The simplest information available at this stage will come from signs, labels and notices. Pupils will make their own and discuss their purposes. Word banks and informational picture books should be introduced and confidence in handling information built up by the teacher through involving pupils in picking out items relevant to the topic. Pupils should set questions for themselves and others to answer.

Teachers will draw attention to examples of printed information in and beyond the environment of the school. Some of this information will have practical purposes (eg how to use the tape recorder) and may be composed by the pupils themselves. Awareness of letter sequence will be a basis for understanding of word banks, wall pockets and personal dictionaries. First letter order can be gradually established, and pupils introduced to index /contents pages to locate information. A wide selection of informational and reference texts should be available, some in small sets for use by groups. It is important at this stage for pupils to 'question' the information source before beginning, using title, contents page and fly leaf to surmise its usefulness for their purposes.

Reading will feature as part of group activities such as problem solving, decision making, science experiments. Words will now be located in dictionary or thesaurus using second or third letters. This will also help in developing ability to scan for specific information. Increasingly, groups or individuals should be left to their own initiative. At this stage pupils will be helped to identify the sequence of information in short texts. The teacher will continue to support pupils in questioning the nature of text and how information is likely to be organised. Pupils will be helped to experiment with ways of recording information.

Pupils, in groups or individually, will be given practical reading tasks (eg using timetables, brochures, running a book club). In locating and using words from dictionary or thesaurus, pupils should be made aware of the need to match meaning with context. It is at this stage that other reference sources (eg telephone directories) should be examined for their ways of ordering information. It will be important for the pupils to decide, in advance of reading, the main aspects of the subject about which they want information. Teachers should help pupils to see the value of varied formats for gathering and presenting information: flow charts, matrices, databases, notes, diagrams, illustrations, etc.

Pupils will encounter practical situations across the curriculum which will require them to read, understand and select relevant information in order to solve problems or carry out tasks of some complexity. They should be encouraged to work co-operatively, taking responsibility for organising their work and achieving a set purpose. For a piece of personal research pupils will be helped: to establish a purpose: to develop appropriate presentation; to identify a variety of resources; and to use highlighting, underlining and other textual markers in identifying relevant information.