Reading in Year 5 and 6 At Gulf Harbour School

Reading in year 5 and 6 What is decoding? In the first years that your children spend at school they learn how to sound out words, develop a “stock” of sight words that they can read automatically and gain more and more knowledge about word parts and language patterns that help them to read fluently. So by the time they come to year 5 the majority of our senior school students is capable of decoding, or you might say “figuring out", words in texts.

What does comprehension mean? However, even though I might be able to read, or figure out, the word “predator” by chunking it correctly, I might have no idea what this word means. Finding out what a word or a sentence means is an important part of the reading process. The texts that your children read at school contain a wide variety of words. There are specific technical terms (predator, acid, solar) in our texts and you can find more general academic language (observe, analyse, identify) as well. Comprehending a text means understanding it. Teachers know that a student has understood a text, when the student can answer different questions about the text. Senior school students mostly work on text comprehension.

Don’t you guys teach new vocabulary? We do! The teacher will introduce and explain important new words before the students read a text. However, the needs of individual students are very different. That’s why we need them to be active and find out what a word means. Children in year 5 and 6 need to show that they take responsibility for their own learning. For example, by wondering, “Why don’t I get this? What word is it that I don’t understand?”

So, what makes my child a successful reader? Successful readers … know when they don’t understand the text they are reading anymore and they stop. can use the meaning of the words or sentences around an unknown word to find the meaning of the unknown word. They use the context.

Successful readers can read “between the lines”. They can infer knowledge that the text contains. know a lot of words - the more words a reader knows, the easier and quicker it is to understand more complex texts. ask themselves before reading a text: What do I know about this topic? What could this text be about? think about a text while they are reading it: I know about this already! I can see a picture in my mind. I wonder why the text says this? I think the next thing that will happen is … use the information in the text. They know what the main ideas are, they can say what they have learned from the text, they can form new questions and use the information in other contexts.

What happens in a reading session at school? We teach your child to use the thought processes and prompts independently that good readers use: When you don’t understand the text you are reading anymore - stop reading! Read back or on and use the meaning of the words or sentences around an unknown word to find the meaning of the unknown word. Predict: What could this text be about? Use prior knowledge: What do you know about this topic already? Visualise: What picture can you see in your mind? Let the picture help you understand the text. Ask questions: Why does the text say this? What does this mean? Summarise: Tell me the main ideas. Synthesise: What new information have you learned from the text? Can you form new questions about the topic? Evaluate: How do you feel about the text? Can you use the information from the text in other contexts, maybe for your writing?

What can I do at home to make sure my child is a good reader? Find out where your child is at. If your child needs help with “figuring out” words, listen to your child read daily. You can find ideas on our website (LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE AT GHS on the literacy website) how to help your child with decoding. Make sure that your child reads daily, even if they are doing well. If you would like to boost your child’s ability to understand texts ….

Good readers can hold a conversation: Talk about topics that interest you and your child. What are your opinions on bullying, plastic bags or use of devices as a family? Children that frequently think and talk about what is going on in the world around them, use strategies like predicting or using prior knowledge all the time without even noticing they do. They become confident and don’t mind voicing their opinion and explaining their point of view. Use “big words” whenever possible. The more vocabulary a child knows, the easier it is for them to read and understand texts. Show an interest in what your child is reading at school. Ask them to tell you about these texts. Did they interest your child? What have they learned this week by reading texts? Did the teacher share an interesting book? What book did they get out from the library?

- What else? Be a role model - show them that reading is fun and that you gain information from reading the newspaper etc. Go to the library with your child. Watch the movie based on a novel after you and your child have read the book. Talk about the film. - Was it better than the book? Get reluctant readers to read while they listen to the audio version of the novel. Reading can be hard work and take away from the enjoyment of a good story. Take away the stress and by letting them read and listen to somebody else reading for them at the same time. Often students will stop using the audio, when they get hooked into the story. The library has audio books that you can listen to without charge.