Vocabulary and non-fiction texts

Across the board in LS1, but especially among the lower ability readers, there seems to be a big deficit in vocabulary (in all learning areas). To alleviate the deficit this year, Grant and I are explicitly teaching new vocabulary to students and making them use it in context to strengthen the understanding.

I have also made a push in reading to read non-fiction books on a wide range of topics. Many of the topics are ones the children have never come across or talked about in detail. Coupled with explicit vocabulary teaching, I hope this will expand the children's prior knowledge and vocabulary.

To work in conjunction with the reading of non fiction texts, I have a series of tasks for students to complete after reading a text. The tasks range from simple tasks that would be used in the junior school to more complex tasks such as creating a hierarchy graph of ideas in the text.