Book excerpt: The Stage 9 Biff, Chip and Kipper Stories, written by Roderick Hunt and illustrated by Alex Brychta, provide a rich story context to help develop language comprehension and decoding skills.Stories and More Stories A continue to provide a mix of fantasy settings and familiar situations. More complex sentences with conceptually more challenging storylines develop stamina, ensuring that readers will be able to progress to more demanding texts with confidence.The new-style inside cover notes provide advice and support to help adults read and explore the story with the child, supporting their decoding and language comprehension development.Each pack of 6 includes a Group/Guided Reading Notes Booklet with a Vocabulary Chart listing high frequency tricky words and a Curriculum Coverage Chart for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Each story has individual notes and suggested activities for Group and Independent Reading,Speaking, listening and drama and Writing, with each section showing the relevant objectives covered. Decoding and Language Comprehension opportunities are highlighted throughout.