“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.” – Edmund Burke “To learn to read is to light a fire” — Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

You may have noticed that our approach to reading at school has been changing.

You may have noticed that our approach to reading at school has been changing. Why?

In searching for further ways to develop the children’s reading, and by analysing our children’s skills we found that children were very good at decoding text but less confident when questioned about what they had read.

So lets dig a little deeper into the skills the children need to be a successful reader.

The first skill we need to develop is for children to recognise and link sounds to a range of phonemes otherwise known as sounds.

We do this through a daily Letters and Sounds session where children are taught how to segment and blend sounds. We then apply this to reading sentences.

We allow children to develop at their own pace and recognise that regular reading at their own level embeds this process.

We allow children to develop at their own pace and recognise that regular reading at their own level embeds this process. For this we need your support!

In addition, we now do weekly guided reading sessions where children read a slightly more challenging text in a group with similar ability children.

In Class 2 we also have a daily guided reading session where children are grouped with similar reading needs. A variety of texts are chosen that specifically meet that groups target needs.

So what happens in guided reading?

Reading Skills

Developing inference – ‘iceberg’ the words The words The suggested meaning/s – in layers What’s below the surface?

RIGHT THERE (Literal)... oWhere does the story take place? oWho are the main characters? oWhere in the book would you find...? oWhat happened in the story? oThrough whose eyes is the story told? oWhich part of the story best describes the setting?

Dig deeper (Inferential)… oHow would you feel about...? oCan you support your view with evidence? oI wonder why the author has decided to...? oDo you know another story which has a similar theme (eg good over evil)? oWhat questions would you ask of the main character?

Reading Detective (Evaluative)… oWhat would this character think about...? oUsing all the evidence available can you tell me what you feel about…? oWhat is your opinion? What evidence do you have to support your views? oWhat makes this a successful story? What evidence do you have to justify your opinion? oWhich is better and why?

We need to develop the children’s skills to answer these types of questions in writing. To do this we are starting to use sentence prompts.

When applying all these skills we hope that the children will have a greater enjoyment of reading and will develop a deeper understanding of what they have read.

In addition we hope that they use these skills when they write in English and across the wider curriculum.

So how can you help at home?

1. Listen regularly to your child read at home, no matter how old they are.

2. Question your child about the book they are reading and link this to their target(s).

Thank you very much for coming! Are there any questions?