The Level 3 Biff, Chip and Kipper Stories, written by Roderick Hunt and illustrated by Alex Brychta, provide a rich story context to help develop language comprehension and decoding skills. Stories, More Stories A and More Stories B build on the reading skills from Level 2 and are slightly longer. First Sentences include a range of high frequency vocabulary with repetitive text to continue to build fluency. Books contain inside cover notes to support children in their reading. Help with childrens reading development is also available at www.oxfordowl.co.uk.

Teaching for Mastery in Writing provides a practical approach to developing mastery in writing which helps all primary children to develop their skills and inspires a love of writing. This innovative book follows an approach that integrates mastery into existing teaching sequences - an approach which aims to improve the writing ability of all children, not just the more able. Writing is a tough discipline for children in today's primary schools. The number of skills they are expected to learn is a source of amazement to many adults outside education. It is no easier to teach, not least because of the many and varied demands on schools, including the National Curriculum, SPaG tests, assessment frameworks and inspections. Now, more than ever, it is crucial that teachers focus on helping children become the most effective communicators they can be through the medium of writing. Throughout the book, Mike Cain promotes the importance of a classroom culture characterised by focused talk and reasoning, and provides lots of ideas for challenging children in their writing through the development of key learning dispositions and critical thinking skills.

Join the fun adventures of Inky Mouse and her friends. Follow them through seven stories as they learn the 42 letter sounds in this beautifully illustrated board book. A large letter is embossed on each spread, so that formation can be felt by little fingers. Each spread has a number of words for reading and for spelling, along with the Jolly Phonics action.

"This product will save teachers hours of time planning and differentiating reading and comprehension activities." Primary teacher Help children master core English skills required for success at school and beyond. Matched to the curriculum, our acclaimed Scholastic English Skills series is full of easy ways to teach the essentials. An ideal English toolkit for the primary years Gets children speaking, reading and writing confidently Tackles common problems that hold back progress Saves time with inspiring ready-made lesson ideas, activities and posters Includes detailed background knowledge and teacher notes Key comprehension skills are covered chapter by chapter, including predicting, clarifying and questioning. Real non-fiction and fiction texts are used throughout and are leveled by reading ages for differentiation. >A review chapter offers children a chance to practice all their skills. The CD-ROM contains interactive activities for the whiteboard, perfect for starter or plenary activities Use this comprehension teacher's book, along with the linked pupil workbook, to help children understand what they read and hear. The content includes summarising texts, predicting, scanning for meaning, interpreting characters and much more. (Previously published under the Scholastic Literacy Skills series)

Host family reading nights at your school These events promote literacy outside of the classroom and encourage families to get involved in their children s achievement. They also build relationships among educators, families, and community partners. This practical book is full of step-by-step guidelines and reproducible activities to help you bring family reading nights to life in your own school or district.

Special Features:

• The book is organized by month of the school year, so you can quickly find activities that meet your needs
• Each activity is easy to implement and includes a page of instructions for teacher-leaders and an activity page for families
• An appendix provides all of the forms you need to get your Family Reading Night started, including invitations and registration sheets
• All of the family activities can be photocopied or downloaded for free from our website, www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138021471, so that you can print and distribute them during your event

This enhanced second edition includes connections to the Common Core State Standards for reading. It also features a special new appendix with all of the family activities translated into Spanish, to help more families get involved "

The ultimate aim of reading is not the process but to understand what we read and comprehension can take place at many different levels. There has been an increasing emphasis on the importance of reading comprehension in recent years but despite this there is very little written on this vital topic accessible to trainee and practicing teachers. The Handbook of Reading Comprehension presents an overview of recent findings on reading comprehension and comprehension problems in children. It provides a detailed examination of the characteristics of children who have reading comprehension difficulties, and examines ways in which comprehension can be supported and improved. It is accessibly written for students and professionals with no previous background in the psychology of reading or reading problems. This indispensable handbook asks the question 'what is comprehension?' The authors consider comprehension of different units of language: understanding single words, sentences, and connected prose and outline what readers (and listeners) have to do to successfully understand an extended text. This book also considers comprehension for different purposes, in particular reading for pleasure and reading to learn and explores how reader characteristics such as interest and motivation can influence the comprehension process. Different skills contribute to successful reading comprehension. These include word reading ability, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic skills, memory, and discourse level skills such as the ability to make inferences, knowledge about text structure, and metacognitive skills. The authors discuss how each one contributes to the development of reading comprehension skill and how the development of these skills (or their precursors) in pre-readers, provides the foundation for reading comprehension development. Areas covered include:- Word reading and comprehension Development of comprehension skills Comprehension difficulties Assessment Teaching for improvement Throughout the text successful experimental and classroom based interventions will be highlighted, practical tips for teachers and summary boxes detailing key points and explaining technical terms will be included in each chapter

