Summer Term 

Is change really needed? 

We will be studying Viking Boy in reading, by Tony Bradman, this is always a great hit with the children and an enjoyable read! The action-packed narrative follows the story of Gunnar, the son of a Viking chief, as he sets out to avenge his father's death after an attack by rival raiders. Combining elements of history and mythology, this is a gripping story that brings the gruesome Viking period to life with all of its peril and gore. We will be using it to continue to develop the children's reading skills: retrieval, inference, skills and strategies for reading and help build a wide and rich vocabulary ready for Year 6. We will also use non-fiction texts about the Anglo Saxons and Vikings to help the children locate information quickly and effectively and present their findings in lots of different ways.

In our writing lessons we will continue to build the children's skills by looking at a number of different genres: persuasive, narrative, balanced arguments and poetry. We will continue to develop the children's writing skills by looking at including relative clauses, parenthesis, cohesive devices such as adverbs and modal verbs and fronted adverbials and making sure that we include these in our independent writing. 

How can I support my child in English?

By far, the most important thing to help support English is time spent reading. Reading is an essential part of your child’s learning and progress. It is vital that children discover books they enjoy and as their parents/carers you can support them in this. We have attached a list ‘100 books to try and read before you leave Y6’ to help children in their selection if they wish. Many of these books we have in school for the children to borrow, and many are available at their local library. The expectation is that children read at home at least 3 times a week. Please sign your child’s reading diary to confirm that this is taking place.

Your child's reading book level is based on our assessment of their comprehension abilities. Being able to decode the words in the text is only one part of their reading. Once they are able to do this they can work on reading with expression and on achieving a deeper understanding of the story. You can help your child to develop their comprehension abilities by asking them questions about the story as you listen to them read. For example:

What has happened so far?

Can you predict what will happen next?

What do you think about the characters?

Are there any words you don't know?

How do you think the characters feel?

Book Bands

Spellings

In Y5, children are expected to know how to spell all the Y3/4 spellings and begin to learn the Y5/6 spellings (see below). Please support your child in learning these words.