Reading and Writing

Why is reading so important?
Reading and comprehension are the keys to your child’s success. Most children learn by discovering the world through language. If they can’t read, have poor reading skills or don’t understand what they have read then they will find it a struggle to achieve academic success. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be interesting, have good conversational skills, be hardworking, kind, polite, great at sports or any number of other talents and attributes. However, if you want your child to achieve academic success then you need to start with ensuring your child can read and that includes comprehending what is read.

If your programme of learning includes help with English, the subject will cover reading, comprehension and writing and your child’s activities will also focus on spelling, punctuation and grammar, as well as more complex skills such as inference, summary and prediction. Depending on your child’s current level and your requirements, your tutor may feel that the inclusion of speaking skills may be beneficial for your child’s progression. 

Essay Writing
We have developed strategies to enable your child to quickly and easily deal with creative writing essay questions, particularly, during timed entrance exams.  Our method ensures that most of the planning is pre-prepared, no matter the requested subject, and your child is aware of certain elements to incorporate which raises their offering from a well written essay to one that will tick all the assessor’s boxes.

Topics
KS1 activities usually include regular spelling tests, skills of inference and retrieval with regards to comprehension, comprehension quizzes, short writing tasks and more.  

KS2 activities usually include comprehension quizzes, comprehension and analysis exercises, writing stories and essays, basic proof-reading, time management and story planning tips.

What are the key stages and their age groups?

  • Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) – ages 3-5 (Nursery and Reception)
  • Key Stage 1 – ages 5-7 (Years 1-2)
  • Key Stage 2 – ages 7-11 (Years 3-6)
  • Key Stage 3 – ages 11-14 (Years 7-9)
  • Key Stage 4 – ages 14-16 (Years 10-11)

We use these reading strategies…

  • Re-read
  • Activate Prior Knowledge
  • Use Context Clues
  • Infer Meaning
  • Think Aloud
  • Summarise the Story
  • Locate Key Words
  • Make Predictions

We use these comprehension strategies…

  • Using Prior Knowledge or Previewing
  • Predicting
  • Identifying the Main Idea and Making a Summary
  • Questioning
  • Drawing Inferences
  • Visualising
  • Story Maps and Storyboards
  • Re-telling

Phonics
Let’s start with the question if there’s a Phonics standard in place, why do so many children experience difficulty reading fluently?

Perhaps, an answer to the above question, is that children need to learn at their own pace and not that dictated by a lesson plan. 

There are many ways of using phonics to learn to read.  It is also important that children enjoy learning and have fun, that someone notices when they are struggling and is able to give them the help to get through. We should also mention that children need to be given work that is appropriate to their ever growing attainment and not held back, or thrust forward without a thought to their individual needs.

Phonics is a method of teaching children how to read by associating letters with speech sounds. (phonemes). The letters or groups of letters are called (graphemes) and/or syllables. Phonics encompasses a variety of methods …

  • Children sound out individual sounds and their corresponding letters, for example, M – A – T
  • Children learn the sounds of a group of letters, and recognise how the resulting words rhyme, for example, MAT, SAT, CAT, HAT
  • Children learn letter blends and their sounds, for example ST_ACK, BL_ACK, CL_ACK,
  • Children play games and start to read using the sounds they have learned
  • Children start to become aware of rules, for example, the silent H  – e.g. HOUR, HONEST, GHOST, RHUBARB

You can see the difference between learning to read and just learning. 
Learning to read well, is a tool that will allow your child to succeed in other learning endeavours!