Reading

At the beginning of Term Four, students will be exploring procedural texts. They will be exposed to various mediums, including written, verbal and visual procedures. Students will analyse procedural texts for their purpose, audience, structure and language and compare their levels of engagement between a variety of procedures. They will develop an understanding that recipes, games, science experiments, instructions and manuals are all types of procedural texts. Towards the end of Term Four, students will revisit and deepen their prior knowledge of narratives by analysing them for their plot, theme and character development. Students will utilise the CAFE reading strategies and their personalised goals to help improve their reading skills.

To support your child with their reading development, you might find the following tasks helpful:

• Remind your child that it is an expectation that they read for at least fifteen minutes each night. Encourage them to read out aloud at times, to improve their accuracy and fluency skills. 
• To deepen their comprehension skills, the following questions might be helpful: 
  “What do you predict will happen next? Justify your prediction.”
  “What was the problem? How was the problem solved?”
  “What do you think the message of the story is?”
• Go on a ‘Procedure Hunt’ around the home. What types of procedures can you find? (Instructions, manuals, recipe books, etc.) Analyse the different procedures for their precise word choice.
• Provide opportunities for your child to follow a procedure and experience what it is like to follow a recipe, build furniture, follow the rules of a game, etc. Reflect on the experience with them by asking questions such as, “Were these instructions easy to follow?” “Did the verbs help you with what you had to do?”