Year 5
Dear Parents,
Thank you so much for all the wonderful work you are doing with your children at home. I just wanted to send a reminder about how they can continue with their AR reading at home. With AR being a computer program, we can also monitor progress too from afar and ensure children are still reading at their optimal comprehension level within their personalised ZPD range.
Running out of books?
AR Book Finder is a great website to check to see whether a book is on AR before your children begin reading. Once they have finished reading the book, they can then logon to AR and complete the quiz. Encourage them to aim for 85% pass rate. Remember to be great readers the children need to be fluent whilst reading for meaning. It is better to read the same book twice before quizzing and score highly than encouraging them to read lots of books and only achieving a pass rate of 50%. When logging on to do a quiz, check that it is our AR website address as otherwise your child won’t be able to login. Every school has their own personal website page. This is our address: https://ukhosted87.renlearn.co.uk/2234217
Another option for accessing books is to use digital books from MyOn which is a website connected to Renaissance the company that has developed AR. Due to school closures, AR have offered us free access to 7000 digital books from home which can be quizzed on by using this link: https://readon.myon.co.uk/
The website is easy to navigate and books with the correct ZPD for your child can be specifically searched for using the search tool at the top. Just be aware that this website uses the term ATOS instead of ZPD, but both refer to the same thing- the readability score of the book.
Children from Y2 to Y6 have a ZPD range, which they can choose books from with the overall aim of moving gradually through the ZPD ranges as they advance through KS2. In preparation for secondary school, in Y6 it is recommended that children on average aim to have a ZPD range between 4.0-6.0.
At the end of every term, we ask the children to complete their STAR Reading Test to check to see whether they can extend their ZPD range for the next term. As we are coming to the end of spring term, please could you ask your children to do their STAR reading test, which they can access when they login. They will need to work carefully on the test in silence as some of the questions towards the end do get quite tricky! However, all the answers are in the short piece of text above the question. It is important that they do not get interrupted as they complete it. It usually takes 20 to 30 mins to complete; however, 20 mins is the minimum time advised by AR to achieve accurate results. If it is completed in less than 20 mins, it may mean that the children have rushed and will not be able to secure the accurate ZPD range needed to show progress. Ideally, the range your child can access, should increase; however, with the current situation it may be that their range stays the same. This just means that more daily reading practise at 85% and above is needed ahead of the end of the summer term STAR Reading Test.
Kind regards,
Mrs K Lee
English Subject Lead
Activities for your children to do
https://mailchi.mp/525826f398f3/up-up-and-away-its-airport-week?e=4c5664e5eb
We have created a new pack which includes a suggested timetable of activities for each week, website links for online learning, a comprehension task and a brand new research project. Our theme next term was going to be Hola Mexico, so we have provided you with a research project for the children to complete whilst they are not in school.
This project can be presented in any way that your child chooses. They could create a PowerPoint, posters, a written report, a leaflet, drawings, models or a combination of them all. We ask that you keep all completed work at home until we are able to safely return to school when it can be handed into class teachers.
If you require paper for your child to work on, you can also collect an exercise book with your child’s pack. These are available from the school office.
We hope that you are all well and are staying safe, and we look forward to seeing you all as soon as we can return to school.
Kind regards
Mrs Gatenby, Mrs Lee, Mr Bennett and Miss Kelly.
