for a football match. He picked up his sign and moved the table right next to the park gate. Within ten minutes, a line had formed. By lunchtime, the jug was empty. Marcus counted his coins. He had earned exactly fifteen dollars. With the five he already had, it was enough. "You did it!" said Grandma. "We did it," said Marcus. "And next time, I'll think about where the customers are before I start."

  1. Question 8

    Read "The Lemonade Stand". What problem did Marcus have during the first hour?

    • A. Nobody came to buy lemonade.
    • B. It started to rain.
    • C. The lemonade was too sour.
    • D. He lost his money.

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Answer key: Text structure (cause–effect, compare, problem–solution)

  1. 1. B. It describes a feature and then explains its uses.

  2. 2. C. from quiet, small sounds of the town to a sudden, dramatic burst of light

  3. 3. D. chronological order (sequence)

  4. 4. D. in chronological order

  5. 5. A. It suggests a cause for the octopus's intelligence.

  6. 6. A. It adds a caution about how to interpret the research in paragraph 3.

  7. 7. D. She uses the earlier numbers to imagine a much bigger result.

  8. 8. A. Nobody came to buy lemonade.