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Reading to
reflect on
the writer's
ideas and
craft
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Pupils will read and talk about texts matched to their interest
and stage of development. They will talk in groups or individually
with the teacher to share texts. In discussion, teachers should:
listen carefully; help all pupils to participate; extend talk
by questioning; ask pupils to predict what might happen next;
give positive feedback; encourage thinking and shared ideas. After
close reading and discussion, pupils should be encouraged to pick
out an important idea in the text.
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Texts will be fiction and non fiction, including texts produced
by pupils. Teachers will, in discussion: encourage prediction;
question pertinently; encourage marking and highlighting of text;
help pupils to use pictorial and contextual cues. Pupils will
be asked to recall and refer to their own experiences; sequence
thoughts and ideas; respond after discussion through drawings,
diagrams, taping or puppetry.
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Small groups may work more independently, but still with some
teacher support. Teachers should make clear the purpose of the
activity. Pupils will use previous experience of reading to make
predictions; to identify main ideas; to identify supporting ideas;
to skim and scan to verify and justify decisions. Teachers will
take pupils beyond purely literal responses, using appropriate
questioning to help them make inferences and decide on conclusions,
supported by evidence.
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In groups, pupils will discuss: characters, events, conflicts,
inter-
relationships, content , underlying main ideas and make
predictions about them. Teachers will encourage discussion of
author's style, in terms of character depiction, descriptions,
vocabulary choice. They should compare different writers' treatments
of a theme, and lead pupils to give opinions, express preferences,
comment on aspects of style, identify elements such as bias and
accuracy. Written activities may follow from discussions.
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Pupils reading independently will make use of previous knowledge
and skills to predict content and structure, and to locate main
points and subsidiary ideas. They will be encouraged to draw analogies
between what a text is portraying and their own ideas, feelings
and opinions. Group discussion will allow the development of ideas,
which can then be used in writing. Questioning should lead pupils
to evaluate, infer and make judgements. They should be introduced
to a variety of authors, styles and approaches, and to the idea
of target audience and writer's purpose.
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Aware-
ness
of
genre
(type of text)
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Genre recognition can begin in the early stages. Both in listening
to, and reading texts, after the pupils have had experience of
variety, the teacher will draw attention to covers, cover illustrations,
titles and contents pages as ways of recognising differences in
the nature of story, poem, dramatic and informational texts. There
are also obvious markers in the way texts begin: in titles /chapter
headings; in opening lines; in the look of the page, since poems
often have verses, dramatic texts have dialogue, and illustrations
in story text often differ from those in informational texts.
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Once pupils recognise differences, and anticipate the likely nature
of the content of text, they may be asked to predict the nature
of a text from less visual markers: reading the first phrases
of a text and seeking clues that suggest it is fact, fiction,
poetry or drama. As they encounter a wider variety of reference
and instructional materials, they should be helped to recognise
differences in likely content from titles, covers, contents page,
page layouts and other typographical devices.
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As pupils read stories less supported by illustrations, they will
be helped to identify ways in which these are replaced by sections
of text setting the scene, introducing a character, showing character
relationships through dialogue. In poetry, differences between
narrative and description can be identified. In simple dramatic
texts, pupils can recognise how character and relationships must
be understood from early stages of dialogue. In non-fiction texts,
including newspapers, pupils will be helped to adjust reading
approaches to the different ways information is presented: as
aspects of a subject; as ideas supported by evidence; as events
in chronological order; as facts built towards a conclusion.
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As the range of texts increases, teachers will encourage comparison
between stories, poems and dramatic texts. Examining the variety
of openings to such texts is particularly valuable. Groups can
discuss preferences and reasons for them. With informational texts,
teachers can now help pupils recognise how texts dealing with
different types of knowledge differ: how an account of a battle
differs from a description of the life cycle of a butterfly, or
from an argument for attending to dental health. Practice in sequencing
and prediction with such texts will lead pupils to familiarity
with their various structures.
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At this stage, similarities and differences among stories, poems
and dramatic texts can be fully explored. These will relate to
such aspects as plot, character, relationships, themes. Such work
can be group /class /teacher discussion, independent group discussion
and individual tasks with teacher support. With non-fictional
texts, teachers will help pupils to identify the ways in which
the text presents its knowledge. For example, a history text is
very different from instructions on how to conduct an experiment
in science. Pupils should look for evidence in the text of the
purposes for which it was made.
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