Key stage 2 Literacy

Reading Reading is an essential skill that underpins the whole curriculum. The pupils have access to many high quality, challenging texts in class and as part of their weekly reading homework. The new curriculum places even greater emphasis on sharing whole books with children, not just extracts and more reading aloud to children. Children are expected to develop more high level comprehension skills in reading throughout Key stage 2

Reading in KS2 Reading in Key stage 2 is taught through: Word reading: pronouncing words correctly Comprehension: understanding the meaning of words and language and being able to answer questions on texts

Word Reading In key stage 2 children will be expected to: apply their growing knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes (as listed in English Appendix 1), both to read aloud and to understand the meaning of new words they meet. e.g il, im, sub, ly, sion read further exception words, noting the unusual correspondences between spelling and sound, and where these occur in the word. E.g. ‘y’ that is not at the end of the word: myth, gym, pyramid or ‘ough’ pronounced in different ways: ought, brought, fought, rough, tough, enough, though, although, dough

Comprehension In year 3 and 4 children will be taught to: Develop a positive attitude to reading understand what they have read by using skills such as inference, predicting, identifying, retrieving and recording. Discuss a wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-fiction and reference books In year 5 and 6 children will continue to develop these skills and will be taught to: Summarise the main ideas from paragraphs Evaluate how authors use language e.g. figurative language e.g ‘The wind whispered’ or ‘she looked like she had seen a ghost’ Distinguish between fact and opinion Provide reasoned justifications for their views (use evidence from the text)

Helping your child with reading Listen to your child read the book sent home each week. Give your child access to lots of books at home. Use the local library regularly. Give your child access to a wide range of reading – not just books – e.g. newspapers, magazines, leaflets or advertisements. Ask your child questions about their understanding and their opinions of what they read. How did the reading make them feel? What did they notice? See hand-out for more information about how to help your child with reading.

Writing In key stage 2 writing is taught through: Transcription (spelling) Composition ( writing for a purpose and audience) Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation Handwriting (neat presentation of writing)

Transcription Lower key stage 2: (see appendix 1 p50-61) Use further prefixes and suffixes e.g re, sub, inter, ly, ic, Use further homophones e.g he’ll, heel, heal Spell words that are often mispelt e.g accept/except Use possessive apostrophe correctly in plurals e.g girls’, boys’, children’s Write from memory simple sentences dictated by the teacher, punctuated correctly Upper key stage 2: Continue to build on these skills: learn more difficult prefixes and suffixes: e.g cious, sious, cial, tial or homophones: licence/license, practice/practise Spell some words with silent letters e.g doubt, solemn Use a thesaurus to learn new vocabulary

Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation Grammar has much more emphasis in the new curriculum. Pupils are expected to know the correct terminology for grammar and punctuation and much more is expected at a younger age (see glossary: p70) Year 3 terminology: Preposition, conjunction word family, prefix clause, subordinate clause direct speech consonant, consonant letter vowel, vowel letter inverted commas (or ‘speech marks’)

Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation Year 4 terminology: determiner pronoun, possessive pronoun Adverbial Year 5 terminology: modal verb, relative pronoun relative clause parenthesis, bracket, dash cohesion, ambiguity Year 6 terminology: subject, object active, passive synonym, antonym ellipsis, hyphen, colon, semi-colon, bullet points

Writing Composition Lower Key stage 2:Children will be taught to: Plan their writing through looking at lots of examples and discussing structure, vocabulary and grammar Record their ideas Draft and write Evaluate and edit Proof-read for spelling and punctuation errors Read aloud their own writing Upper Key stage 2: Will build upon these skills and: Identify the audience and purpose Make effective vocabulary choices Use correct tense throughout a piece of writing Ensure correct grammar and a wide range of punctuation is used

Handwriting Lower key stage 2 Use the diagonal and horizontal strokes that are needed to join letters. Increase legibility, consistency and quality of handwriting Upper key stage 2: Write legibly, fluently and with increasing speed

Types of Reading and Writing Explanation Stories Instructional Myths and legends Poetry Diaries Persuasive Reviews Play-scripts Letters Recounts Biographies Newspaper reports Character studies Description Discussion texts Reports Leaflets

How to support your child with Literacy in Key stage 2: See list of websites. To find other good websites simply type in ‘Key Stage 2 Literacy’ into Google and suitable websites should come up. Test your child on as many spellings as possible and revise past spellings given as homework regularly. Your child should read as many different types of texts as possible. Question your child's understanding of what they have read. Discuss how texts look and why they are set out in different ways and for different purposes e.g.an advert – to persuade, A leaflet – to give information. Discuss the different features of each type of text. Practise handwriting by copying out pieces of text in best writing Practise writing in different styles e.g. newspaper report, magazine article, information leaflet, discussion about an issue, story writing, writing a description. Practise writing sentences using interesting vocabulary, punctuation and different openings.