1. My child can read. What do I do next?

2. Most children as they come into the Junior class are at level 2 or 3. They are quite confident at reading on their own and have some strategies for decoding unknown text. They can ‘read’. But as you can see there is still quite a way to go. There are many skills that we as adult readers take for granted and don’t always realise that children haven’t yet developed. The art of reading becomes quite complex. Younger readers are focusing more on phonics as a way of decoding text and understanding how stories work. Higher level reading involves looking much deeper within the text, understanding what the author is trying to portray and relying on more than just sounding out as a strategy when getting stuck. Lets look at how the fluency develops first of all and then discuss children’s understanding of text. Reading Strategies Ways forward

3. Back Reading strategies Phonics - reading words by distinguishing between sounds in words (e.g. sh-oo-t) and recognising how that sound is represented by a letter or letters of the alphabet. Contextual - working out how to read words by making connections with previous knowledge of words or situations (e.g. reading ‘woof’ in a story about a dog) or looking at the illustrations. Grammatical - working out how to read words from a knowledge of how sentences work (e.g. ‘he likes jam’ not ‘he like jam’). Word recognition - recognising individual words or parts of words by sight. (High frequency word list)

4. So What Can We Do? At Home The main thing is to still listen to your child/ren read and enjoy sharing a book together. Ask your child a range of questions about the plot, setting, characters, the general ideas developed in the story, how the author has used particular words to create effects and images, how the story is organised- again to give particular effects, how the story might develop and why. Encourage your child/ren to select sentences or phrases to back up their idea. Discuss the range of vocabulary - they may be able to read the word but do they know what it means? Share a range of books with your child/ren; both different genres eg. Fantasy, adventure, science fiction and non-fiction books. Encourage your child/ren to learn the high frequency words for their age range. At School All of the children will be set individual reading targets to help them move onto the next step. We are introducing a new reading diary Weekly guided reading sessions will be in place focusing on key skills and comprehension.