Good afternoon and welcome to the Treasure House reading information session.  Please take a handout and take a seat.  Miss Drumm  26 th February 2016

 Children in KS1 should read their individual books every night.  Children in KS2 should be encouraged to read a wide variety of texts.

 Children should read regularly at home.  KS1 children 20 minutes a day.  KS2 children, ideally at least minutes a day.  For children who have reading records, they should be heard by an adult at home and comments should be provided about how the child has found the particular story/text.

 Get your child to do the work!  Encourage children to use the picture clues.  Encourage children to listen to the sentence they have just read – does it sound right?  Allow the child to continue reading if they make a mistake – can they self correct?  You can re-read the sentence as the child read it. Can the child identify what went wrong?

 What your child can do:  They can recognise and identify punctuation and know what it means.  How you can support:  Demonstrate pausing for commas, using expression for exclamation marks and questions and changing your voice for speech marks.

 What your child can do:  Children can be fluent for 2 – 3 word phrasing  I am a cat. I am a dog. I am a frog.  How you can support:  Model reading with and without fluency.  Ask your child, “Can you read this more quickly?”

 Comprehension Questions  How is this character feeling?  What might happen next?  How would this feel if it happened to you?  Why do you think this happened?  What did you think about this?  Where did this take place?  When did this happen?

 Why did you choose this book?  Do you know any of the characters in this story?  What do you do if you get stuck on a word?  Do you like this book? Why?  What books have you read at school?  Do you think you are a good reader?  Who is your favourite author?

 Children should be looking for the hidden meaning in texts.  They should be considering the author’s use of language-why did the author choose that word to describe how the character was feeling?  It is important that new vocabulary is discussed with children.

 Setting  Character  Events  Who is the author?  What is an illustrator?  Where would we find the blurb?

 All children, including young children, should be reading fiction and non-fiction books. They can read poetry, comics, magazines, catalogues, cereal packets, road signs, signs in supermarket aisles…

 By the time children reach KS2, our aim is that they are becoming more confident readers, who read both for pleasure and for information.  They should be developing a range of strategies to work out unfamiliar words, building on their phonic knowledge. Children will also start to widen their reading repertoire and comprehension skills, so that reading supports their work across the curriculum.

 Each classroom has a ‘reading corner’ which encourages children to look at a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books.  We also like the children to read books connected with the current class topic and there will be books on display in each classroom to that effect.

 Confident readers become confident and expressive writers.  Through studying texts in depth, children pick up a rich variety of language that they can use in their own writing.

 Make the experience pleasurable…  Find a comfortable place.  Give plenty of time.  Avoid interruptions (no TV; siblings (unless purposeful choice); cooking dinner; other cars on the road etc)  Keep the time positive.  Stay clear of ‘competition’ and comparisons with the ability of others.

 But my child is a reluctant reader…  Use different incentives.  Would they be more comfortable reading to a sibling (older or younger)?  Use Treasure House reading comprehension activities.  Let them choose what they read to you.  Have reading routines that work for your family.

 As part of our drive to improve standards in English across the school, we have invested in a new online technology that allows teachers to set children online activities to complete independently at home. These activities include: comprehension, composition, punctuation and spelling.  Children will still need to continue to read their individual reading books daily.

 The idea of the Treasure House resource is to enable children to read a short text and answer questions related to it in order to enhance their comprehension skills.  Children should be encouraged to read the text themselves with adult support if necessary.  They can read the text aloud and have a discussion about any new vocabulary.

 The homework activities will include comprehension, grammar, spelling and punctuation tasks.  These will provide extra practise for new spelling/grammar rules that the children have learnt in class and will provide examples for the children before they complete the activity.

An example of spelling practise can be seen above.

 Teachers will set this as a homework activity for your child.  Collins Connect activities are available at To log in click on the link above and select ‘student.’ Enter the school name in the box that appears.

You will then be asked to enter in some information about your child – usually date of birth, first letter of surname and year group. Occasionally it will ask for a password. This password is the same as your child’s Mathletics password.

 We appreciate your continued support and hope that the children enjoy this new homework resource.  Thank you for attending today’s session.