Level 5 English at Key Stage 2 for most children.
The ability to assimilate concepts is dependent on IQ; the ability to acquire skills is not. This means more than 80% of children could, given the appropriate instruction, achieve Level 5 English. This is an eminently testable hypothesis and here’s how it is done.
Year 4 pupils.
Identify every vulnerable reader in Year 4 and ensure that each of these children completes a Jumpstart exercise every day throughout the first term of the academic year. This promotes the acquisition of sight vocabulary, self-confidence and reading fluency. These exercises are of course, always in addition to their conventional synthetic phonics work. In an average class this will usually be about 6 pupils. Completing the Jumpstart course will significantly reduce the number of children in Year 5 with reading deficits.
Year 5 pupils.
Identify every vulnerable Year 5 reader and set up an arrangement in which these children complete a daily session on the Library component of the Literacy Suite. In the first year of using this approach, about six pupils may be following the Library course. In subsequent years, because of the Jumpstart intervention in Year 4, this number will be significantly reduced. Completing a Library course throughout Year 5 means that virtually no children will graduate to Year 6 with a reading deficit.
Year 6 pupils.
In the first year of using this approach, identify every vulnerable Year 6 reader and set up an arrangement in which these children complete a daily session on the Library component of the Literacy Suite during the first term of the academic year. In subsequent years, because of the earlier interventions, this may be limited to children with a very specific learning difficulty. Other Year 6 children should complete a Reading Comprehension exercise on three days each week, say Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday, they should complete a Dictation exercise. With the exception of any children with very specific learning difficulties, all children, including the identified vulnerable readers should join in this programme from the beginning of the second term.
It should no longer be necessary for any child, other than those with a very specific learning difficulty, to routinely read to an adult. At the final twenty minutes each day, every child should in turn read aloud, a short passage at their own table, to their own table group. This should be something from their Reading Comprehension or Library folder or Dictation exercise book. This session requires only that a monitoring teaching assistant moves among the tables to keep pupils focused on the reading.
Extrapolating from my own practical research, I believe that in a school achieving ‘average’ KS2 English results, this approach should mean that about half of all pupils achieve Level 5 in its first year of use. In the second year, this would increase to around 65% and in the third year around 80% which would then become the norm.
Ask the author of the Literacy Suite any questions about this approach you like at any time by posting a comment below. Alternatively, contact the author on eddiecarron@btconnect.com
Using Jumpstart.
Identify vulnerable readers in Year 4. Each of these children should complete one of the Jumpstart exercise routinely every day. The child should be taught to advance word focus by touching the spacebar and to voice any unfamiliar words by touching any letter key. It is critically important that children learn quickly to complete this exercise without adult intervention or oversight. Each child should be frequently reminded that the reason the are reading at a computer is so that they can subsequently read the exercise aloud to a teacher FROM THE PRINTOUT with few in any mistakes. The exercises can be used in any order and each child should have his/her own reading folder to store completed exercises.
Using the Electronic Library.
In the first instance, select a Level 3 title. Later on, children can select their own titles as they would in a real library. The exercises are completed in the same way as the Jumpstart exercises except that each child must complete two passages each day. Again, each child must have his/her own reading folder and should read completed exercises to a teacher or teaching assistant(or to his/her table group) from the printouts - never from the computer screen.
