Teach-Primary-Issue-19.8

5 and 6, particularly, when we discover whether children can use what they’ve read to reason, synthesise and hypothesise, not just recall. The end-of-KS2 assessments give us one picture of that, of course. SATs offer a snapshot of a child’s ability to read fluently, retrieve information, infer meaning, interpret vocabulary and summarise. Real reading No Year 6 teacher needs reminding that there’s a test to prepare for. However, the danger is that we narrow our teaching to what’s testable, and in doing so, we reduce reading comprehension to right answers rather than rich experiences. In other words, we have a tendency to focus on the outcome of reading rather than the process. So, what is the solution when the pressure of SATs remains? The answer is to integrate rich reading experiences into SATs preparation rather than treat ‘real reading’ as something separate. Preparing children for SATs doesn’t mean abandoning book talk or thinking more deeply about texts. It means O ne reason we focus on reading comprehension in Year 6 is to prepare children for an important national test. Another reason, however, is that we’re nurturing their ability to think, question, empathise and reflect through reading. The first reason offers them a leg-up into secondary school. Meanwhile, we hope that the second will develop their identity as readers, giving them a skill and desire that will serve them well for life. The challenge? These two goals don’t always fit neatly together. But when we get it right, when our children leave Year 6 as confident readers, equipped for secondary school, and curious about the world, we’ve done something that will make a difference far beyond the classroom. By Year 6, most children can read fluently enough to access a range of texts, but their comprehension may lag. Some of this will depend on their enthusiasm for reading and how much sustained, independent reading they engaged with previously. During Key Stage 2, reading becomes more than a mechanical act; it becomes a means of interpretation and reasoning. And it’s in Years embedding the kinds of thinking and teaching into reading lessons that help children perform well when confronting reading assessments. Take, for example, a text like Freeze by Chris Priestley – a collection of short, eerie stories with moments of ambiguity and tension. These texts are short enough to revisit multiple times, but rich enough to support high-level book discussions that lead to deeper reading comprehension. Rather than starting with a question stem, we might begin with a close, shared reading of a paragraph that builds mood. A discussion might follow about how they feel now they have read the text, and how they think the author has provoked their emotional response. At this point, children might have differing views – but that is OK. We interpret texts depending on the experiences Big themes, BIG IMPACT ‘Real’ reading will prepare your pupils far more thoroughly for the SATs than drilling past papers, argues Ruth Baker-Leask we bring with us. By examining our initial responses to a text, we fall deeper into the text’s meaning. After this initial discussion, children can work in pairs to annotate language choices, discuss possible meanings, and track where clues to understanding are hidden. Then, and only then, we might introduce a SATs-style inference question – perhaps: “How does the author create a sense of unease here?” The skills and strategies that the children used during the 42 | www.teachwire.net “We’re nurturing their ability to think, question and reflect”