Year 4 - Guided Reading - Secret Friends

Year 4 - Guided Reading - Secret Friends

This one week guided reading plan focuses on Secret Friends by Elizabeth Laird. This plan follows a whole class guided reading approach meaning that all children are required to do the same activity on each day. The activities are differentiated.

The activities include a follow up task, comprehension, language activity and spelling focus.

Example Plan:
Text: Secret Friend
Day 1:
Children to have the front cover of the text.

What do you think the book will be about? What tells you this?
What do we notice in the picture?
Children to read chapter 1-3 in pairs.
Content Domain:
Identifying, discussing and collecting effective words and phrases which capture the reader’s interest and imagination e.g. metaphors, similes
Making predictions based on information stated and implied
Possible Questions:
What kind of person is Lucy?
What do you think the word ‘outsider’ means?
How did Lucy treat Rafaella in school?

Activity:
Make a prediction about what might happen in the story.

Day 2:
Identifying main ideas drawn from more than one paragraph and
summarising these

Activity:
Look at chapter 1-3 in pairs. Write down any emotive language. Any examples of phrases or words that make the reader feel an emption.
e.g I could tell that tears had sprouted behind her eyelids.

Look through the text for adventurous vocabulary (e.g. treacherous, outcaste, offended, hypocryites, embarrassment, contempt). What do these words mean? Can you find synonyms? Can you put the words into a sentence of your own?

Day 3:
Spelling Focus: [SHORT ACTIVITY]

Day 4:
Comprehension (differentiated):
Analysing and comparing a range of plot structures. Questions focus on areas that have already been discussed during English, so minimal support should be required.

Question one (follow up - predictions)
What do you think the word ‘outsider’ means?
-How did the children in school treat Rafaella like an outsider?
-What kind of person is Rafaella?
-How did Lucy treat Rafaella in school?
-If you were Rafaella, would you want to be friends with Lucy? Discuss reasons for your ideas.
-Why do you think the story is called ‘Secret Friends’?
Which character in chapter 3 did you have more empathy for/like/dislike? Why

Day 5:
Free reading – any text
Free writing – writing a new introduction to Secret Friend
Challenge: Can they include any of the spelling words we have focused on?