There has been a great deal of interest in the Titanic during the last few weeks, as the 14/15th April 2012 approaches, exactly one hundred years after the disaster. The Titanic was built by Harland and Wolff for the White Star Line as the largest passenger ship in the World, and was thought to be unsinkable. However, at 11.40 pm on the 14th April 1912 the Titanic hit an iceberg in the cold North Atlantic Ocean which ripped holes into the side of the ship. The water flooded in much faster than the crew could pump it out. Unfortunately many of the lifeboats had never been installed because it was thought that they would never be needed and they would clutter up the deck of the new ship! The Titanic sank just over 2 ½ hours after it hit the iceberg, in the early morning of the 15th April. The nearest ship to the Titanic, the Carpathia, was some distance away and the survivors had to wait in their lifeboats for several hours before being rescued. The Carpathia then took the survivors to their destination in New York. Many stories and films have been produced since that fatal night. We have had many requests for comprehension pages and thought that now was a great time to launch the first of a brand new series, to coincide with the Titanic disaster! Comprehension is important because just identifying words on a page does not make for successful reading. It is vital to be able to understand the written words, engage with them and think about their meaning. Over the months to come we will be producing a series of comprehension worksheets linked to historical events which we hope you will find useful. This first set of pages on the Titanic has three short comprehensions on aspects of the Titanic, giving practice at reading and understanding texts  together with a fact sheet which provides a useful starting point for further research. Go to Titanic worksheet