The Adventure of the Speckled Band Graded Reader

This levelled story is an adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes mystery story, "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" for students graded to an elementary + / A2 + level, perfect for readers who are developing their independent reading skills and ESL students. In this exciting action-packed story, a young woman comes to Holmes after her sister dies mysteriously in the night and now she's afraid the same thing will happen to her! This unusual case involves exotic animals, a Romani camp, a cruel stepfather, and exotic medicines!

Because it's a mystery, students can also practice using logic, critical thinking, and reasoning and try to figure out what happened,. This adaptated story tells the full story leaving out no essential details. It also includes guided questions to help students solve the mystery using their reading strategies and critical thinking skills. Can they reason and solve this mystery activity better than the world's most famous detective while also enjoying a piece of classic literature?

The story has been broken into 3 sections, followed by a set of comprehension questions as well as guided questions to draw students' attention to the clues and ultimately solve the mystery.

In addition to the guiding questions and the clearer highlighting of clues, the vocabulary, sentence structure, and grammar has been graded to allow ESL / EFL students to read the story. It's also more accesible to middle-grade students. High-level words are glossed and some outdated words are illustrated.

This reader can be used for pleasure reading or as a short class reading. It can also be used as an introduction to a unit on crime, mystery reading, famous detective novels, or critical thinking. It could even be used as a kind of introduction to the original Sherlock Holmes story.

What's included?

• 3 pages of Teacher Notes with instructions how to use the resource, as well as extension ideas
• The story itself of 28 pages, broken up into 3 sections ~ 6900 words, elementary level (CEFR A2+, Fleisch-Kincaid 1.97)

Do you love mysteries and critical thinking activities? Check out the mystery section of my store for my clue by clues and other logic puzzles?

The Sherlock Holmes character was created by Arthur Conan Doyle but is in public domain.