The Boy at the Back of the Class Novel Study Reading Comprehension PDF | Years 3–7
Save planning time with this The Boy at the Back of the Class comprehension resource, designed to support students as they read Onjali Q. Raúf’s powerful novel about friendship, kindness, empathy, refugees, belonging and standing up for others.
This printable novel study PDF includes 100 reading comprehension questions across 10 reading sets, plus a full answer key. The questions help students check their understanding while also encouraging deeper thinking about Ahmet’s experiences, the narrator’s growing awareness, and the way classmates respond to someone new in their school community.
This resource is suitable for Year 3, Year 4, Year 5, Year 6 and Year 7 students and works well for whole-class reading, guided reading, literature circles, independent tasks, homework or assessment check-ins.
What’s Included
- 10 reading sets
- 100 total comprehension questions
- Full answer key included
- Simple / recall questions
- Advanced / critical thinking questions
- Printable PDF format
- No-prep reading worksheets
- Suitable for classroom, small-group or independent use
Skills Covered
- Reading comprehension
- Retrieval and recall
- Inference
- Vocabulary in context
- Character analysis
- Theme analysis
- Text evidence
- Summarising
- Written responses
- Critical thinking
- Making connections
- Explaining character motivation
Perfect For
- Novel study lessons
- Guided reading groups
- Whole-class reading
- Literature circles
- Relief teacher / substitute lessons
Why Teachers Will Like This Resource
This The Boy at the Back of the Class novel study comprehension pack gives teachers a simple way to keep students accountable during reading without needing to create questions from scratch. The mix of recall and higher-order questions supports a range of learners and helps students think carefully about character choices, kindness, empathy and the wider issues explored in the novel.
The resource is especially useful for building thoughtful classroom discussion around refugees, friendship, inclusion, courage and compassion. It can be printed as a booklet, used one reading set at a time, assigned digitally, or used as evidence of reading comprehension during a class novel study.
