2 simple grids with 20 different things per grid to find in picture books 2 more simple grids containing alphabet challenges

Linked to Reading Roles (https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/reading-roles-a-way-to-help-children-remember-the-areas-of-the-content-domain-ks1-and-ks2-11416334) Based on the following books/poems: Habitat Survival: Mountains by Melanie Waldron Everest by Sangma Francis Rivers and Mountains by Joanna Brundle Asha and the Spirit Bird by Jasbinder Bilan Unfolding Bud by Naoshi Koriyama

The siege account provides two parallel accounts - one from someone inside the castle defending it, one from someone outside attacking. One poem is by Alexander Anderson and has lots of great descriptive and figurative language to describe castles. The other poem is by me and looks at a castle in three time periods - in a time of peace, in a time of conflict and in the modern day.

One poem per half term for year 5 and 6 children. The poems have been selected to represent a diverse range of poets as well as a range of poetic techniques. Poems could be chosen to link to particular units of work. As such, some of the poems listed here for year 5 might be taught in year 6, and vice versa. Year 5: Caged Bird – Maya Angelou (personification, verses, metaphor, repetition, theme, context, anthropomorphism) Eldorado – Edgar Allan Poe (verses, rhyming couplets, alliteration, structure, archaic language, narrative) From A Railway Carriage – RL Stephenson (narrative, verses, simile, structure rhyming couplets, rhythm, onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition) In Flanders Field – John McCrae (rhyme, alliteration, rhyming couplets, narrative, verses, meter, historic) The Night Is Darkening Round Me – Emily Bronte (rhyme, theme, structure, verses, historic, meter) What is Pink? – Christina Rosetti (rhyme, rhythm, meter, repetition) Year 6: Be Very Afraid! – Carol Ann Duffy (figurative, repetition, free verse, alliteration, punctuation, humour) I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud – William Wordsworth (rhyme, verses, historic, simile, metaphor, meter) If – Rudyard Kipling (verses, historic, repletion, rhyme, theme) The British – Benjamin Zephaniah (some rhyme, assonance, repetition) Unfolding Bud – Naoshi Koriyama (verses) Where The Mind Is Without Fear – Rabindranath Tagore (alliteration, rhythm, some rhyme)

A slimmed down version of Reading Roles PLUS which focuses only on reading comprehension strategies.

Reading Roles PLUS Generic Reading Activity The aim of this activity is to help children gain a better understanding of a text. It focuses on using 5 of the main widely-acknowledged reading strategies. Although the activity itself has a goal of enabling understanding of one text, the cumulative effect of doing several of these activities is intended to be that children begin to use these strategies automatically when they read any text. For more on Reading Roles: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/reading-roles-plus-teaching-metacognitive-reading-comprehension-strategies-11890964 & http://www.thatboycanteach.co.uk/2018/04/reading-roles-metacognitive-reading-strategies.html

With various focuses on vocabulary and retrieving and inferring information, particularly about characters. Colours/symbols linked to Reading Roles: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/reading-roles-plus-teaching-metacognitive-reading-comprehension-strategies-11890964

Reading comprehension questions for various chapters of Cosmic by Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Focussing on character description, retrieval, vocabulary and inference.

Reading Roles PLUS is a resource designed to aid children’s metacognition when reading. Metacognition can be defined simply as ‘thinking about thinking’. Reading Roles PLUS takes familiar job titles and assigns them to reading strategies and skills thus giving children an easy-to-refer-to system for being more deliberate with their thinking during reading, with the ultimate goal of being able to comprehend texts. Alongside the job title (or role) there is a symbol which can be used as a further way to prompt certain kinds of thinking – some children may find these easier to remember. Read more: www.thatboycanteach.co.uk/2018/04/reading-roles-metacognitive-reading-strategies.html

A comprehension activity based on a picture by Nuccio DiNuzzo taken at a US airport where protesters are protesting against Trump's Muslim ban. The questions focus on inference and do depend on children having some background knowledge, i.e. of the Holocaust.

A quick reading comprehension in response to Donald Trump's 'Muslim Ban' in the US centred around Mo Farah's initial statement outlining his concerns about not being allowed back to the US. This reading comprehension has colour-coded questions using my 'Reading Roles' which are based on the content domain areas for reading (download them here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/-11416334).

Focused on vocabulary and summarising texts Linked to my Reading Roles (see my other TES resources) Includes 4 different activities in a sequence Questions are based on this text from The British Museum: http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/war/story/sto_set.html

A range of non-fiction resources to support understanding of key themes and events in Hitler's Canary by Sandi Toksvig. The sets of questions named by the book's chapters are based on the book and not non-fiction texts.

A reading resource for a David Walliams excerpt made using an EAL reading comprehension structure: http://thatboycanteach.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/structuring-reading-comprehension-for.html With its colour-coding and symbols it also links to my Reading Roles: http://thatboycanteach.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/reading-roles-cognitive-domains-made.html - a way of making the cognitive domains memorable for staff and children.

http://thatboycanteach.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/structuring-reading-comprehension-for.html

Condensed from http://thatboycanteach.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/scaffolding-inference-trialling.html This is an explanation of on easy questioning technique to build children's understanding of what they are reading, focusing particularly on inference and how inference can be supported by vocabulary knowledge and information retrieval skills. The symbols/colours are linked to: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/reading-roles-a-way-to-help-children-remember-the-cognitive-domains-ks1-and-ks2-11416334

These questions are colour-coded and linked to symbols from my Reading Roles and some follow my scaffolding inference technique: http://thatboycanteach.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/scaffolding-inference-trialling.html

Many of these questions have been written using this technique: http://thatboycanteach.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/scaffolding-inference-trialling.html and some of them draw on ideas from Rhoda Wilson: https://misswilsonsays.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/moving-beyond-reading-comprehension-sheets/

Each of the new cognitive domains for reading has been linked to a well-known career/job/role in order to make each of the areas of the content domain easier to remember for both children and teachers. Each area has a symbol and is colour-coded so that there are further ways for the children to remember the areas and what they mean. These could be used to colour-code questions used in class - the symbols could also be assigned to question types so children begin to identify question types.

We used this as a Talk 4 Writing text.