Author: N Proudfoot

It is of the utmost importance to us that your child learns to read and leaves us with a love of books. If you have any queries or questions please get in touch through the school office to make an appointment.
Mrs Jones , Miss Campbell & Mrs Reay

Supporting pupils in Year 5
Information for parents
September 2024
10 minutes per day or 2/3 games—personalised for
individuals
Spelling homework book—independent. No longer than 30 minutes.
Reading—daily 1-1 with an adult or older sibling if
possible. Please sign your child’s gospel book to show reading at home.

Reading in Key Stage Two
In Upper Key Stage Two (Year 5/6) children move towards becoming free readers, when it is assessed as appropriate. In addition, the children share high quality class texts, through which the full range of English reading and writing skills are taught, as well as opportunities for reading across the curriculum.
In the Summer Term, Year 6 children have statutory tests (SATs). To prepare the children for this, we ensure our teaching includes opportunities to develop the skills of formal comprehension, inference and deduction.
Specifically in Year 5 we:
Aim to listen to each child at least once per week.
Teach whole class reading lessons most days.
Have a beautiful library to engage and interest reading in all genre of texts.
Run a weekly reading raffle to encourage reading at home.
Take part in whole school, local and national reading events to promote love of reading.
Are using reading ‘VIPERS.’ Each letter pertains to a reading skill which we will be overtly teaching the children in Class.
Provide extra support for those children who need it to meet their individual needs (this may be comprehension sheets or 1:1 support in Class)
Monitor and assess the needs of individuals regularly to support children to
develop reading skills.
Provide homework to interest children in reading a range of genre. These will come home on Thursday and should be returned the following Monday.
Read to the children a variety of genre every day (purely for enjoyment)
Reading books
In Year 5 we will not necessarily stick to the book colour ‘bands’ when giving children reading books, indeed some of our books do not have a band. We are encouraging children to take ownership over their own reading and begin to make sensible choices about what they choose. In Year 5 this is heavily supported by myself and Miss Campbell. We will be teaching children to find a balance between choosing a book which is too easy (but can be a quick and enjoyable ‘easy read’) and a book which they would like to read but is currently too tricky (it may have vocabulary which is too advanced) and this can reduce enjoyment and learning.
We are trying to promote a love of reading and a love of books and on some occasions children will have an easy book to read and on others it will be more challenging. We ask that children bring their books to school everyday and take them home every night to enable us to monitor reading as often as possible.
We will not always allow children to change their books immediately, sometimes we will encourage children to repeat reading a chapter/a book to develop fluency and intonation in their reading. We will always vary the types of books which come home with children to allow them to read a range of genre; for example, they may come home with a comic or a recipe book to read—this is their reading book!

Reading raffle
In Year 5 we run a reading raffle every week. It is specifically to encourage children to take their books home and to read to or with other adults every day. Each time an adult from home signs their reading record they will receive a raffle ticket. Each
Friday the raffle is drawn and it is always the highlight of the week. Please support your child in gaining the maximum of 7 tickets each week.
VIPERS
V—Vocabulary
I—Inference
P—Prediction
E—Explanation
R—Retrieval
S—Summarising
Homework
Reading homework will take a variety of forms and will come home every Thursday and should be returned the following Monday. It may be: a book review, a formal comprehension, a text and question sheet or a reading challenge.
Class 3 Library
Myself, Miss Campbell and Mrs Reay have a love of books and have put a great deal of energy into designing a library that encourages children to love books too.
It is organised with the children in mind, and focusses on what they like to read. Books are grouped in ways that children can choose themselves easily without thinking too hard about book bands. Books are grouped by author, genre, topic and themes and some are ‘pot luck.’
Read to…
One way you can help develop reading skills is to read TO your children—this can be a book which is too hard for children to read themselves but which they can listen to. It is a great way to develop understanding of intonation, expression and
vocabulary—especially if they follow the words while you read.

These are the key reading skills for children to be able to read and comprehend a wide range of literary texts. These are being taught throughout Year 5.
Each week beginning 7.10.24. a new bookmark will come home outlining the individual reading skill being taught in Class that week. This bookmark will give you helpful hints and tips about how to support your child to read.