'An absolute must-have for any Year 3 teacher.' Louise Rayner, English Specialist Leader of Education An exciting reading comprehension resource from Andrew Jennings (@VocabularyNinja), the creator of the hugely popular Write Like a Ninja, Vocabulary Ninja and Comprehension Ninja: Non-Fiction series. This photocopiable resource contains 24 immersive and imaginative fiction and poetry texts from acclaimed writers including Roald Dahl, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Patrice Lawrence and Pamela Butchart, as well as original texts by Adam Bushnell and Andrew Jennings aligned to the National Curriculum. Each is accompanied by differentiated activities and answers to boost retrieval skills and help pupils become fully fledged Comprehension Ninjas! Ideal for KS2 SATs practice, the reading texts are high-quality and rich in vocabulary. They cover a range of genres including historical fiction, sci-fi, contemporary stories, adventure, traditional tales and poetry. If you're searching for engaging resources to help pupils practise comprehension strategies and question types such as skim and scan, true or false, draw and label, find and copy, fill in the gap, sequencing and multiple choice, Comprehension Ninja for Ages 7-8: Fiction & Poetry is the book for you. For more must-have Ninja books, check out the Vocabulary Ninja and Comprehension Ninja classroom and home learning resources.

How to Write Poems is packed with exciting activities to get your pen flowing! Make poems out of leaves, carve out a mud poem, go on an outdoors simile hunt, and play poetry games in the playground. Whether you already write poems, you've never written before, or you're not even sure what a poem is - this is the book for you. Full of useful tips and starting points, How to Write Poems will make you chuckle, make you think, and inspire you to write your own poetry. Join the Children's Laureate, Joseph Coelho, as he explores a mind-boggling selection of poetry: from laughable limericks to poetic puns, and from ridiculous rhymes to silly sibilance. Pick up this book, grab a pen, and get going!

Struggling readers need personalized, focused, and assessment-driven instruction. In other words, they need interventions that work. Cooper, Chard, and Kiger provide those interventions in this essential resource. Covering the most important aspects of literacy-- oral language, phonemic awareness, word recognition, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing--the authors organize the interventions around a classroom-tested framework for assessing students, diagnosing their needs, teaching them based on findings, and reassessing them to determine whether more instruction, practice, or application are needed.

Pinpoint is a series of activities and resources created to provide you with highly focused resources for specific needs in English. 144 page photocopiable book, A4 size Questions and mark scheme based on style of Reading SATs Mixture of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts 20 units containing a text extract and differentiated practice at 3 levels to provide challenge for all Focus on higher order skills and a wide range of comprehension strategies Saves teachers time searching for engaging texts with carefully levelled practice Promotes stamina with the inclusion of longer extracts This book provides confidence-building, independent activities for Year 4 / P5 that help children to master a wide range of comprehension strategies. The resources are photocopiable to allow repeated use year-on-year. The book comprises 20 curriculum-matched units that follow the principles of scaffolded practice by reducing the support as children grow in confidence. SATs style questions are mapped to the KS2 content domains. The Pinpoint characters provide friendly hints and tips. Contains a good mix of contemporary and classic fiction, stimulating non-fiction and engaging poetry. The comprehensive mark scheme provides answers and commonly made mistakes.

Historical fiction has surged in popularity in recent years, with new subgenres emerging (e.g. Viking romance, religious thrillers) and reader interest showing no signs of slowing down. This follow-up to Johnson's critically acclaimed guide published in 2005 covers new territory by focusing on English-language historical novels for adults published between mid-2004 and mid-2008, in particular those commonly found in American public library collections. The author's unique approach involves classifying titles by subgenres, rather than strictly by geography and chronology; thereby grouping read-alikes together. It gives users a deeper understanding of the genre, an update on new titles, and an easy way to identify read-alikes and book club selections for library patrons. More than 2700 historical fiction titles, about 2,000 new to this volume, are organized and described.

