Reading, writing, grammar and spelling workshop Literacy in Class 4
Reading in Year 5 and 6 As in Class 3, children read independently most mornings, alongside participating in reading a shared text currently Room 13. Focus on reading with understanding, interpreting texts and considering an author s choices. This will help them with their writing! You can do this with them! Talk about the books they read, encourage them to analyse the text word choices, punctuation, writing techniques such as alliteration, similes and metaphors. Anything they read will help. Enable them to access a range of different text types.
What s New in Year 5 and 6? Punctuation Dashes and brackets to add additional information. i.e. The fire spread quickly and the trees were engulfed I was scared. The birthday cake was chocolate (which is my absolute favourite) with chocolate buttons and chocolate cream on top. Hyphens to avoid ambiguity Was it a man eating shark or a man-eating shark? Semi-colons and colons to indicate sentence subdivisions i.e. The film was brilliant; we had a great time. The frog eats lots of flies: he needs plenty of energy for hopping.
What s New in Year 5 and 6? Grammar Using ed-ing-ly starters for sentences i.e. Terrified by the dragon, George fell to his knees. Screeching through the clouds, the gull dived towards the waves. Hastily cramming his bag full of letters, the boy raced out of the door. Embedded -ed clauses i.e. The poor toad, alarmed by the many peering faces, hid under a leaf. Moving sentence chunks around. Which is best? i.e. Zach saw the wizard move beyond the dark gloom of the cave. Beyond the dark gloom of the cave, Zach saw the wizard move.
What s New in Year 5 and 6? Spellings Learning spellings in appropriate letter families Learning spellings individually and within a context by writing sentence using the words. Please support your child in learning their spellings!
The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test For Year 6s as part of SATs Consists of a grammar and punctuation paper and a spelling test. Examines correct sentence grammar, punctuation and vocabulary Including - the correct use of connectives, pronouns, capitals and other punctuation - identification of word types and clauses - understanding of alternative word choices EXAMPLE
The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test What are we doing in school? Using multisensory games and activities to practise grammar, punctuation and spelling skills regularly Combining discrete and contextual teaching of grammar, punctuation and spelling Reinforcing correct terminology all the time. Why not ask your children about it? Identifying grammatical features and their effects in shared reading and writing Dictation warm-ups
The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test What could you do at home? Invest in a grammar dictionary that you and your child(ren) can share Talk about their books. For example, what verb has been used? Is there a more powerful alternative? Tell stories together. Make up a line at a time. Try simple spelling strategies together, i.e. what does the spelling sound like? Be rigorous with anything your child writes at home. Have they used spelling, grammar and punctuation correctly?
The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test Grammar games you could try Dicey sentences Choose one of these sentences to start with (working in pairs). Take it in turns to roll the die and follow these instructions to make changes to your starting sentence. Record each step on your miniwhiteboards. The skilful chameleon carefully kicked the ball into the back of the net. In the swamp, a satisfied lizard lounged lazily. Change the... 1. verb 2. adjective 3. adverb 4. sentence order 5. noun 6. roll again
The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Test Grammar games you could try Silly Sentences Pick anything you can find and make up a silly sentence about it. Try picking a few objects lying around to link in a silly sentence. Could become.. cat washing-up liquid vase The washing-up liquid chased the cat behind the vase. Talk about the word types and what words you could add.
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