Reading

Audible Stories

Free stories to listen to

The World Of David Walliams.

Click on this link, scroll down to elevenses and you will find a story each day to listen to.

Kath Bee

Listen to her sing songs and read stories 

Year 5/6 

Visual Literacy. This site has high quality films and animations. All of the films on the site we think are suitable for primary aged children although some films may not be suitable for younger children.

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New Entrant, Year 1/2

 Click on the picture to find 25 fun ways to learn the alphabet.

New Entrant, Year 1/2 or ESOL students.

Here are 50+ fantastic hands on alphabet activities. 

World of Words

Here are a few ways to create a home rich in words.

What you'll need:

• Paper
• Pencils, crayons, markers
• Glue
• Newspapers, magazines
• Safety scissors

What to do:

• Hang posters of the alphabet on the bedroom walls or make an alphabet poster with your child. Print the letters in large type. Capital letters are usually easier for young children to learn first.
• Label the things in your child's pictures. If your child draws a picture of a house, label it with "This is a house." and put it on the refrigerator.
• Have your child watch you write when you make a shopping list or a "what to do" list. Say the words aloud and carefully print each letter.
• Let your child make lists, too. Help your child form the letters and spell the words.
  Look at newspapers and magazines with your child. Find an interesting picture and show it to your child as you read the caption aloud.
• Create a scrapbook. Cut out pictures of people and places and label them.
• By exposing your child to words and letters often, your child will begin to recognise the shapes of letters. The world of words will become friendly.

Read to Me

It's important to read to your child, but equally important to listen to them read to you. Children thrive on having someone appreciate their developing skills.

What you'll need:

Books at your child's reading level

What to do:

• Listen carefully as your child reads.
• Take turns. You read a paragraph and have your child read the next one or you read half the page and your child reads the other half. As your child becomes more at ease with reading aloud, take turns reading a full page. Keep in mind that your child may be focusing more on how to read the words than what they mean, and your reading helps to keep the story alive.
• If your child has trouble reading words, you can help him or her in several ways:
• Ask the child to skip over the word, read the rest of the sentence, and then say what would make sense in the story for the missing word.
• Guide the child to use what he or she knows about letter sounds.
• Supply the correct word.
• Tell your child how proud you are of his or her efforts and skills.

Listening to your child read aloud provides opportunities for you to express appreciation of his or her new skills and for them to practice their reading. Most importantly, this is another way to enjoy reading together.

Story Talk

Talking about what you read is another way to help children develop language and thinking skills. You won't need to plan the talk, discuss every story, or expect an answer.

What you'll need:

Storybooks

What to do:

• Read slowly and pause occasionally to think aloud about a story. You can say: "I wonder what's going to happen next!" Or ask a question: "Do you know what a palace is?" Or point out: "Look where the little mouse is now."
• Answer your children's questions, and if you think they don't understand something, stop and ask them. Don't worry if you break into the flow of a story to make something clear. But keep the story flowing as smooth as possible.
• Talking about stories they read helps children develop their vocabularies, link stories to everyday life, and use what they know about the world to make sense out of stories.

THINKING DIFFERENTLY

Choose 3 important events from the text and explain how you would have handled them differently to the characters in the story.

Explain how it may have changed the outcome  of the story in either a small or major way.

Be insightful here and think of the cause and effect.  Sometimes your smallest action can have have a major impact on others.

POPPLET MIND MAPPING TASK

Popplet is a mind mapping tool that allows you connect ideas  together using images, text and drawings.

From a text you have recently read create a family tree or  network diagram that explains the relationship the characters  have to each other.

Some may be father and son, husband and wife or even arch  enemies.

Try and lay it out so it is easy to follow.

Click the link below 

How to use the Popplet app

YOU HAVE THREE WISHES

A genie lands in the midpoint of the story  you have just read and grants the two main characters three wishes.

What do they wish for and why?

Finally, would their wishes have changed  anything about the story? How so?

Again think about the cause and effect relationship and how this may have altered the path of the book you have been reading.

