Guided Reading Focus in Year 6
Spring 2: The Tiger Rising
Walking through the misty Florida woods one morning, twelve-year-old Rob Horton is stunned to encounter a tiger - a real-life, very large tiger - pacing back and forth in a cage. What’s more, on the same extraordinary day, he meets Sistine Bailey, a girl who shows her feelings as readily as Rob hides his. As they learn to trust each other, and ultimately, to be friends, Rob and Sistine prove that some things - like memories, and heartaches, and tigers - can’t be locked up forever.
Children explore language - literal and figurative - within the text and explore how to infer deeply around a character's intentions. They plot the main character's journey through exploring his emotions and weigh up decisions he is faced with along the way. The series of lessons ends with children studying the 'shape' of the story and considering the literary themes covered.
Week 1 - 19.1.24: What impression does the text give?
This week's text will be based on a poem, The Sun, and will help to develop the children's responses to 'impressions'. This skill can then be transferred across the curriculum, helping with the understanding of an authors actions or motives based on a character and/or setting.
Guided Reading Focus in Year 6
Spring 1: Evolution
Year 6 will begin the half term studying a variety of texts which relate to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Not only will these texts support our reading, they will also help us to secure and build on the knowledge that we will gain in our Science lessons.
Our Guided Reading Sequence
Week 1: Explanation Text - What is Evolution?
Week 2: Biography - Charles Darwin
Week 3: Diary - Dairy from the Beagle
Week 4: Explanation- A Finch Solution
Week 5: Explanation - Common Descent
This week's focus is to develop our summary work. To do this, we are using our retrieval skills to help make comparisons and give explanations.
Week 2 - Biography - This week's focus is to unpick vocabulary within the text. To do this, we will be using dictionaries, as well as looking at how to use clues within the text.
Week 3 - During this week's reading sessions, we will be looking at how to respond to 'impression' questions and 'giving evidence'. To do this, we will be inferring information, building upon our retrieval skills.
Week 4 - We are continuing our learning, building responses to 'evidence' based questions.
Guided Reading Focus in Year 6
Autumn 2: Poetry and Myths and Legends
Year 6 will begin the half term studying classical poetry, by Charles Causley and Enid Blyton. During their poetry unit, the focus will be to develop the skill of inference and unpacking the poet's choice of figurative language.
As we embark into Week 3, the children will begin their Guided Reading unit based on Myths and Legends. Over a five week period, the children will be developing their explanation skills, understanding how to use 'Point, Evidence and Explain' (PEE).
To supplement our Guided Reading lessons, we will be using out VIPERS questions when reading our new novel, The Nowhere Emporium.
Reading Progression:
Week 1 - Poetry: Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth (figurative language/ inference)
Week 2 - Poetry: Fireworks (figurative language/inference)
Week 3 - Myths and Legends: Beowulf
Week 4 and 5 - Myths and Legends: Children of Lir
Week 6 -Myths and Legends: Chuchulann
This week's focus is based on developing our inference skills, justifying our viewpoints using evidence from the text. In our guided groups, we will be looking at the author's choice of vocabulary.
This week, our Year 6 children will be focusing on 'explanation' work, by using evidence from the text to help justify their understanding. Their explanation work will be centred on the thoughts and feelings of a main character. In order to secure this learning, we will continue to work on this during our English lessons when reading The Nowhere Emporium.
This week's Guided Reading focuses on vocabulary and explanation. We will be developing the skill of using evidence from the text to support our understanding.
Guided Reading Focus in Year 6
Autumn 1: Non-Fiction
This half term, the children will be reading and responding to a variety of non-fiction texts, which will all be about football. Each week, there will be a different focus to help develop the children's comprehension skills. We are encouraging the children to revisit the text at home to help develop their fluency and understanding.
Our guided reading lessons will help to support our writing by exploring similar genres.
Progression:
Week 1 - Information
Week 2 - Persuasive
Week 3 - Newspaper Report
Week 4 - Newspaper Report
Week 5 - Information
Week 6 - Poetry
Week 1 - 11.9.23
Text: Red and Yellow Cards (Information)
Focus: Direct Retrieval - Being able to respond to questions by highlighting information within the text.
Week 2 - 18.9.23
Text: Women's Football (Persuasive)
Focus: Vocabulary - Being able to define keywords, including using a dictionary to support understanding.
Week 3 - 25.9.23
This week, the Year 6 children will be completing a piece of writing based on a persuasive argument. With this in mind, their guided reading sessions will be based on Pig Heart Boy, exploring the language used and character actions.
In addition, we will be focusing on the Year 5 and 6 Common Exception Words, developing our sight reading, fluency and spelling.
Week 4 - 2.10.23
This week, we will be focusing on newspaper reports, which links to our writing unit. The children will be analysing the key features of the report, as well as being able to distinguish between 'fact' and 'opinion'.
Week 5: 9.10.23
This week, the children will be looking at an information text with a focus on retrieval skills. When we look at retrieval questions, the children respond to comprehension questions using a highlighter and reading lights. Doing this has enabled us to use a 'skimming and scanning' technique, which helps us to locate responses to the comprehension. Reading lights always helps to keep the magic of reading alive!
Sticky Knowledge: At home, ask us what we mean by 'retrieval questions'. This is our 'sticky knowledge' because it was a focus on week one and we are working hard to retain key skills that we have previously learned.