Year 3 – Supporting Children in English

• Supports home learning

Reading and Comprehension

Word reading:

• Practise recognising Year 3/4 words by playing games. For example, make up silly sentences with them. You can find a list of Year 3/4 words at the end of the ‘I Can Statements’ resource.
• Encourage the use of phonics and known words to decipher unknown words, as well as the context of the writing and checking for sense.

Comprehension:

• Expose children to a range of books – find ones that interest and excite them.
• Explore the VIPERS/Reading Content Domains approach to comprehension questions. This approach offers lots of ideas to get children thinking about what they read and what is read to them.
• Ask questions about books without interrupting the flow.
• Model reading aloud, using voices and expression, and correct yourself openly – this teaches children to correct themselves, which is a sign that they understand the text they are reading as they know when it doesn’t make sense! This is a sign of a good reader.
• Question yourself sometimes around word meanings or plot elements – ask a question out loud and work through how you are answering it.
• Inference questions are some of the hardest to answer. Model them/do them together – look for clues in the text, explaining that these require a detective mode. You can find a definition and examples of inference questions in this slideshow.