BUBBLES AND CLOUDS

Using speech bubbles and pictures of the  characters, draw a conversation between two characters from the story you have  been reading.

Remember a thought is drawn as a cloud  and a spoken statement is drawn as a bubble.

Be sure to take a look at some comics or graphic novels for some inspiration and insights.

This activity is usually best done on pen and paper but there are numerous digital apps and tools which will allow you make this a reality through technology.

AMAZING ARTEFACTS

An artefact is an object that has some significance or  meaning behind it. In some cases, an artefact might even have a very important story behind it.  I am sure you have got a favourite toy, or your parents have a special item in the house that they would consider an  important artefact.

For today’s task you are going to select five artefacts  from the text you have been reading and explain what makes them significant or important.

They don’t all  have to be super important to the story but I am sure  that at least a couple of them played a major role.

Be sure to draw a picture of the artefact and if  necessary label it.

IT'S IN THE INSTRUCTIONS

From a book you have just read, select either an important object  or creature and create a user manual or a guide explaining how to care for it.

Ensure you use any important information learnt from the book as well as any other information you consider to be important.

If you are writing a user manual for an object remember to focus  on how to use the object correctly and how to take care of it.

If you are writing a user guide for an animal or creature focus on  keeping it alive and healthy as well as information that explains how to keep it happy and under control if necessary.

DEAR DIARY

Place yourself in the shoes of one of the characters you have just  read about and write a diary entry of a key moment from the story.

Try to choose a moment in the story in which the character has  plenty of interaction and emotion to share in a diary entry.

Your diary entry should be around a page in length and contain  information you learnt from the book when the character was in that specific place and time.

Remember when you are writing a diary entry you are writing it  from first person perspective. It is usually but not always written  in present tense.

Diary writing has been a very popular activity.

A LIFETIME TALE IN PICTURES

Draw the main character from a book you  have recently read. Show them as a baby, middle aged and as an older person.

Underneath each picture write what you think they might be doing  at that point of their life, and explain why they may be doing so.

For example if you drew Harry Potter as a baby, he might be casting spells on his  mum to feed him lots of yummy food.

This activity is very easy for all age groups to adapt their skill level and text style.

WHAT'S THE STATUS?

Create a Facebook page for your  character with some status updates  about what they have been up to.

Include some pictures and make sure your  status updates are relevant to the character and the story.

Around 3 - 4 status updates with mages should give an overall picture of the character.

Use your status updates to explore what your character does for a job, leisure time, places they might go on vacation and the like.

YOU'RE HIRED

Select a character from a book and  consider what might be a good job for them. You can choose  something completely suitable such as a security guard job for Superman or a more oddball approach such as a pastry chef.

Either way, you will have to write a letter from the perspective of this character and apply for a position.

Be sure to explain why your character would be great employee  and what special skills they would possess to make them ideal for  the role. Really sell you character explaining all the great attributes they possess.

EXPRESS YOURSELF

Using an iPad or a digital camera make faces of the  emotions the main characters would have gone through in your book and take photos of them. 

Put them  together in a document on your computer or device and  explain the emotion below the image and when the character would have felt this way.

This is an excellent opportunity to use some creative direction for this task.

Be sure to play around with the images, filters and graphical styling available to you.

TRAVEL AGENT

Think of yourselves as a group of travel  assistants whose job it is to promote a city of your choice from the text you have been reading.

As a group, you need  to come up with a concept map of all of  the exciting things that happen in your city and then  present it to the class.

Don’t forget all of the exciting things such  as movie theatre, restaurants, sports, adventure activities, entertainment and much more…

If yo are a little short on details of the location of your story do some research if it was a real location or just get creative and make up some locations and tourist attractions based upon what you read.

Mapping it All Out

Have a go at drawing a map of one of  the places from the text you have just  read. See how much detail you can include and be sure to discuss your map  with another reader so you can compare and add more if necessary.

Take some time and effort to ensure your map is appealing to the same audience that the book is aimed at.

All good maps should contain the following BOLTS elements.

B - Bolts

O - Orientation

L - Legend

T- Title

S - Scale