This bestselling resource has been fully updated, putting formative assessment at the heart of the Talk for Writing process and showing how to help children love writing across the curriculum. By helping children speak the language of non-fiction in a fun engaging way before they attempt to write, the Talk for Writing approach builds children's confidence and linguistic ability enabling them to craft their own writing. In the new edition, this practical resource offers: * Fully worked, tried and tested examples of how to apply Talk for Writing to each non-fiction text type * A wide range of fun activities helping children internalise how to express and link text effectively * A process that co-constructs learning so that children learn how to structure text and create toolkits of key ingredients * Guidance for teachers in England on how to apply the approach across the primary curriculum * An OLC including new footage of Pie Corbett demonstrating Talk for Writing and new footage of classes engaged in the approach * Advice on how to use the DVD and handouts to train all staff in the approach * Evidence of impact from cold to hot tasks Designed for busy teachers, Talk for Writing across the Curriculum, second edition, will help transform children's writing and attainment across the curriculum. "This book celebrates the importance of talk in becoming and growing as a writer: talk to share ideas; talk to analyse text; talk to co-construct writing; and to talk to evaluate writing. Throughout the book constantly underlines the importance of talk for learning and the many creative and rich ways talk can be used to help young writers internalise the rhythms and patterns of text. Full of practical ideas and activities, the teaching combines being creative and being critical in a wholly integrated way. An invaluable resource for primary school teachers!" Debra Myhill, Professor of Education at the University of Exeter, UK "The teaching of reading has always taken priority in policy and practice in literacy. Pie Corbett and Julia Strong have produced a very welcome counterweight to that dominance in their Talk for Writing Across the Curriculum. It is so refreshing to see suggestions for teaching to bring elements of language together, especially when done in such an entertaining and engaging way as this. This new edition makes a 'classic' even better." David Wray, Emeritus Professor, University of Warwick, UK "This latest update of Pie and Julia's best-selling book reflects changes in the curriculum, strengthening the T4W approach, using cold and hot tasks, showing new worked examples of how to apply T4W to each non-fiction type and placing formative assessment at the heart of the process. It is exciting to see how all the best ideas and findings in education are converging, evidenced in this latest 'up to the minute' excellent publication." Shirley Clarke, Formative Assessment Expert

The Blount Guide A logical phonetic manual for: 1. - Parents and teachers of reading to small children. 2. - Foreigners who wish to pronounce English correctly with instructions in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Japanese and German. 3. - Spelling teachers. 4. - Writers of books for children who need to know which words are appropriate for which level reading. 5. - Teachers of children with learning disabilities. 6. - Computer programmers who wish to program their computers to teach reading and spelling.

Time is running out for the villagers of Simbi - they need to find a new source of water, and fast! One day, Ramata hears an old woman singing and realises that the lyrics have a hidden meaning. Ramata bravely sets off into the desert with her grandmother, her cousin and the very last bottle of water in the village. Will they be able to solve the riddle of the song and find water in time? Part of the Bug Club reading series used in over 3500 schools Helps your child develop reading fluency and confidence Suitable for children age 8-9 (Year 4)

With the signature wit and humor that have garnered him legions of fans, award-winning author Jack Gantos instructs young writers on using their "writing radar" to find story ideas in their own lives. Charting his own misadventures as an adolescent writer, Gantos inspires readers to build confidence and establish good writing habits as they create, revise, and perfect their stories. Pop-out text boxes highlight key tips, alongside dozens of Gantos's own hilarious illustrations and original stories. More than just a how-to guide, Writing Radar is a celebration of the power of storytelling and an ode to the characters who - many unwittingly - inspired Gantos's own writing career.

As the Forest School movement gains popularity among UK educators, teachers are increasingly recognising the benefits of creative outdoor play. But how can busy primary school teachers fit regular, high quality outdoor learning into an already crowded timetable? How can they plan a range of rich, imaginative and creative experiences that build up into full topics? And how can they translate the excitement and engagement that they find out doors into increased enthusiasm and attainment indoors?

Learning on Your Doorstep integrates creative outdoor play with curricular attainment, while increasing the challenge, enjoyment and professional development of the teachers using it. The book presents a series of topics which channel the children s outdoor experience into writing outcomes to reflect the current Primary Framework for Literacy. Using child-led, kinaesthetic teaching and learning techniques, each topic helps teacher and class build an imaginary world to explore and includes:

• Session plan tables to enable teachers to easily access relevant information;
• collaborative activities, games and drama to stimulate discussion;
• photo-copiable items such as letters, imaginary maps and animal fact jigsaws;
• optional classroom follow-up activities and a final writing task;
• tips on how to prepare and resource each session.

