Reading, writing, grammar and spelling workshop: Literacy in Class 3.

Reading in Year 3 and 4: • Children read independently daily and partake in shared reading of a class text. • Children in years 3 and 4 should be engaging with a wider range of text types, including non-fiction. • When reading with your child ask for more! Look • •

beyond the literal meaning of the text; what can they infer and deduce from the text? Progression between reading attainment levels focus largely on children reading with greater independence and children being able to provide deeper responses to comprehension questions about a text. Model quality reading skills to your children wherever you can; using expression in speech, looking for punctuation clues etc.

Writing in Year 3 and 4: Punctuation • Punctuation is taught contextually in order to allow children to apply their understanding more immediately. • Speech marks – ‘66, 99, new speaker, new line.’ • Ellipsis - … A set of three full stops to show where a word is missing or where a sentence has not been finished. • Apostrophe for possession – •

* Singular possession – Ashley’s ball. * Plural possession – the boys’ ball. Commas to mark clauses within sentences. E.G: Even

though it was much past ‘coffee time’, the parents continued to politely listen to Miss Roe.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/english/spelling_gramm ar/punctuation/play/

Writing in year 3 and 4: Grammar • • • •

Children’s writing begins to move much beyond the simple sentence and compound sentence. Simple sentence: ‘The boy went to the park.’ Compound sentence: ‘The boy went to the park and he played on the swings.’ Subordinate clause – Used to give more information to a main clause or sentence and usually uses the words ‘ if’, ‘that’, ‘when’, ‘because’, ‘although’. FOR EXAMPLE;

‘Although it was only 10am, Miss Roe decided to eat all of the chocolate bar.’

Adverbial phrases – Adding words to an existing adverb to provide further detail. FOR EXAMPLE; ‘The cat crept along very slowly.’ ‘The bird ate the seed as fast as possible.’ Year 4: Using ‘ing’ clauses as sentence starters: ‘Staring at the gazelle, the lion began

his stalk.’

Spelling in year 3 and 4: • Word families – ‘begin’ – begun, beginning, beginner, •

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began – words with the same ‘root word’ but in different forms. High frequency words – words children say, read and write regularly – should be spelt accurately both for tests and in independent writing. Letter family spellings – links to phonics understanding and consolidates children’s understanding of spelling patterns. Multi sensory spelling practise is VERY important – magnetic letters, chalk board writing, speaking spellings, squirty bottles on the driveway etc. Spelling in context – Use the words in contextual sentences and ask your child to write the whole sentence out, spelling the spelling list words accurately – dictated sentences.

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General ways to support writing: www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/for-children-and-schools - lots of resources to support spelling, grammar and punctuation. Create a writing climate – a writer’s desk, stationary, a diary, pencil case, a pen (year 3’s holy grail!) Encourage but do not force writing. Give them writing jobs – write the shopping list, leaving a note, taking a message, writing cards, letters to friends/Santa etc – praising great presentation / composition. Use ‘polishing pens’ together – children love these! Simply a set of gel pens which they use to improve the QUALITY of what they have written at home– selecting better words with your guidance, adding in further detail etc. FAST MIND / SLOW PEN – Some children simply need to slow down as their mind works faster than their hand. Encourage them to ‘make a plan’ as we would in school and, when they begin writing up, if a new idea pops into their mind, jot it on the plan – not the final draft! Model how to ‘magpie’ language from texts being read. Buy them a dictionary and thesaurus – encourage them to use this for their writing at home.

Useful texts to buy:

Thank you. 

Reading, writing, grammar and spelling workshop Literacy in Class 4

Reading in Year 5 and 6 • As in Class 3, children read independently most mornings, alongside participating in reading a shared text – currently Room 13. • Focus on reading with understanding, interpreting texts and considering an author’s choices. This will help them with their writing! • You can do this with them! Talk about the books they read, encourage them to analyse the text – word choices, punctuation, writing techniques such as alliteration, similes and metaphors. • Anything they read will help. Enable them to access a range of different text types.

What’s New in Year 5 and 6? Punctuation • Dashes and brackets to add additional information. i.e. The fire spread quickly and the trees were engulfed – I was scared. The birthday cake was chocolate (which is my absolute favourite) with chocolate buttons and chocolate cream on top. • Hyphens to avoid ambiguity – Was it a man eating shark or a man-eating shark? • Semi-colons and colons to indicate sentence subdivisions i.e. The film was brilliant; we had a great time. The frog eats lots of flies: he needs plenty of energy for hopping.

What’s New in Year 5 and 6? Grammar

• Using ‘ed-ing-ly’ starters for sentences i.e. Terrified by the dragon, George fell to his knees. Screeching through the clouds, the gull dived towards the waves. Hastily cramming his bag full of letters, the boy raced out of the door. • Embedded ‘-ed’ clauses i.e. The poor toad, alarmed by the many peering faces, hid under a leaf. • Moving sentence chunks around. Which is best? i.e. Zach saw the wizard move beyond the dark gloom of the cave. Beyond the dark gloom of the cave, Zach saw the wizard move.

What’s New in Year 5 and 6? Spellings • Learning spellings in appropriate letter families • Learning spellings individually and within a context by writing sentence using the words.

• Please support your child in learning their spellings!

The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test For Year 6s as part of SATs • Consists of a grammar and punctuation paper and a spelling test. • Examines correct sentence grammar, punctuation and vocabulary • Including - the correct use of connectives, pronouns, capitals and other punctuation - identification of word types and clauses - understanding of alternative word choices EXAMPLE

The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test What are we doing in school? • Using multisensory games and activities to practise grammar, punctuation and spelling skills regularly • Combining discrete and contextual teaching of grammar, punctuation and spelling • Reinforcing correct terminology all the time. Why not ask your children about it?

• Identifying grammatical features and their effects in shared reading and writing • Dictation warm-ups

The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test What could you do at home? • Invest in a grammar dictionary that you and your child(ren) can share • Talk about their books. For example, what verb has been used? Is there a more powerful alternative? • Tell stories together. Make up a line at a time. • Try simple spelling strategies together, i.e. what does the spelling sound like? • Be rigorous with anything your child writes at home. Have they used spelling, grammar and punctuation correctly?

The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test Grammar games you could try… Dicey sentences Choose one of these sentences to start with (working in pairs). Take it in turns to roll the die and follow these instructions to make changes to your starting sentence. Record each step on your miniwhiteboards.

The skilful chameleon carefully kicked the ball into the back of the net. In the swamp, a satisfied lizard lounged lazily.

Change the... 1. verb 2. adjective 3. adverb 4. sentence order 5. noun 6. roll again

The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test Grammar games you could try… Silly Sentences Pick anything you can find and make up a silly sentence about it. Try picking a few objects lying around to link in a silly sentence.

cat

washing-up liquid

vase

Could become..

The washing-up liquid chased the cat behind the vase. Talk about the word types and what words you could add.

Good Buys