Reading

What reading opportunities do we have in year one? 

A reading workshop every morning where the children have a guided group reading session with me, with a 'post reading' activity based on the book the following week focusing on comprehension. 

Letters and Sounds every day for 30 minutes which focuses on the mechanics of reading, including a phonics workshop on Friday where the children choose from a range of fun phonic activities. 

We have a fantastic library at Blandford St Mary which the children visit weekly. They each choose a book on a Wednesday and this is then shared with their year 6 reading partner on a Monday afternoon. 

This is all in addition to their literacy lessons, and the reading incorporated in their topic work and across the curriculum. 

October 2012

Following the reading evening, Mrs Harris has put together some helpful information to support you when reading with your child. 

Strategies to help and encourage children who are stuck on a word-

• Sounding out; break the word into sounds that can then be blended together 

              e.g.  shopping – sh-o- pp- i- ng.

• Are there any words within the word that would help read the word? 

e.g.  unhelpful – help in the middle and add the suffix and prefix.

• Get the child to read the rest of the sentence and have a ‘clever’ guess at what the word might be.
• Could the child have a ‘clever’ guess at the word thinking about the context of the sentence?

If child really seems to be struggling you may just tell them the word.  Especially if this helps with the flow of the reading.  (However if the child is struggling with more than 10 words per page the book is too tricky for them). 

Giving feedback and encouragement 

Please do give plenty of praise even if child has had a ‘good try’ but didn’t get things totally correct.

Be explicit about what children have done well e.g. “I like the expression you used when you were reading that” or “Well done you were able to use this text to find the answer to the question”. 

If a child is having difficulties you can word your response or reply to show that it’s something they can work on e.g. “let’s have another look at that” or “next time you read take care remembering what happens”. 

Children usually have a green reading record that can be written in after reading.  The class teacher may also have a form they like to be completed for their records as well.  Please initial and date any written feedback so we know when and who made it. 

Any written feedback should be positive but can indicate areas to work on.

For example;

‘Bob read with great expression today.  Keep practicing your sounding out skills on words you’re not sure about’

Or

‘Jim could describe the characters in the story well. Next time think about how we can tell how a character is feeling looking at clues in the writing.’

Before reading any book 

Take time to look at the front cover, the back cover and blurb.  Children quite often want to just have a quick flick through the book to have a sneaky peak and get a feel for what it might be about.

You might like to engage children in the book they are about to read by having an object that relates to the book to look at or discuss beforehand (for example if it’s about a teddy, have a teddy to hold or images of aliens if the book is about aliens).

Before reading a Fiction Book

Here are activities to do and questions to choose from 

• Read the title and author

• What sort of book might it be with that title?
• What do you think might happen in it?
• Have you read a book by this author before?
• Do you think the picture on the front cover gives you a clue about the story?
• What do you think about the picture on the front cover?

• Read the blurb on the back cover

• What characters have been introduced?
• What’s your prediction about the story now?
• Where do you think this story will happen?
• What type of story do think this will be? (fairytale, horror, mystery, action adventure etc?)
• Why do you think they’ve left it on a question or a cliff hanger instead of telling you what happens? 

During reading of fiction text.  

You can pause regularly to check children‘s understanding, get them to predict what might happen next and gather their opinions on characters and situations.  

Here are a range of questions you can choose from;

• What’s happening at this point of the story? 
• What do you think might happen next?
• Where is this story set?
• What are the settings in this text?
• Tell me about the characters in this text.
• Who is a good character?
• What makes this character good? 
• Pick out some examples from the text that show this character is good.
• Who is a bad character?
• What makes them bad?
• Pick out some examples from the text that show this character is bad.
• How is ....  character feeling? Why do you think they’re feeling this?

After reading a fiction text.

After reading here are a range of questions or discussion points to choose from.

• Which part of the story/play/poem did you like best?   Why?
• If you could change something about the story what would you change?
• What part of the story was the most exciting?  What made it exciting? 
• Tell me about a character which changed in the story? How did they change?
• Are there any other stories that are similar to this story? 
• Do you think there was a message in this story?

Before reading a non-fiction book

Here are activities to do and questions to choose from.

• Read the title and author

• What sort of book do you think this is?
• What is this book going to tell you about?
• Do you know anything about  ???? already?
• Why do you think they have given the book this title?
• What do you think about the image on the front cover?  What do you think it shows ????
• Does the front cover have an illustration or a photograph? Why do you think photographs are used for non-fiction books?

• Discuss the fact that the book is non- fiction

• Can you think of other words that describe non-fiction books? (e.g. facts, factual, information, reference)
• What sort of features will we find inside this book? (e.g contents page, index, glossary, titles, diagrams etc). You might like to flick through and look at some of these features. 
• Do we need to read the book in order start to finish?
• What could I do to find out about something in particular, for instance.... (pick something from contents or index) 

• Look at back cover and read the blurb

• Does this sound like it will tell you lots of information?
• What sort of information do you think the book will give you?
• What is this book going to tell you about? 

During and after reading a non-fiction text.

Make use of the contents page, get the child to pick pages to read, you don’t always need to read from start to end.  Keep referring to the glossary if there are words the children don’t understand. 

• Where could I find information about ....?
• Can you find me 2 pieces of information about ...?
• What does this part of the text tell you about?
• Which part of the text tells you about...?
• In your opinion what do you think is the most interesting facts you’ve learnt?  Why?
• How do you think the diagrams have helped in this?
• What do you think the information has been organised like it has on this page?
• Do you think that this text was helpful in finding out about ... ?  Explain your opinion.

September 2012

Hello all,

We are currently in the process of hearing all the children read, and will be reassessing their reading levels as soon as possible. When we have heard your child read we will advise you which band of reading book you should choose, with your child, from the boxes in the corridor.  We will also be sending out the high frequency words your child needs to practise as soon as possible.  

In the meantime, please continue to read with your child daily. I cannot emphasise enough the benefits this will have on your child's learning across the curriculum! 

Please remember, reading needs to be FUN, and the children need to be reading a wide range of reading material - not just story books! Sharing non-fiction books is really important too as it will reinforce that books can be a source of information, which will be very useful in finding out about their interests!