How to prepare for the reading comprehension part of the 7+ Assessments with less than 3 months remaining!

All of our current 7+ students have had at least 6 months of assessment preparation so far (2026 entry), with some students having joined us at least 12 months ago - some even earlier than this. For 2027 entry and beyond, our students have started preparing for their 7+ Assessments since before they even started Reception. Of course, that is a much nicer, more calmer process than starting three months before the 7+ Assessments. It’s obvious that starting three months before is going to require a lot more effort, time per day spent on learning and amount of time reading each day and boosting vocabulary. 

Vocabulary is key when preparing for the reading aspect of the 7+ Assessments. Our students meet with their teachers every single week (some twice per week) and complete a variety of genres of comprehensions. In this way, they have a huge boost in their vocabulary. Your child needs to be completing a vast range of fiction and non fiction texts as well as different types of poetry. Some schools- like Highgate at 7+ for instance, expect their students to complete two different reading comprehensions and they are different genres. Also, it’s not about children knowing the meaning of every single word that comes up in the text. This would be impossible. Rather, it’s about children having had enough practise to be a able to infer the meaning of any word within a text. To be able to identify if the word is a noun, an adjective, a verb or an adverb in order to be able to answer all of the questions in the 7+ Assessment papers or at least as many as they possible can in order to achieve the highest percentage marks.

You also need to prepare your child to have stamina when it comes to their reading comprehension. This can only happen through reading longer comprehension passages and over time getting progressively quicker. Remember that your child will be timed and they will need to complete as much of the paper as they possibly can in the timeframe allocated to them. Usually, children lose a lot of marks because they leave 5-10 marks worth of questions blank simply because they run out of time. 

If you have less than 3 months, I suggest you purchase the English Bond Books (at least age 7-8 for the 7+). We aim for the 8-9 before our students go to their 7+ Assessments. I suggest you work through the tests with your child consistently and frequently. I can’t tell you how many per week. I would need to meet your child in order to be able to tell you that! I then suggest that your child reads chapter books every single day for at least 30 minutes a day and keeps a glossary of new words. Every time your child reads, they should be placing new or unfamiliar words into a glossary and you should be asking them frequently what the words in that glossary mean. 

If you are truly serious about supporting your child to be wildly successful in all of their 7+ Assessments,  join our 3 month Intensive programme and let’s all be committed and dedicated in supporting your child to have tremendous success in all of their 7+ Assessments.