The attached rubric can be used as a guide to explicitly teach students to think deeper about their reading of fiction texts, moving from literal to inferential and evaluative levels of understanding. Through modelling and guiding students through the Here, Hidden and Head levels on the rubric with shared texts, students can begin to use the process in a more self directed style with independent texts.
It can be adapted for use with different year levels. For example my year 5 students are focusing on ‘characters’, ‘setting’ and ‘plot’, whereas the year 6 students have also been exploring ‘language’ and ‘themes/ messages’. As the year progresses we will look at other aspects.

The rubric can be used as an assessment of learning, and for learning. For example, after completing a recent reading assignment, students were provided with feedback and a copy of the rubric with their personal achievements highlighted. Students were then guided to set their goals for the term using the next step on the rubric as a guide. In this way students take more personal responsibility for their learning.

Graphic organisers, such as webs, Venn Diagrams, comparative charts etc, can be used to enable all students to successfully show depth of thinking.
Fiction Reading Comprehension Assessment – Lawlor 2013 v3