Guidance on adapting for different abilities and ages is also given, along with curriculum links and pedagogical rationale, to let primary teachers put creative outdoor play at the centre of the primary teaching timetable.

The ideas in this book are suitable for implementation in any school environment, using resources commonly found in the stock cupboard or home. All you will need to add is some preparation and imagination

These engaging Storybooks provide structured practice for children learning to read the Read Write Inc. Set 1 sounds. Each set of books is carefully levelled to match childrens growing phonic knowledge so children can read them with accuracy, fluency and comprehension. The Storybooks include a range of engaging stories such as fairy tales, myths and legends, rhyming stories and familiar settings. Activities at the start of the books help children to practise the sounds and words they will encounter in the story. Questions to talk about at the end of the story provide an extra opportunity for developing childrens comprehension. The books are part of the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, developed by Ruth Miskin. The programme is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. It includes Handbooks, Sounds Cards, Word Cards, Storybooks, Non-fiction, Writing books and an Online resource. Read Write Inc. is fully supported by comprehensive professional development from Ruth Miskin Training.

Despite the efforts of teachers and educators, every year secondary schools across the English-speaking world turn out millions of functionally illiterate leavers. The costs in human misery and in wasted productivity are catastrophic. What can schools do to prevent this situation? In this highly accessible book James and Dianne Murphy combine more than 50 years of experience to provide teachers with a thorough, easy to use introduction to the extensive research on reading and its effects on student achievement. Drawing on the work of experts from around the world, the authors explore how we learn to read, how the many myths and misconceptions around reading developed, and why they continue to persist.Building on these foundations chapters go on to examine how the general secondary school classroom can support all levels of reading more effectively, regardless of subject; how school leaders can ensure that their systems, practices and school culture deliver the very best literacy provision for all students; and what it takes to ensure that a racing intervention aimed at adolescent struggling readers is truly effective. The overall message of this books is one of great optimism: the authors demonstrate that the right of every child to learn to read is entirely achievable if schools employ the best research-driven practice.

The Spelling & Vocabulary series provides a complete and comprehensive course building a child's spelling and vocabulary expertise. Working through the series will give your child a working vocabulary of more than 5,400 words. The series helps prepare children for the GL Assessment and CEM 11+ exams, SATs, CATs, the Northern Ireland Transfer Test, Common Entrance and scholarship examinations for independent schools, and all other styles of verbal reasoning/ability and English tests. This series of books is designed to be used in sequence and is divided into three levels: Foundation (Workbooks 1-3) for children aged 7 to 9 Intermediate (Workbooks 4-7) for children aged 8 to 10 Advanced (Workbooks 8-12) for children aged 9 to 12 We recommend older children who face challenges in spelling and vocabulary work from Workbook 1 to ensure that there are no gaps in their understanding and their skills are built progressively. Children with more developed skills could begin with the Intermediate or Advanced series. All our materials have been rigorously classroom tested. The methodologies have been successfully used in AE Tuition classes for over 20 years.

Boost pupils' writing skills with CGP's Writing Targeted Question Book for Year 4! It's packed with engaging activities and extracts covering fiction and non-fiction genres. What's more, it all supports the 'composition' elements of the National Curriculum. Answers and hints are included, alongside a range of free online texts with annotations (downloadable from the CGP website) to use for inspiration.

These engaging Storybooks provide structured practice for children learning to read the Read Write Inc. Set 1 and 2 sounds. Each set of books is carefully levelled to match childrens growing phonic knowledge so children can read them with accuracy, fluency and comprehension. The Storybooks include a range of engaging stories such as fairy tales, myths and legends, rhyming stories and familiar settings. Activities at the start of the books help children to practise the sounds and words they will encounter in the story. Questions to talk about at the end of the story provide an extra opportunity for developing childrens comprehension. The books are part of the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, developed by Ruth Miskin. The programme is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. It includes Handbooks, Sounds Cards, Word Cards, Storybooks, Non-fiction, Writing books and an Online resource. Read Write Inc. is fully supported by comprehensive professional development from Ruth Miskin Training.