Host family reading nights at your school These events promote literacy outside of the classroom and encourage families to get involved in their children s achievement. They also build relationships among educators, families, and community partners. This practical book is full of step-by-step guidelines and reproducible activities to help you bring family reading nights to life in your own school or district.

Special Features:

• The book is organized by month of the school year, so you can quickly find activities that meet your needs
• Each activity is easy to implement and includes a page of instructions for teacher-leaders and an activity page for families
• An appendix provides all of the forms you need to get your Family Reading Night started, including invitations and registration sheets
• All of the family activities can be photocopied or downloaded for free from our website, www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138021471, so that you can print and distribute them during your event

This enhanced second edition includes connections to the Common Core State Standards for reading. It also features a special new appendix with all of the family activities translated into Spanish, to help more families get involved "

Now in an updated second edition How to Teach Writing Across the Curriculum: Ages 6-8 provides a range of practical suggestions for teaching non-fiction writing skills and linking them to children s learning across the entire curriculum. Providing a number of suggestions for teachers and putting emphasis on creative approaches to teaching children writing in diverse and innovative ways, it provides:

• techniques for using speaking and listening, drama and games to prepare for writing
• suggestions for the use of cross-curricular learning as a basis for writing
• planning frameworks and skeletons to promote thinking skills
• information on key language features of non-fiction texts
• examples of non-fiction writing
• guidance on the process of creating writing from note-making.

With new hints and tips for teachers and suggestions for reflective practice, How to Teach Writing Across the Curriculum: Ages 6-8 will equip teachers with all the skills and materials needed to create enthusiastic non-fiction writers in their primary classroom.

The Key to Yellow Workbook gives clear, thoroughly-explained answers to all exercises in the Yellow Workbook, one of four non-sequential books in the Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind series, providing detailed, well-designed exercises in the correct use of English grammar. The Key, along with the accompanying Yellow Workbook and the Core Instructor Text, make up Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind: a complete course that takes students from basic definitions ("A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea") through advanced sentence structure and analysis, all the grammar skills needed to write and speak with eloquence and confidence. This innovative program combines the three essential elements of language learning: understanding and memorizing rules (prescriptive teaching), repeated exposure to examples of how those rules are used (descriptive instruction), and practice using those rules in exercises and in writing (practical experience). Each year, parents and teachers go through the dialogue, rules, and examples in the Core Instructor Text; students follow along in the Workbook. This repetition solidifies the concepts, definitions, and examples in the student's mind. There are four Workbooks, one for each year. Each Workbook contains the same rules and examples, but four completely different sets of exercises and assignments, allowing students to develop a wide-ranging knowledge of how the rules and examples are put to use in writing. Each Key to the Workbooks provides not only answers, but also explanations for the parent/instructor, and guidance as to when the answers might be ambiguous (as, in English, they often are). All of the rules covered, along with the repeated examples for each, are assembled for ongoing reference in The Grammar Guidebook. Every step of the sentence diagramming process is gathered for reference, along with illustrations, in The Diagramming Dictionary. These will become the student's indispensable guide to writing through high school, into college and beyond. Step-by-step instruction takes students from the most basic concepts through advanced grammatical concepts such as modal and hortative verbs and multiple functions of noun clauses. Extensive diagramming exercises reinforce the rules and help technical and visual learners to understand and use the English language effectively. Each step of the diagramming process is illustrated and thoroughly explained to the student. Text for examples and exercises are drawn from great works of literature, as well as from well-written nonfiction texts in science, mathematics, and the social sciences. Regular review is built into each year of work. The Key accompanies one of four non-sequential workbooks, each containing new exercises that allow students to practice and apply the grammar principles under study.

