Reading

This term's key text is 'Street Child' by Berlie Doherty.

Overview

When his mother dies, Jim Jarvis is left all alone in London. He is sent to the workhouse but quickly escapes, choosing a hard life on the streets of the city over the confines of the workhouse walls. Struggling to survive, Jim finally finds some friends...only to be snatched away and made to work for the remorselessly cruel Grimy Nick, constantly guarded by his vicious dog, Snipe. Will Jim ever manage to be free?

VIPERS

At River, we use the 'Vipers' approach to support the teaching of reading. This involves using a range of key question prompts based on the reading content domains found in the National Curriculum. Please refer to the posters below to see the key questions and National Curriculum content domains.

Here is an example of some VIPERS questions for the picture book 'Return' by Aaron Becker:

V - Can you think of one word that will best describe how the girl's Father is feeling?
I - How is the girl feeling at this point?  Use evidence from previous pages to explain why she may be feeling like this. 
P - What do you think will happen now her Father has arrived? 
E - Explain the difference between her Father in this scene and when we see him in the first two pages of the book. 
R - Where are the characters when the girl's father finds them?
S - The Father will want to know what has been happening.  Imagine you are the girl, summarise the events in the story so far to tell to her Father.

Reading in Year 6...

We aim to cover a range of different text types throughout Year 6, including: instructions, narratives, diary entries, persuasive adverts, non-chronological reports, newspaper reports, balanced arguments, explanations and interviews (to name only a few!). We will also be using some digital images and short film clips to develop our inference and deduction skills, and to support our written work. Some of the skills we will be developing are broken down into more detail below...

How can you help your child with their reading at home?

Short, regular bursts of reading is key. Even if it's only 10 minutes a day, you'll be surprised at how much they learn and improve!

Why not try...

• Tag Team - take it in turns to read a page each of your child's favourite book before bedtime.
• The Early Bird - get your child to read to you on the way to school, instead of listening to the radio.
• Poetry Post-its - write short poems on Post-its or note paper and put them up in random places around the house. When your child spots one, they have to read it.
• Magazine Madness - that football magazine or the one that seems only to be filled with happy, rainbow-coloured unicorns still contains words! Instead of just looking at the pictures, ask your child to tell you about it and read it to you while you're cooking the dinner or washing the car.

The key is, make it fun - reading can be enjoyed by everyone!

How can you help with your child's comprehension?

If you have the pleasure of having more time to read with your child at home, then there are many different types of questions that you could be asking them, in order to help develop their comprehension and understanding of the text.

The following documents provide examples of questions that could be asked while reading, for both fiction and non-fiction text types. We hope you find these useful!

Are you challenging yourself to read books from our literary heritage?

The Times Educational Supplement have put together a list of books all children should read before they leave primary school. It is your last year at River, how many do you still have left to read?

Writing

Our writing this term will be inspired by 'Revolution' topic and the novel 'Street Child' by Berlie Doherty. 

We will be writing:

• a non-chronological report about the Victorian schooling
• a discussion text on whether Jim should run away from the workhouse or not
• a diary entry as the protagonist
• a narrative
• a persuasive letter about the conditions at a workhouse
• a biography about a social reformer
• a fact file about crime and punishment.

Here are the writing targets we will achieve by the end of the academic year.

• Writing Targets Year 6.pdf

Useful websites to support writing progress that you can use at home:

• Top MarksPunctuation and Grammar practise

• BBC BitesizeYear 6 revision website - solve the puzzles and complete the challenges!