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Welcome!

Lower Key Stage 2

English Curriculum

Evening

Overview of Coverage

Reading Writing

SPaG Speaking &

Listening

SPaG

Spelling

Punctuation

Grammar

Importance of SPaG

The SPaG element of the curriculum was

brought in a couple of years ago by the

government as a way of testing Year 6 on their

understanding of grammatical knowledge.

Focused SPaG lessons

English lesson starters focused on this

Phonics/Support for Spelling

High expectations within lessons and in marking

of books

Coverage

Please take a copy of the SPaG

expectations.

SPaG is taught discretely and also

within units of work alongside other

objectives.

For example a lesson focus might be

giving clear instructions and within that

we would address imperative verbs.

SPaG Questions

You can find a lot

of useful resources

online.

One aspect that is vitally important is spelling.

This counts for a considerable amount of

marks when assessing work.

Therefore we need to ensure we pick up on

incorrect spellings and correct them so they

are not learnt incorrectly.

It is hard to undo spelling if they have learnt

to spell the word incorrectly for years.

We encourage them to do dots if unsure of

how to spell a word then look it up after.

Spelling lists The new

interim

assessment

document for

2016 states

that in order

to meet

national

standard

children must

be able to read

and spell all of

these words.

Spelling…

• Weekly spellings – it

is important to

support your child.

Be aware of what

rule they are learning

so you can point out

the spelling patterns

when you hear them

read.

Learning the rule

for spellings allows

children to then

apply to a range of

words and

therefore gives

them more skills

for later life.

Spelling…

• www.theschoolrun.com/teachers-tricks-make-

spelling-easy

• This is a really useful website for providing

you with a range of strategies for learning

spellings at home.

• Remember that we are focusing on the rules

and patterns within the English language

rather than just a test of memory.

Reading

Read every night for 10-15 minutes and tick

on the calendar. Please aim to add a comment

once a week.

Ensure you are asking good comprehension

questions.

Reading

It is still vitally important for your

child to read every night as although

they may be able to read all of the

words on the page, there may be some

gaps in their understanding.

Dictionaries and thesauruses are a

useful tool in aiding children’s

understanding of words.

Although children can be competent

readers in KS2, it is good for children to

have stories to read to them to get ideas

for their writing and also to hear how to

adopt a story telling voice.

Reading

Although children can be competent

readers in KS2, it is still important

for children to have stories that are

above their reading level read to them.

This is so that they get advanced ideas

for their writing and also to hear how

to adopt a story telling voice. In

addition this assists comprehension.

Reading

Ensure your child reads a variety of

genres, use our library and the local

library.

In the reading diaries there is a grid

for them to record what genres

they have read.

Reading

The quality of the texts is also vital.

Although children enjoy reading books such as

Diary of a Wimpy kid, Dork Diaries etc. The

content as found in Ottaline, Iron Man,

Michael Morpurgo are much more valuable for

children to read and understand as they can

magpie high quality writing techniques as well

as varied vocabulary.

Reading Model

Comprehension questions

Just because your child may be a fluent word

reader, does not mean they are ‘good’

comprehenders.

It is important to make sure you are testing

comprehension via meaningful and worthwhile

questioning.

The reading scheme assesses both fluency and

comprehension and therefore as your child

becomes more confident they may spend longer

on a colour band than they have done before.

This is perfectly normal.

What sort of questions should I be

asking my child to help them

improve?

See sentence stems in pack.

Comprehension questions

Understand, describe, retrieve

Which word

is used to

describe

how Mrs

Twit went

into the

garden?

Deduce, Infer, Interpret

What kind of

person is Mrs

Twit? What

makes you

think this?

What

evidence can

you find to

prove this?

Structure and organisation of text

What do you

notice about

how the

dialogue is

presented?

Explain and comment on the writer’s

use of language?

Why do you

think the

author used

a variety of

sentence

lengths in

the last

paragraph?

Purpose and viewpoint

Who’s your

favourite

character and

why?

Writing

It is essential that teaching develops pupils’

competence in transcription (spelling and handwriting)

and composition (articulating ideas and structuring

them in speech and writing). In addition, pupils should

be taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their

writing. These aspects of writing have been

incorporated into the programmes of study for

composition.

Year 3 and 4 cover the following

areas:

Narrative- which includes play-scripts, myths and

legends, stories from other cultures, traditional

stories and stories with flashbacks.

Non Fiction- which includes instructions,

explanations, reports, diaries, recounts and

persuasive texts.

Poetry

In order to be a ‘good’ writer they have to be

able to write in all these genres and use the correct

features.

Writing cycle

How do we start?

We start with a stimulus, and this

might be:

• A book (fiction or non-fiction)

• Poem

• A clip from a film

• A photograph or painting

• A piece of music or an object

Inspiration

https://www.literacyshed.com/diving-

giraffes.html

Potential Activities

Write a news report of the event.

Describe the giraffe in detail.

Use show not tell throughout, describing

all that happens as if it is a human and

then reveal at the end that it is in fact

a giraffe.

Write through the eyes of the giraffe.

Children were given this picture

and the following story opener

and asked to continue the story

on.

The scuttling noise had disturbed

Michael, and he’d shot bolt

upright in bed. After taking a

deep breath, he flung himself

onto the smooth wooden boards

of his bedroom floor and took a

peek…

Insert year 5/6

The link between reading and writing

Children cannot write a certain text type without

having experienced it first. Therefore, writing is

always preceded by:

• Reading a text that will support their writing

• Looking at ‘good models’ of the text

• Using this as a tool to teach reading

comprehension

• Collecting helpful words or phrases

• Magpie ideas from others and discussions

Writing

Before children are expected to write a piece they

will go through a process.

•Modelled writing, shared writing, paired writing,

group writing.

•By this point the children are very much

prepared to produce a piece of writing of a high

level.

•They will have learnt new words and phrases,

worked on punctuation and sentence structure,

interlinked SPaG and studied ‘good’ examples of

texts.

The whole process is covered over

several weeks.

It will be documented in various

forms in their books and children will

be confident in what they will be

doing!

The final process of our writing cycle

is a chance for children to show that

they can apply the skills taught over

the unit independently and write a

further piece of writing in that

genre style.

We encourage VCOP in all

writing!

Display photo

Ask your child about VCOP!

V- VOCABULARY or adjectives!

C- CONNECTIVES/CONJUNCTIONS – once, after, besides, however…

O- OPENERS – connectives, -ly words, -ing words

P- PUNCTUATION

How to help your child to write

Copy some sentences from a book and get them to underline

either the main or subordinate clause.

Write down some unpunctuated sentences for your child to

punctuate correctly.

Call out a word and ask your child to tell you a synonym (a word

that means the same) or an antonym (a word that means the

opposite).

When writing letters or emails, encourage your child to add an

adjective or adverb to a sentence (e.g. ‘Thank you for

my wonderful birthday present’)

Encourage your child to learn a poem

off by heart – this develops speaking

and listening and recital skills.

Make their own

poems/stories/adventures.

Writing…make it real!

• Thank you letters

• Lists- Christmas

and birthdays.

• Postcards

• Pen-pals

• E-mails to friends

or relatives

• Keep a diary

• Blogging

• Letter of

complaint

• Website

• A sport report

• Newspaper or

newsletter

• Holiday brochure

• Recipe

Try to keep it fun!

If it isn’t working, abandon it

and try again another time!