"It is a great resource, not only for self-study, but in the classroom too, covering those tricky questions which often trip up even the most able children. It gives lots of practice in answering these questions and suggestions as to how to go about inferring answers." Carole Wileman, Teacher DIGGING DEEPER FOR SATs SUCCESS! The SATs Challenge pack will give your confident children the chance to extend and develop their understanding on their way to greater success. This series will help you to extend your children's learning to help them to work at greater depth. A complete solution to challenge your children to work at mastery level. The Workbook provides topic targeted practice in the run up to the National Tests or at any time through the year! The Topic Assessment Book provides short topic tests as well as longer tests to offer a variety of challenging SATs style practice to help monitor progress and identify areas for potential strengthening and deepening of understanding. Support children to reach their full potential Develop and deepen children's understanding Stretch and challenge confident learners Track progress and familiarise children with the test format Aim higher for SATs success! (Items not sold separately)

Writing History 7-11 supports students and primary teachers helping them to explore ways in which activities involving the talk that underpins historical enquiry can be developed into reading and exciting, extended, reflective writing. The step that teachers and pupils take from 'talk for learning' to 'talk for writing' is a vital one. In this book the authors argue that all aspects of historical enquiry leading to writing involve discussion and dialogue which permeate every aspect of 'doing history'. From this perspective they set out a theoretical framework for understanding the role of talk and reading in developing pupils' critical thinking and confident reflective writing, then demonstrate through a series of case studies, in which teachers, university lecturers and pupils work together, how the theory is put into practice in the classroom. Themes include: How to support children in writing in a variety of interesting genres How to make links between the National Curriculum (2013) for History and for English How to plan for breadth and depth studies in the new National Curriculum How activities in History 5 - 11 can be developed into exciting extended writing The second half of the book draws upon case studies from a number of real primary classrooms with children of different ages. Each case study shows how teaching was planned to develop children's confidence and enjoyment in discussion and to scaffold reasoned, written explanation and argument. Topics presented are all relevant to the new curriculum framework and include talking and reading about: Time, change and significance over 6000 years - writing a television script Celtic Britain and the Roman Army - writing a travel brochure about Celtic Britain The destruction of Roman towns - writing a Saxon poem An archaeological investigation of a body in a Danish peat bog - writing a newspaper report Did any countries benefit from WW11? - writing an argued viewpoint The expansion westwards of European settlers - writing a flap book exploring different perspectives. This indispensable book provides not only sources for pupils to use in their writing, but also models and exemplars of different styles and voices to draw upon.

As schools shift to the Common Core, many English language arts teachers are left with questions about how their classrooms should look. Is fiction out? Can I still do strategy instruction? Does close reading mean deliberating on each word? Finally, there's a resource with all of these answers and more. In Focus on Text, bestselling author Amy Benjamin provides practical guidance on how to realistically implement the Common Core reading standards. Part I of the book examines misconceptions about the standards and what's really required. It also takes you inside classrooms to see how teachers are modifying their instruction. Part II tackles each reading standard for grades 4-8. You'll learn how to teach the standards with literary and informational texts and how to use them as a springboard for instruction in writing, language, speaking, and listening. Topics include... * Defining close reading and how is it different from word-by-word reading. When and how do students need to go over a text meticulously? * How to use scaffolding through background knowledge to help students with challenging texts * The best instructional practices to help students increase their range of reading and level of text complexity * Ideas for teaching key concepts such as text structure, point of view, theme, stated and implied meanings, and the progression of ideas and characters * Tweaking your assessments to better align with the Common Core--how to create reading check quizzes, unit tests, and cold reading tests to see if students are growing as readers. * And much, much more! Throughout the book, you'll find teaching tips and practical resources to use with students, such as question starters and sentence stems. You'll also get a wide variety of classroom examples at different grade levels and with different texts. Whether you're experienced with the Common Core or just getting started, this book will give you exciting new ideas for making them work in your own classroom so your students grow as readers!

