Daily missions. Brighter futures.
Your answer is what you think. Evidence is the bit of the text that made you think it.
Your child reads the passage, gives a perfectly sensible answer, and then the question adds four words — use evidence from the text — and they're stuck.
It's rarely that they can't find it. It's that nobody has ever defined what “evidence” means in a way an eleven-year-old can use.
Define it in one sentence
Your answer is what you think. Your evidence is what in the text made you think it.That's it. Say it once, then use it fifty times.
Start somewhere obvious
Sam grabbed his umbrella before leaving the house.What's the weather like? Probably raining. And the evidence? “He grabbed his umbrella.”
Deliberately easy, because you're teaching the shape of the answer, not the difficulty. Once the shape is automatic, harder texts don't change anything.
Answer, then evidence — always in that order
First: what do you think? Then: what in the text makes you think that?
Make the second question so routine that they start pre-empting it. That's when it's landed.
Read one short paragraph. Ask one question about a character.
Then have them physically point at the words that support their answer.
No writing, no full sentences, no essay. Just find it with a finger. Two minutes.
The mistake children often make
They repeat the answer and call it evidence. It's the single commonest lost mark in comprehension.
Answer: Tom is nervous. “Evidence”: because he's nervous.The unlock is a more precise question: “which actual words gave you that idea?” — because “which words” can only be answered by pointing at the page.
“Can you show me the exact bit that supports your answer?”
Exact is doing the work in that sentence. Not the paragraph — the words.
A child who can put a finger on five specific words has understood what evidence is. A child who waves at half a page hasn't yet, and now you both know where to work.
English in the Learning Centre
Practice at reading closely and quoting the right part of a text — the skill that turns a good idea into a mark.
Browse the free English lessons →Where MindBlaze fits
Once supporting an idea with evidence becomes a habit, it stops being an English skill. It's how children argue a point in history, justify a method in maths and explain a result in science.
MindBlaze builds the same reflex through its comprehension and verbal reasoning challenges.
Point at the words.