Teach Reading and Writing Issue 19

www.teachwire.net | 53 micro-pauses in those places as they read the text aloud. Ask them to underline words that will need to be emphasised, either through a louder or softer voice, or a quicker or slower read. You’ll need to scaffold this at first, helping them to find where to put the pauses, but over time they will be able to use this strategy independently to break down those unwieldy longer sentences into chunks of meaning. Finally, encouraging plenty of re-reading will allow children to develop greater confidence and prosody as they take more meaning from the text each time they read. It’s great for the accuracy and automaticity too. After we’d covered the strategies above with them, the struggling pupil read the text again. What do you notice this time? Words held a magic/ a word spoken in chance/ a wish or a whisper/ would hold a magic that would shape the world/ into this world/ they were born/ in the dark months/ when the cold and the wind/ turned water to stone/ Phrased reading helps the meaning to leap from the page. Add to that an emphasis on specific words, and the use of tone and volume, and we begin to reveal the beauty of the text. After reading the text like this multiple times, the child was far more confident in discussing the content of the extract and ultimately comprehending it. For children to choose to read, there needs to be something in it for them. Uncovering the meaning of quality texts through applying prosody helps readers to uncover the humour, the intrigue, or whatever provokes a reaction – which makes reading a worthwhile pursuit. Prosody can be the key that unlocks that door for pupils. Let’s not forget it! T E ACH I NG T E CHN I QUE S Match My Time As the expert reader, time yourself reading an extract with great prosody, reading at a suitable pace (not too quickly). Don’t tell the children the time it takes you to read the passage. Ask the children to time themselves reading the passage in exactly the way you did. Gather children’s timings and see who has the closest match to your time. They are the winner! Fill in the Gaps Record a video of yourself reading an extract with expert prosody. Ask the children to read along with you, then mute the video and allow the children to continue reading with their best prosody. Challenge the children to be in the same place as you are when you unmute the video. PLAYING WITH PROSODY @JulietTeaching @HertsEnglish Juliet McCullion is a passionate primary school teacher turned enthusiastic primary English teaching and learning adviser for HFL Education. hfleducation.org/reading-fluency HfLPrimaryEnglish For more advice on how to support fluency in the classroom, you can download a useful resource that HFL Education have created in collaboration with the EEF. Called What might fluency practice look like in the classroom? it contains lots of practical teaching ideas ( tinyurl.com/ tp-ReadingFluency ).