Find Facts from a Text

When we read a text, the first questions we get asked are usually retrieval questions.

Retrieval questions are where we have to find and fetch key information from a text.

This is why some dogs are called retrievers as they like to fetch things (often balls).

Read the passage below:

When they were exploring the nature garden, Lily, Max, Mila and Jake stumbled across an injured bird. Its feathers looked tangled and faded. Its little, shaking chirps echoed around the garden.

How many children find the bird?

Can you see that there are four children’s names in the first sentence?

This tells us four children find the bird.

The answers to retrieval questions are always in the text.

In this activity, you’ll be answering retrieval questions about a text. Have a read of the text below and then answer the questions - don't worry, you can check on the story at any time by clicking on the red help button on the screen.

Hidden Prints:

 As the blanket of mist started to clear on Monday morning, Emily and Lily went out to feed their pet rabbits in the back garden. The fresh weather gave them a chilly hug, making the sisters feel wide awake. Archie and Fluffy, their rabbits, lived in a cosy hutch on the patio and were treated like kings. As Emily placed fresh hay into the hutch, her mouth dropped open. She saw a strange footprint on the patio. It was different to anything she had seen before. She pointed it out to Lily, “Look, Lily. What’s that odd footprint over there?”

“Are you sure it’s a footprint Emily? It has a pointy edge,” Lily laughed.

Confused, they looked around and spotted another strange, muddy print at the edge of the patio heading towards the grass.

“It must be a footprint as there’s another one over here,” Emily said.

“What on earth has a footprint shaped like that?” mumbled Lily in a stunned voice.

As curious as detectives, they followed the trail of prints onto the grass and found pieces of plastic from the recycling box scattered across the ground. Something unusual had taken place in their garden and they wanted to find out what it was. Every step they took felt like a puzzle.

Their hunt led them to another footprint heading towards the vegetable patch. Curiously, the sisters followed. They were desperate to work out who the footprint belonged to.  What could be making such a mark?  The edges were too straight to be an animal print but it was too small to be a person’s footprint.  These footprints were calling them deeper into the garden.

In the middle of the vegetable patch, they heard a rustling. When they looked closer, they saw a scared, little hedgehog shaking on the spot. Emily called for their dad to come and see if the hedgehog was hurt. Slowly, their dad cupped his hands around the bottom of its body, where the fur was soft, and lifted it up. At first, the hedgehog curled into a ball but after a minute, it unrolled and sniffed around.

As the hedgehog unrolled, Emily spotted something on its foot. “Look, there’s a piece of plastic stuck to his foot. He must have walked through all of the recycling that spilled onto the floor,” she said like a police officer solving a crime.

Carefully, Lily and Emily worked like doctors to free the hedgehog’s trapped foot. When they put him back on the ground, he scurried away as quick as a flash. The girls looked at each other and smiled. What a lot of excitement before school on a Monday morning!