Reading Vipers: Comprehension Mechanism Explained

What does VIPERS stand for?

• Vocabulary

• Inference

• Prediction

• Explanation

• Retrieval

• Sequence (Key Stage 1) or Summarise (Key Stage 2)

It focuses on the comprehension of texts, rather than decoding, fluency etc. In this article, we have outlined what each of these sections means.

Vocabulary

Children are taught to draw upon their prior knowledge to understand texts. It could include finding and explaining words using the context they have read them in. For example, could you tell me what X means? Can you think of another word that means the same as X? Which word tells you X is feeling upset?

Inference

To infer something is to able to read between the lines. Children will use their prior experiences to make sense of what they are reading. Try to encourage children to justify their reasoning with examples from the text. An example of this might be, why might Joseph be feeling nervous?

Prediction

Children are encourage to make predictions based on what they have implied from the text. This can be started from the beginning of reading a text, looking at the cover, what do you think it will be about? What do you think will happen next and why?

Explanation

The explanation is where children are encouraged to express their thoughts and opinions about a text. An example of this is who is your favourite character and why? Or why do you think the author has set out the text in that way?

Retrieval

Retrieval is locating information that is written in the text. Children will need to scan the text to find key words to do this. An example of this might be, what year did the Second World War start in?

If you would like to focus on skills such as reading accuracy and reading fluency instead, these are skills that can be tracked on Pageticker (a digital reading record). We are launching in late January 2025, so please sign up with your email to get more information.