Writing History 7-11 supports students and primary teachers helping them to explore ways in which activities involving the talk that underpins historical enquiry can be developed into reading and exciting, extended, reflective writing. The step that teachers and pupils take from 'talk for learning' to 'talk for writing' is a vital one. In this book the authors argue that all aspects of historical enquiry leading to writing involve discussion and dialogue which permeate every aspect of 'doing history'. From this perspective they set out a theoretical framework for understanding the role of talk and reading in developing pupils' critical thinking and confident reflective writing, then demonstrate through a series of case studies, in which teachers, university lecturers and pupils work together, how the theory is put into practice in the classroom. Themes include: How to support children in writing in a variety of interesting genres How to make links between the National Curriculum (2013) for History and for English How to plan for breadth and depth studies in the new National Curriculum How activities in History 5 - 11 can be developed into exciting extended writing The second half of the book draws upon case studies from a number of real primary classrooms with children of different ages. Each case study shows how teaching was planned to develop children's confidence and enjoyment in discussion and to scaffold reasoned, written explanation and argument. Topics presented are all relevant to the new curriculum framework and include talking and reading about: Time, change and significance over 6000 years - writing a television script Celtic Britain and the Roman Army - writing a travel brochure about Celtic Britain The destruction of Roman towns - writing a Saxon poem An archaeological investigation of a body in a Danish peat bog - writing a newspaper report Did any countries benefit from WW11? - writing an argued viewpoint The expansion westwards of European settlers - writing a flap book exploring different perspectives. This indispensable book provides not only sources for pupils to use in their writing, but also models and exemplars of different styles and voices to draw upon.

One photocopiable and editable teacher pack to assess reading progress and improve reading skills in KS3 English and help close gaps to aid reading recovery. Help every student become a confident reader with this systematic, evidence-based approach to developing reading skills in KS3 English in Years 7, 8 and 9. * Understand the latest research on reading and literacy to help teach students to develop the skills to become fluent readers * Model the reading process with a clear reading framework, purposeful reading and carefully designed questions on a range of texts * Save time with age-appropriate, diverse texts covering modern prose, non-fiction, pre-1914 prose and poetry * Access everything needed to identify and close precise knowledge gaps with extracts, short assessment tests, mark schemes, literacy skills grid and worksheets addressing key reading skills * Follow a consistent approach with nine tests, one per term for KS3, plus three supplementary tests for extra practice and flexibility * Provide targeted support for those furthest behind with further suggested texts and guidance Improve retention of new content from students marking, correcting and reflecting on their own work * Easy to weave into existing schemes of work with the flexible, customisable and supportive approach and Microsoft and Google compatible files

Level: KS1 Subject: English Fun and engaging quizzes to test children's phonics skills. A fun and easy way to test key skills taught at school Simple, clear layout with colourful illustrations Includes a motivating 'colour in your score' chart for every quiz Handy hints to help guide children through the quizzes Answers are included to help you to support children's learning at home

Boost literacy and develop close-reading skills with finely levelled short texts suitable for ages 6 to 11+. Each Teacher's book includes a comprehensive introduction along with Lexile levelled photocopiable texts with accompanying questions that use close reading comprehension strategies. Close reading involves careful study of a short text passage to build a deep, critical understanding of the text. By developing children's comprehension and higher-order thinking skills, you can help them make sense of the world. The Comprehension areas focused on include for the fiction titles: Character, Point of View, Setting/Mood, Key Events and Details, Sequence of events, Conflict & resolution, Context clues, Compare & contrast, Making inferences and Summarising. And for the non-fiction titles comprehension areas include: Main idea & details, Sequence of events, Fact & opinion, Compare & contrast, Cause and effect, Context clues, Problem & solution and summarising.

Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised has been developed in collaboration with Wandle Learning Trust and Little Sutton Primary School. It comprises classroom resources to support the SSP programme and a range of phonic readers that together provide a consistent and highly effective approach to teaching phonics. Witney and Boscoe find lost things, so when they see a dog has gone missing they grab their finding kit and head out to save her. But will it be as easy as they think? This funny adventure story is set in Trinidad and Tobago. Pages 22 and 23 allow children to re-visit the content of the book, supporting comprehension skills, vocabulary development and recall. Reading notes within the book provide practical support for reading with children, including a list of all the sounds and words that the book will cover.

Key Stage 2 Comprehension provides a unique collection of stimulating texts that appeal strongly to both boys and girls, together with questions that both build and stretch comprehension skills and widen vocabulary. Comprising four one-per-child activity books and providing more than 72 texts in total, the series encourages children to pay close attention to literal meaning, make inferences and deductions, observe how writing is structured and identify literary devices. A separate Teacher's Guide is also available. Book 3 encourages children to move beyond simple understanding and recall to look for more complex meanings. It includes: adventure stories from Roald Dahl, Mark Twain, Anthony Buckeridge and Kenneth Grahame, an inspiring biography of Falklands soldier Simon Weston, further non-fiction from Jacqueline Wilson and Emmeline Pankhurst, evocative poems from some of the best British poets (such as Lewis Carroll, Robert Browning and R.L. Stevenson), an appealing letter written by Stevenson as a teenager and an introduction to the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien and William Shakespeare.

