We are really enjoying our reading plus sessions 🙂




We are really enjoying our reading plus sessions 🙂
Our entry ticket today allowed us to recap the story so far, we used pictures from the story to help us and we shared what we remembered with our partner and the whole crew. We then used the information we had just heard and discussed to read a variety of sentences from the story out loud with our partner. We ordered these sentences to show the order in which they happened. Everyone read outloud in a read around the robin. Mrs McClare then asked us a variety of questions on other parts of the story to ensure we could remember other main parts, this included information on the characters, the setting and some of the previous language we had come across that is on our reading anchor chart. We recapped word class too! We then looked at our new language for the next part of the story and used some pictures to help us visualise these words a little better.
Next we started to read the text, Mrs McClare read the first 2 sentences where she tried to use the punctuation accurately when reading. She still tried to work on her expression and fluency too, these are things we have been working on over the last few weeks. We then read with our partners and text marked our new vocabulary. Mrs McClare asked us to underline any other language that we wanted to discuss further or language we were unfamiliar with. During the second round of reading we read independently and tried to really work on the speed of our reading. Mrs McClare then read the text, questioning us as she read. Why did the tailor have to be blindfolded? What does ‘large bonus’ mean? How can you tell the tailor’s work was good? We then moved onto our reasons to read, using the text to support our answers and thoughts.
Our exit ticket allowed us to think about the thoughts of 2 of the characters. We created speech between them, using our writing lessons to support us with this. Some of us even went for green standard where we explained our answers further, using the text to do this.
In our second book talk session, we have been focusing heavily on the skills needed to answer fact and retrieval questions. This ended up lasting 2 lessons because we had some good discussions about the skills we need to use. We had some questions modelled and then we had an opportunity to apply these skills. In addition, we have still be drip feeding inference questions as we continue to develop our written answers to these type of questions.
In our book talk lesson, we have been focusing on gaps from our previous assessments. As part of this, we’ve been using different formats so that we are familiar with different ways questions can be presented to us. We worked together as partners to come up with predictions but ensuring we linked this back to what we already know.
In history, we have been learning about where the cacao bean comes from and how it’s grown. We used QR codes to access some reading materials providing lots of information. We then had to use our skimming and scanning skills to help us locate the relevant information to answer questions.
We the looks at the differences between how the Maya processes cacao beans and how they’re processed now to keep up with the demand.
In reading, we have been looking at Pig Heart Boy. In this session, we considered why mum and dad were arguing and which side of the debate we fell on. We then looked at how Dr. Bryce added to discussion and thought about the pros and cons of the procedure. This culminated with us having a conscience alley, to try and predict which side Cam would favour.
Our entry ticket allowed us to recap the story verbally then we ordered different statements to assess our understanding of this. From here we looked at a further question where we had to empathise with one of the characters in the story, thinking about what we would do in a certain situation.
We then unpicked the language that we would come across when reading the next part of the text. We took part in a chorus read, partner read and an independent read. We thought about our expression when reading then moved onto our reasons to read.
Our exit ticket allowed us to think about what the characters would say next in the story. We are looking at direct speech in our writing lessons at the minute so this was a great activity for us to consolidate our knowledge.
In our demo comp, we have been discussing the expectations when answering an inference question. This is a huge area for development for us this half term and we are starting to get the hang of answering these questions and ensuring we provide enough detail to answer the question.
In our book talk session, we’ve been focusing heavily on how to answer inference questions and thinking about the skills we’ll be using to help us do this. As part of the lesson, we have are able to see a guided question and see the model of what an answer should look like before working alongside our peers to answer a different question.
In addition, we have been focusing on our fluency and the importance how being fluent helps us to understand the text and therefore answer the questions. We have been working on our pausing, pace and accuracy which is something we’ll continue with in th coming weeks.
This week, Crew Hamill have really enjoyed our reading book. To begin with, we were a little confused as to what ‘The Invisible Clothes’ might be and we made predictions that it might be clothes that turned you invisible once you were wearing them – a little bit like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. Once we had analysed some of the vocabulary and read a brief introduction to the story, we realised that it was actually about a tailor who was tricking someone into buying ‘invisible’ clothes. He was actually stealing the Emperor’s money and pretending to make clothes for him! We have loved reading this story and finding out if the Emperor would be silly enough to go along with the tailor and do his usual procession around town in his ‘invisible clothes’. We found it very funny that he went along with it! During demonstration comprehension, we deepened our inference skills by focusing on 3 inference questions. This allowed us to further develop the skill of finding evidence in the text to support our own thinking.