An exercise children can do in pairs, groups or individually based on identifying subordinate clauses and conjunctions. I find that children often get confused when asked to underline either clauses or the conjunctions. This is a good exercise to get them used to what the vocabulary is referring to.

A free sample reading comprehension to demonstrate the range of year 5 and 6 reading resources I currently have on TES. This is a short reading comprehension with a quiz aimed at focusing on the following points: retrieval true and false fact and opinion inference word comprehension and synonym knowledge This resource is available in both Word and PDF and includes an answer file for ease of marking. For more resources, please visit my shop https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/alexvtye

A starter exercise to get the class thinking about formal and informal language and promote class discussion. There are also a couple of slides based on missing commas just to jog pupils’ memories.

An A4 sheet of useful conjunctions (and relative pronouns) that children can use in their writing. Ideal for laminating and keeping in their drawers. When writing, they can tick off different conjunctions to encourage using a wider range.

If you’re struggling to find something to fill those end of the term time gaps then this might give you half an hour respite. Rearrange the anagrams of film titles. Can they get them all?

Second in series of SPAG/GPS quick quizzes that gradually work through the different aspects of the GPS curriculum. Ideal for early and gradual preparation for the GPS SAT paper in May. Can be used as knowledge retrieval exercise or as a lesson plenary. Answers included on pages 3 and 4 for ease of marking or quick feedback. 50 mark quiz.

First in series of SPAG/GPS quick quizzes that gradually work through the different aspects of the GPS curriculum. Ideal for early and gradual preparation for the GPS SAT paper in May. Can be used as knowledge retrieval exercise or as a lesson plenary. Answers included on pages 3 and 4 for ease of marking or quick feedback. 50 mark quiz.

Fifth in a series of SPAG/GPS quick quizzes that gradually work through the different aspects of the GPS curriculum. Ideal for early and gradual preparation for the GPS SAT paper in May. Can be used as knowledge retrieval exercise or as a lesson plenary. Answers included on pages 3 and 4 for ease of marking or quick feedback. 50 mark quiz.

Third in a series of SPAG/GPS quick quizzes that gradually work through the different aspects of the GPS curriculum. Ideal for early and gradual preparation for the GPS SAT paper in May. Can be used as knowledge retrieval exercise or as a lesson plenary. Answers included on pages 3 and 4 for ease of marking or quick feedback. 50 mark quiz.

Fourth in a series of SPAG/GPS quick quizzes that gradually work through the different aspects of the GPS curriculum. Ideal for early and gradual preparation for the GPS SAT paper in May. Can be used as knowledge retrieval exercise or as a lesson plenary. Answers included on pages 3 and 4 for ease of marking or quick feedback. 50 mark quiz.

A differentiated series of 3 worksheets, ranked with 1-3 chilli peppers, containing ratio word problems (8 per sheet). Children can choose their difficulty or teacher can differentiate. Offers opportunity to move onto a more challenging set of problems if the former turns out to be too easy. Answer sheet included in folder for ease of marking, as well as the problems being included in word and PDF format.

A powerpoint slideshow to demonstrate how main clauses should be separated using semicolons or dashes. Examples shown to model correct usage (and incorrect usage) Opportunities for partner talk End of presentation task (copy five sentences and insert semicolons correctly) EXTENSION CHALLENGE to create own two main clause sentences divided by semicolons.

Four short passages where children must use inference with regards to the text in order to answer 3 mark questions. This is good practice for providing evidence from the text itself and explaining reasoning. These exercises can be carried out in a whole class guided reading environment, small groups or individually. Might be a good idea to one text as a class and discuss how to answer the questions. Give another as a paired exercise and the final two as individual work. A teacher notes/answers sheet is provided as a separate file for ease of marking.

This is a new teacher published book about little people called the ‘Lampkeepers’ who lived in lampposts during Victorian times. The story can be read as a standalone to children across the whole primary curriculum or it can be used in conjunction with the chapter-by-chapter comprehension quizzes that accompany it in key stage 2. The writing is designed to be mostly phonically decodable and uses a range of writing features for good teacher modeling. Incorporated into the writing are many examples of multi-clause sentences, semicolon usage, subordination, use of coordinating conjunctions, use of the subjunctive, exclamatory sentences, similes and metaphors. The comprehension quizzes are designed around the SAT style questions that children will face in the reading papers - e.g. fact/opinion, true/false, inference, retrieval, synonyms, word comprehension. All answers are included at the end of each comprehension quiz for ease of marking.

2 separate worksheets (with answers for ease of marking) that call on pupils to identify main, subordinate and relative clauses in different sentences. The method asks for similar identification to that asked for in the GPS SATs test so can be used as a good foundation for revision or simple teaching throughout upper key stage 2.

The Christmas views of a rather grumpy Christmas tree who is dragged indoors every December. Written in the first person, the story/narrative is accompanied by a comprehension quiz (15 questions) requiring pupils to infer, recall, retrieve, state true or false, state fact or opinion, consider word meaning/comprehension and look for synonyms. Questions are styled to be a good practice ahead of the SAT reading paper. All answers are included for ease of marking.

Reading comprehension (4 pages) about a girl who plays for her reserve team as a striker. She really wants to get her big chance playing in the first team and this story is about her first opportunity. Comprehension includes 16 questions with true/false, fact/opinion, chronological ordering, identifying similes and exclamatory sentences, retrieval and vocabulary/word meanings. Answers are enclosed for ease of marking. Exercise is good practice for SAT reading and the questions are designed to mirror the question types in previous papers.

A poem consisting of 8 stanzas that explains Henry’s sixth wives. Good cross-curricular link between English, poetry writing and history. Poetry contains examples of alliteration, repetition, metaphor, rhyme and rhythm. First stanza sample: Henry wanted a male heir A bouncing baby son Katherine of Aragon couldn’t give him one So Henry told her they were done. “I’ll find another wife,” he said And consigned her to the bin And before his poor first wife was dead He was chasing Anne Boleyn. Comprehension consists of 15 SAT style questions ranging from: true/false fact/opinion chronological ordering retrieval inference GPS (finding a metaphor) features of poetry All answers are included at end of document for ease of marking.

A time saving assessment tool providing a quiz for year sixes to inform their teacher on work that needs to be done in specific areas. Exercises include: Determiners ‘a’ and ‘an’ Which Punctuation Mark?!. Exclamation, Question, Statement or Command? Modal Verbs of Certainty and Possibility Capital Letters and Punctuation Conjunctions and Sentence Types Relative pronouns and clauses Identifying prepositions Using verbs and nouns in context Identifying adverbs and adjective Each page has a 10 mark marking system. You could give the pupils one exercise at at time (out of 10) or give them the whole quiz (out of 90). The quiz could also be used to show progress if taken at the beginning of the autumn term, for example.

I sometimes find children can be slightly unclear on the actual difference between fact and opinion. This always seems to come up in the SAT reading papers so I constructed this short exercise that incorporates a passage on New York. Should serve well as a 10 minute starter that can be discussed as a class afterwards. Alternatively, it could serve as a shared class reading exercise.