The Level 5 Biff, Chip and Kipper Stories, written by Roderick Hunt and illustrated by Alex Brychta, provide a rich story context to help develop language comprehension and decoding skills. Stories, More Stories A, More Stories B and More Stories C take the children from familiar, predictable events at home and school into the less certain realms of fantasy through the magic key adventures. Books contain inside cover notes to support children in their reading. Help with childrens reading development is also available at www.oxfordowl.co.uk.

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 5 / P6 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.

At the heart of this inquiry into the ethical implications of education reform on reading practices in middle and secondary classrooms, the central question is what is lost, hidden, or marginalized in the name of progress? Drawing on her own experiences as an English teacher during the No Child Left Behind era, the author examines school cultures focused on meeting standards and measurable outcomes. She shows how genocide literature illuminates the ethics of reading and helps teachers and students rethink how literature should be taught in this modern, globalized era and the purposes of education more broadly.

The Common Core is placing a heavier emphasis on nonfiction, but that doesn't mean you have to give up your literature lessons! In this book, English teachers Stacey O'Reilly and Angie Stooksbury describe how you can combine nonfiction with fiction to meet the standards and give students a deeper understanding of what they are reading. This practical book provides a variety of nonfiction reading strategies as well as ready-to-implement lesson plans and text pairing suggestions. You will get... A variety of useful strategies to help students analyze nonfiction Sample units with step-by-step agendas and lesson plans Ready-to-use classroom handouts and rubrics for assessment Suggested text pairings across genres and time periods

Write Out of the Classroom is a ground-breaking, highly practical book which provides teachers and creative writing tutors with great ways of tapping into the huge inspirational and educational potential of the richly diverse world beyond the classroom walls.

Effective learning occurs when the process feels exciting, inspiring and real, and there is nothing more stimulating and real than the real world itself. Working with groups in interesting and evocative settings can generate exceptional participant involvement. Well-led locational brainstorming in such places increases vocabulary and produces an astonishing freshness of observation, ideas, language, plot and metaphor. Teachers commonly notice a quantum leap in writing quality arising from these sessions.

Based on the author s extensive experience in developing and leading out-of-classroom intelligent observation and writing workshops, this unique book steers educators through the subtleties of guiding thoughtful data collection sessions in varied environments; selecting appropriate and motivational places and forms of writing, and running sessions linked to specific creative and factual writing tasks.

The book covers the following areas and techniques and how they relate to out-of-classroom work:

• planning outings and choosing locations;
• leading language and ideas brainstorm sessions;
• descriptive poetry inspired by outdoor settings;
• reflective haikus, cinquains, and minimalist poetry;
• creating stunning plots and storylines;
• collective story writing;
• fictitious diary forms;
• descriptive travel writing;
• understanding poetry s mechanics and sound patterns;
• assisting students with editing.

This detailed, practical book" "also contains examples of remarkable student creative writing produced through these techniques, as well as photocopiable pages which include original examples of specific writing forms to model from, explanatory diagrams, helpful checklists and handy teachers crib sheets .

"

Write out of the Classroom" is the perfect insider's guide to teaching and inspiring creative writing. It is an essential tool for classroom teachers in both Primary and Secondary schools, creative writing tutors, literacy co-ordinators and PGCE students, as well as leaders in residential centres and forest schools.

Radically change the way students learn from texts, extending beyond comprehension to critical reasoning and problem solving. Is your reading comprehension instruction just a pile of strategies? There is no evidence that teaching one strategy at a time, especially with pieces of text that require that readers use a variety of strategies to successfully negotiate meaning, is effective. And how can we extend comprehension beyond simple meaning? Bestselling authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nicole Law propose a new, comprehensive model of reading instruction that goes beyond teaching skills to fostering engagement and motivation. Using a structured, three-pronged approach-skill, will, and thrill-students learn to experience reading as a purposeful act and embrace struggle as a natural part of the reading process. Instruction occurs in three phases: Skill. Holistically developing skills and strategies necessary for students to comprehend text, such as monitoring, predicting, summarizing, questioning, and inferring. Will. Creating the mindsets, motivations, and habits, including goal setting and choice, necessary for students to engage fully with texts. Thrill. Fostering the thrill of comprehension, so that students share their thinking with others or use their knowledge for something else. Comprehension is the structured framework you need to empower students to comprehend text and take action in the world.