Reading
Just as the summer started, the papers were full of articles about ideal holiday reading for adults and children alike. (I think ideal holiday reading is any reading you want to, whether it’s in the holidays or not!)
How many books has your child read this holiday? More importantly, what sort of discussions have you had with your child about what books you’ve been reading, and of course what they’ve been reading. (I’ve already had chats with Mrs Weekes and Miss Valentine about my summer reading. including a great children’s book, ‘Grace‘ by one of my favourite authors, Morris Gleitzman.)
As we approach the end of the holidays, it’s an ideal time to reflect on what we’ve read – and start the new school year off taking a positive, encouraging approach to your child’s reading.
Encourage your child to read anything and everything: a story, leaflet, brochure, comic, flyer, advert… It could be for pure entertainment, or with a different purpose: to use a recipe, make a shopping list, read street signs, or any kind of text! The more varied reading your child does, the less likely they are to be put off reading a text. Don’t be too pushy either – texts which are too difficult can put children off (harder books might be best left to bedtime reading); all children should be able to read their reading book 90-95% accurately and fluently in order to enjoy and gradually progress in their reading.
- Build reading accuracy – as your child reads aloud, point out words they miss and help them sound out and read them correctly.
- Build reading comprehension – talk with your child about what they’re reading, asking about new words and what new information they’ve learned.
- Read together every day – don’t forget reading aloud to your child at bedtime reading can count, too!
- Don’t overlook non-fiction texts – spend time talking about pictures and diagrams.
- Visit the library regularly – did your child take part in the local libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge (see News article on 13 July 2015)?
- Use the Internet – find out more about the books your child has read or would like to read next, and just enjoy surfing the internet for facts and figures about whatever interests your child.
Enjoyable, regular and short practice is the best way for your child to progress and learn through reading. Make sure your child spends 10-15 minutes reading each day and use the guidance below to ensure (s)he is getting the most from every book they read. The questions will need to be varied according to the book and your child. The book may lend will to developing knowledge, phonic, punctuation, writing or comprehension skills.
Don’t attempt to try to cover all the bullet points! It might be a good idea to focus on just one of these areas every few days or so, or just choose a question from two or three sections.
Comprehension
- Did you enjoy the story – why?
- What happened at the start / in the middle / at the end?
- Was there a problem? How was it resolved?
- How would you have resolved the problem? Can you think of another way?
- What would you do if …
- What was the main idea of the story?
- Can you summarise the story in a couple of sentenced?
- Try to predict what will happen before the story ends.
- Write about a memory or experience of your own that is similar to something you’ve read in your book.
- Write a letter to someone telling them about the book and your opinion of the book.
- Construct a time line to fit the story. Include all the main events
Characters
- Who are the characters?
- What do they look like?
- What kind of clothes do they wear?
- How did the character feel when …?
- What kind of mood was the character in?
- What kind of personality do they have? Kind, caring, nasty, bully, liar, friendly, quiet, noisy …?
- What does it say in the text that makes you think this?
- What do other characters think or say about this character? Why do they feel this way?
- How does your character treat other people in the book? How does the character change throughout the story? Explain and give support for your answers.
- Can you re-write the story and include your own character?
- Write a description of the main character – their looks, the way they dress, the way they talk and their personality.
- Draw and label a character or a setting from a description in the book.
Story setting
- Where is the story set?
- Imagine you are in the story …
- What can you see? What can you hear? What can you small? What can you feel?
- Can you write a description of the story setting using adjectives? eg I found myself standing in the middle of …
- What is the weather like?
Non-Fiction
- Research the subject further using the internet or local library.
- Write down in your own sentences some facts you have learnt from the book.
- Can you think of anywhere we might be able to find additional information about this?
- What do the pictures or diagrams in this piece of information add to the text?
- How are these different to the pictures you might find in a story?
- Can you point out: a heading, sub-heading, caption, diagram, introduction, contents page etc?
- Why has the author organised the information in this way? (You could refer to sections and sub-sections, bullet points etc)
- How do you feel about …? Can you explain why?
Summer Reading Challenge 2015
This year, the Summer Reading Challenge returns with the challenge of breaking records!
It’s really simple to join in and complete the challenge. All you have to do is
- Join any Leeds library (including mobile libraries).
- Borrow three books and read them. (You could write a short book review on them too.)
- You can borrow any book: stories, joke books, information books or even audio books.
- Return these (to any Leeds library) and borrow another three books.
- That means you need only borrow six books altogether – or more, of course!
- Once you’ve returned your second lot of three books, your challenge is complete!
We’re hoping to get lots more children taking on the challenge this year and enjoying their reading over the summer. Try not to borrow thick books that you’re never going to finish and make sure you pick books you’re going to be interested in, or, try something new. For any more information, take a look at the leaflet below.
Healthy Schools award
Following our School Health check earlier this year, to maintain our Healthy Schools status, we were proud to attend the Healthy Schools celebration event to receive our award. Held in the debating chamber at Leeds Civic Hall, we enjoyed presentations from councillors and other schools around the 4 areas of Healthy Schools – physical activity, PSHE (personal, social and health education), healthy eating and emotional health.
Two of our sports leaders were invited to lead a practical session in the break for other pupils who were attending. They did this with great confidence and encouragement.
As part of the event we also had the opportunity to use the voting system in the debating chamber to vote on key areas across health and wellbeing for councillors to consider on a city-wide strategic level. Based on data from the 2014 My Health My School survey, our current Year 5 and 6 classes will be completing this survey for 2015. The top priorities identified were levels of physical activity and eating 5 a day.
Summer sports and arts camp (Edward Lynch)
Edward Lynch, a local dance coach who has worked with children during our curriculum and extra-curricular dance sessions, is helping to run a local sport and arts camp called IMPACT in the summer holidays.
Healthy changes
As part of our SEAL theme of Changes, last week our SEAL statement focussed on making healthy changes. Some suggestions from Year 1 include:
- have fruit dessert instead of cake
- do more after-school clubs
- ride a bike more
- walk to the shops instead of driving
- do parkruns with your family
- go roller skating or skateboarding more
- walk to school more
- drink more water
- run somewhere every day
- eat more or different vegetables
- ask to go swimming more
What healthy change could you make?
Change 4 life and Leeds Let’s Change can offer lots of suggestions.
Roundhay Park
What a super day out at Roundhay Park this week! We staged our very own mini Olympics and held a medal ceremony for the winning team – well done yellow team! Followed by a picnic, ice-creams and plenty more games.
10 minute shake up
Recently children have brought home information from Change 4 life on their latest campaign, 10 minute shake up. Similar to our daily Wake Up Shake Up activity, here is a 10 minute shake up video for you to follow at home.
Code Club
It was the last Code Club of the year on Tuesday. This term, we’ve had the highest participation in two years and also the highest number of female coders.
As well as using Scratch this term, we’ve started building our own webpages using Trinket.
A massive thank you must go to Linda Broughton who gives up her time every Tuesday to run Code Club. Thanks also to Mr Baynes and Mrs Freeman who have helped out this year.
Tennis training
Have you been watching Wimbledon? New tennis lessons are starting at Roundhay Park next week.
