Egerton Reading Evening Welcome to Year 3

BIG THANK YOU … To the PTA for all of the wonderful, new books we have displayed in the book area. You may find some in front of you! Please take a look. We are using these to help raise the profile of reading at Egerton and introduce a new “Reading Journal” Encouraging wider reading (currently) Each half term we have a focus author. So far this year we have had Roald Dahl and Francesca Simon. This half term, we are looking at Shoo (Hugh) Rayner. We also look at a variety of texts to help us with our long write focus and introduced the Pokemon reading at the beginning of the year.

Reading Systems in Year 3 (now we’re juniors!!)

Changing books Many children come into KS2, still on the school reading scheme. They have their own list of books to read at their level. This system has been in place since Reception. Children have been following similar lists and choosing their own books since Year 1, developing the skills throughout KS1 to do this independently now they are in the juniors. The book lists are kept in files in class. All children know how to use them, where they are and have free access to them. We expect that they will change their book at least twice a week (depending on difficulty of text), ticking off the books they have read. Once a child has completed a band they should inform an adult. We will then check that texts have been read and assess on movement to the next band. We also assess children’s reading closely during guided reading. They always read a band ahead of their current home reading book and we will move them on when we know they are confident and fluent with trickier texts.

Free Readers A number of children come into Year 3 as free readers and many more become free readers during the year. There is a wide bank of texts available to the children in the Year 4 “Wet Area”. We encourage children to select books from here as there is a wide and varied range of texts to select from, introducing them to different authors, fiction and non-fiction types, layouts etc. The new PTA books will also be available from next week for the children to bring home as their home reading book. We do urge children to read books from home too (hence Pokemon Reading), however, we are aware that children will stick to familiar and favourite authors and text types so encourage them to have a home/school book as well.

Reading in School Guided Reading All children are timetabled to read in a guided reading group every week. Reading during this time is a mixture of independent, 1:1 and reading aloud to peers. Children complete follow up tasks independently the next day. These link closely to the Learning Objectives covered in the session. SPaG is taught in a discrete lesson every week and there is consolidation of this in some guided reading tasks. (Please take a SpaG glossary home with you) Eric Time (Everyone Reads in Class) This happens 2 – 3 times a week. It’s a quiet 10 minutes when every child in the class reads their own book. Other Opportunities Once a week during Guided Reading children have opportunity to fix mistakes in previous tasks. If they have nothing to fix they have the time to read their own books. Children who have completed work and have a few minutes remaining before the end of the lesson will get the opportunity to read their own text.

Reading at Home Ideally, children should be reading four times a week for 20 minutes. Please try to be involved with your child’s reading at this time in some way. This could be through: Listening to your child read Asking your child questions on the pages read afterwards Discussing interesting words found in the text read Taking it in turns with your child to read a paragraph, i.e. modelling good expression and re-reading parts that “don’t make sense” Read books with your child that are tricky for them to read independently. More complex texts can be more engaging and encourage children to want to read more for themselves. (please take a list of questions and useful websites home with you)

Reading Journal Years 4 blue and 5 have been successfully trialling reading journals over the Autumn term and we will now be using these across KS2. The journals should be used in place of the KS1 reading records. These are personal journals for the children. It is not expected that parents will write in them and whilst they will be checked at regular intervals, they will not be marked. The children will be expected to record the name of each book they read in the journal along with the date that they start and finish the text. In the front cover of the journal there is a list of 10 different activities...

Task No. Activity 1 Pick 4 impressive sentences from what you have read and give reasons for picking each one. (F or NF) 2 Who is your favourite character and why? (F) 3 Read the blurb (synopsis) on the back of the book. The same books can have different blurbs depending on when the book was published. Write an alternative blurb for your book. (F or NF) 4 Create a list of ten key facts about the subject of the information text you are reading. (NF) 5 Imagine you are one of the characters in the book. Choose one day and write a diary entry for that day. (F) 6 Find 15 interesting words that you could use in your own writing. Use a dictionary to find out what 6 of the words mean. (F or NF) 7 Write a letter to the author telling them what you thought about the book. (F or NF) 8 Use a non-fiction book to make notes on a particular topic, i.e. an animal, a place, an event. Skim and scan for information, recording in your journal. Then create a paragraph about your chosen subject. (NF) 9 Think about one of the settings in the book you are reading. Write a detailed description of the setting using adjectives, adverbs and prepositions (F) 10 Design an alternative front cover for your book. Remember to include the title, author and any appropriate illustrations. (F or NF) 11 Create a fact file about one of the characters in the book. (F) 12 Would you read another book by this author? Why? (F or NF)

It is expected that children will complete one of the activities every 1 – 2 weeks (depending on weight of homework). They can choose the task they want to complete and, if they have read more than 1 book in the week, the text they want it to link to. Tasks should be no longer than 1 journal page each. The tasks can be completed at home or at school during guided reading fix-it/independent read time. It is hoped that the children will have a go at completing a variety of tasks, and you could also encourage this. However, at the end of the day it is their journal and ultimately their choice as to which task they undertake.

Any questions?