Year 4 Parent Workshop English Autumn Term 2016

Aims To inform you of the Year 4 Reading, Writing and SPaG curriculum objectives To provide ways to support your child at home To explore websites and strategies for learning.

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils: read easily, fluently and with good understanding develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

Assessment descriptors At Avenue, use the terms ‘EMERGING’, ‘EXPECTED’ and ‘EXCEEDING’ to describe your child’s attainment against the expected standard for their year group. Emerging – means your child is working towards the expected standard for their year group Expected – means your child is working at the expected standard for their year group Exceeding – means your child is working at greater depth within the standard for their year group

Writing objectives- punctuation Year 4 focuses: Inverted commas to punctuate direct speech Apostrophe for possession e.g. the girl’s hat Apostrophe for regular and irregular plurals e.g. the girls’ classroom Comma after fronted adverbial e.g. Last week, We went to the park.

Writing objectives- grammar Year 4 focuses: Greater variety of conjunctions e.g. because, although, if, when Present perfect form of verbs in contrast to the past tense Range of adverbs Prepositions e.g. before, after, below, across Use ‘a’ and ‘an’ appropriately Nouns and expanded noun phrases to add detail Use paragraphs to group related ideas

How you can support with grammar and punctuation at home IXL uk.ixl.com Oxford Owl www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-site/expert-help/grammar-punctuation-and-spelling-made-easy Primary Homework Help primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/interactive/literacy2.htm Fun English Games www.funenglishgames.com/grammargames/punctuation.html Twinkl www.twinkl.co.uk

Writing objectives- Spelling Year 4 focuses: Prefixes and suffixes Homophones e.g. which, witch, their, there, they’re Spell words that are often misspelt (common exception words) Possessive apostrophe accurately in words e.g. children’s, girls’ Use the first two or three letters of a word to check its spelling in a dictionary

Spelling Lesson Structure Review- previous learning from other year groups or within the year group Teach- explicitly teach spelling rules and share the common exception words or word list Practise- pupils work independently so that they can practise their new learning Apply- children complete an activity and apply their knew knowledge

Strategies to support at home There are lots of ways to help children with spelling at home. It is beneficial to provide a range of activities e.g. visual, kinaesthetic. As well as the activities in the spelling support pack, children could also: Write shopping list Stick post-it notes around the house Be tested on words at random times (in the car) Discuss spellings when reading Use a dictionary at home to help with independent spelling activities.

Useful websites Topmarks www.topmarks.co.uk Spell Zone www.spellzone.com Kids Spell www.kidsspell.com Key Stage 2 Literacy www.keystage2literacy.co.uk

Reading In Year 4, children enhance their reading skills by focussing on three main areas. Reading for pleasure Read a range of genres that are structured in different ways Use dictionaries to check the meaning of words that they have read Discuss words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest Recognise different forms of poetry e.g. free verse, narrative poetry Discussion Participate in discussions about books they have read Listen to other children’s opinions

Reading Understanding texts Ask questions to improve their understanding Make predictions Infer characters feelings, thoughts and actions and justify with evidence Summarising main ideas from more than one paragraph Retrieve and record information from more than one paragraph Reading is taught through either whole class comprehension lessons, where all children will focus on the same book and text, or through differentiated texts, where children work in a focus group with the class teacher.

How you can support with reading at home Children should be reading everyday, either independently or to someone. They should be questioned on what they have read as many children can show good reading skills, but may not understand what they have read. Use the questioning support in the reading support pack to help you with this. Explain why a character did something. Explain a character's different/changing feelings throughout a story. How do you know? What are the clues that a character is liked/disliked/envied/feared/loved/hated etc…? What is similar/different about two characters? Why is 'x' (character/setting/event) question/bullet/subheading/table etc to present the information? Where does it tell you that…?

How you can support with reading at home Oxford Owl www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-site/expert-help/helping-struggling-readers Twinkl www.twinkl.co.uk Primary Resources www.primaryresources.co.uk

Any questions?