Reading in Year 1 Supporting Reading and Assessment

How we assess reading Benchmarking Guided reading Individual reading

Benchmarking Assessment of a child’s mechanical reading skills - word accuracy, sounding out. Also assesses comprehension/understanding Results give us a score which relate to the reading book colours/bands.

Guided Reading Groups of 2-5 children Share reading a text Questions check childrens’ comprehension and relate to assessment objectives. Guidance and teaching is given to improve reading skills including fluency, expression as well as comprehension and interpretation.

Assessment Objectives AF1 – applying phonics strategies to decode words. AF2 – answering questions and use evidence from the text to support comments. AF3 – predicting, interpreting things from the text e.g. why a character did something. AF4 – thinking about titles, paragraphs, pictures and the layout of the text. AF6 – relating what they read to their own life experiences. AF7 – relating what they read to other stories/films/traditions they know.

Individual Reading Children read 1 – 1 with an adult. Instruction and support is mostly focused on fluency, expression and, importantly, ‘sounding out’ (using phonic strategies) Additional support is given for punctuation, font styles and other features of the text.

How you can help Read each book three times. ‘Sounding out.’ Asking questions – checking understanding, prompting inference/interpretation. Asking your child to retell the story. Ask their opinion – compare to other stories they have read. Make note of problem words in reading records