English

Writing

This term, we will be revisiting the writing of narratives. We will review the language features of a narrative such as alliteration, similes, triples, onomatopoeia, metaphors, personification, emotive language, and rhetorical questions. We will also revise strategies taught for planning and structuring a narrative such as developing story graphs. We will extend this knowledge by teaching the students to incorporate a double plot in their graph. Also, we will focus on character development in terms of understanding who their characters are and how they think and interact and how this can engage the reader. During the first week of term, the students will complete a cool write assessment task. This will provide the students with feedback on what they have learnt this year and what goals they need to set to further develop their writing skills.

The students will continue to focus on secretarial skills and apply a proofreading/editing checklist to check their work. To support their writing, the students will review nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and will revise how to use quotation marks for direct speech. 

The students will work on a structured spelling program exploring homonyms, morphographs (prefixes and suffixes), vowels, consonants, and spelling rules. The students, through their writing, will continue to revisit plural rules, usuallies and personal spelling words.

Reading

During reading sessions, the students will revise skills in plotting the story on a line graph, use clues in terms of the title, setting, interactions with characters and specific events in the story to identify the problem/ problems in the story. This will include stories with more than one plot.

Analysing characters will be a focus this term. The learning focus will be to think critically and notice what is happening to the character and how the character might be feeling as the story progresses. The students will identify events that cause the character to have varied emotions and reactions and will be encouraged to classify these feelings as either positive or negative. The students, as they are reading, will be encouraged to imagine themselves in the shoes of each character. Students will use the ‘Think Aloud ‘strategy where they will pay attention to what they are thinking when they predict, question, clarify and summarise.

This term, the learning focus will be to introduce reciprocal reading groups and to learn the essential skills of predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarising to develop a deeper understanding of the text. Students will engage with activities to develop each of these skills and will learn to support their understanding with evidence from the text. They will revisit the use of imagery and learn to infer when making predictions.

Speaking and Listening

Students will have the opportunity to improve their speaking and listening skills through collaborative group work and through reciprocal reading. To develop an understanding of plot and character and to develop performing skills in bringing a script to life, the students will engage with Reader’s Theatre. This term the students will continue to work in reciprocal reading groups and apply their skills in predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarising to engage in rich conversations about texts and develop their comprehension skills. 

NAPLAN

This term, students will engage with practice tests in all areas of English, Reading, Language Conventions and Writing.