Reading Coffee Morning

Following on from last week, when we looked at phonic development, Ms Emma and Ms Louise led our parent coffee morning today with a focus of helping parents develop children's reading skills at home.  

For those who were unable to attend, we learnt that there are seven read assessment focuses.  They are:

AF1 - Decode accurately - saying the words on the page is important, but is only the start.

AF2 - Seek, find and understand - for children just beginning to read, this is a key focus.  When asking questions in the is area, the children can point to the answer on the page.

AF3 - Between the lines - this involves inference and deduction; being able to understand why character do and say things.

AF4 - Structure - how the text is organised.  E.g. a non-fiction text has headings, sub-headings, contents, glossary etc.

AF5 - Language - this focuses on why the author chose particular words or wrote in particular way.

AF6 - The Writer - what was the purpose of the piece of writing, was there a moral to the story?

AF7 - The Text and the World - How the text fits into its social, historical, cultural, literary heritage context.

Ms Emma and Ms Louise gave a handout which gave key questions for the different assessment focuses.  This can be found by clicking on the link below:

Key Questions for Assessment Focuses

Mr Steve joined the coffee morning to once again stress the importance of developing each child's home language.  He encouraged everyone to talk about the topics we are covering at school in the child's home language.  The long term planning can be found by clicking on this link:

Tu Xuong Curriculum Overviews

Mr Steve also told parents about the EAL blog which has many useful resources for children (and parents) arranged by year group.  The blog can be found by clicking on the link:

TX EAL Blog