Ros Lugg, Feb 24, 2026 3:00:06 PM
I came across a great quote recently from Reading Reconsidered Curriculum1, which is a US teaching resource. I felt I had to share it, as it very eloquently expresses something I also feel is very important for our students.
“Cognitive Science tells us that background knowledge is at least as important to reading comprehension as reading ‘skills’. Knowledge – of history, science, literacy terms, vocabulary – is the chicken and the egg.”
At StepsWeb, we also believe very strongly that background knowledge is crucial for comprehension. It’s also a great way of building a broader vocabulary and introducing students to aspects which may spark their interest. It’s important that our students build an understanding of important historical events and the world around them – and learn about people whose discoveries or achievements have helped to shape our world.
That’s why we are incorporating more non-fiction texts into StepsWeb at the higher levels. You may have noticed reading passages appearing about Howard Carter's incredible archaeological discoveries, the true story of a kayaker being swallowed by a whale, the effects of gravity, and why the Earth spins. We’re planning to add a variety of interesting stories covering different aspects of the curriculum, including history, science, and poetry. This is an ongoing process - we’re adding more all the time.
These additional stories also come with more complex questions to test students' comprehension skills. This includes questions where learners need to find synonyms or antonyms within the story, pick from multiple options, type in the answer, order sentences and words into a specific sequence, and additional questions appearing after the story disappears. This makes it more difficult for students to simply guess answers and requires more critical thinking and a deeper understanding of the text.
There were already a range of reading passages, including ones on Stephen Hawking, the Valley of the Kings, caving and the history of satellites. Every Level up to and including Level 12 already has 8 reading passages. We're working towards adapting these stories into the new format, and including more reading passages in Levels 13-20.
Our aim here is to extend students’ reading experiences, build their vocabulary and general knowledge and, hopefully, spark their interest about the world around them.
The vocabulary for these passages deliberately include words which not all students would be able to spell – and the StepsWeb activities in those modules don’t include spelling or phonic activities. Those are covered in a much more structured way in other units.
Each unit begins with the Definitions activity - giving students an introduction to word meanings, and building their comprehension skills before they move on to the more complex task of understanding the words being used within a story.
The new Reading Practice activity allows students to adjust the font size on their screen, ensuring it is easy to read no matter the device being used, and enabling students who have difficulties reading small text on screens to adjust text size as required.
We’d love to get your feedback about the passages we’ve published so far – and any suggestions on topics you feel we should include. Our longer-term aim is to build a much more extensive collection of reading materials which teachers can tap into in a variety of ways – not just as their students go through the Course.
Email us your suggestions to info@stepsweb.com
1 https://teachlikeachampion.org/reading-reconsidered-curriculum/
