KS3 Reading – Year 7 Horror Unit (Spring 1 Medium-Term Plan)

KS3 Reading – Year 7 Horror Unit (Spring 1 Medium-Term Plan)
Subject: Reading | Duration: 6 Lessons

This Year 7 Reading medium-term plan for Spring 1 focuses on the horror genre, developing pupils’ reading proficiency, vocabulary knowledge and comprehension skills through engaging, age-appropriate literary extracts.

Across six lessons, pupils explore how writers create setting, character and atmosphere in horror fiction, using texts by Nicki Thornton, Berlie Doherty, Joseph Delaney and Phil Hickes. Lessons are carefully structured around explicit reading strategies, including predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising, with a strong emphasis on vocabulary development and inference.

The unit supports pupils to:

1. Understand how setting and character contribute to meaning in a narrative
2. Analyse how language and figurative techniques create atmosphere and tension
3. Develop key reading skills: retrieval, inference, prediction, explanation and summarising
4. Build confidence in reading challenging vocabulary using context and discussion
5. Transfer reading strategies across genres and curriculum subjects

Reading is further supported through weekly reading lessons, whole-school reading initiatives and use of the Reading Resource Centre. Assessment for Learning is embedded throughout, with opportunities for discussion, retrieval tasks and short extended responses.

Fully aligned with KS3 reading expectations, this medium-term plan is ideal for whole-class reading, mixed-ability groups and schools looking to strengthen reading engagement through high-interest fiction.