Sample from Cracking Comprehension Year 5 Pupil …

Sample from Cracking Comprehension Year 5 Pupil Assessment Tasks

Teacher notes: By the River

Task 7

Curriculum references: Years 5?6 Programme of Study ? Reading Comprehension

Children should maintain positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what they read by:

? learning a wider range of poetry by heart ? preparing poems and plays to read aloud and to perform, showing understanding through intonation,

tone and volume so that the meaning is clear to an audience

Children should discuss and evaluate how authors use language, including figurative language, considering the impact on the reader

Children should participate in discussions about books that are read to them and those they can read for themselves, building on their own and others' ideas and challenging views courteously

Children should provide reasoned justifications for their views

Running the task

This task assesses children's ability to make inferences from the text and justify these with evidence (2MI1 and 2MI2), as well as their understanding of the writer's use of language and its impact on the reader at word, sentence and text level (2LfE1 and 2LfE2).

? Explain that children will be looking at a poem called `By the River'. Can they predict what the poem will be

about from the title? Ask for suggestions (2MI3).

? Read out the poem aloud. In pairs, children talk about whether their predictions were right. Check their

understanding of the terms used, e.g. `jenny wren'.

? Ask children to close their eyes and imagine the scene while you re-read the poem. Allow time to discuss

what they think it was like by the river.

? Briefly discuss whether they enjoyed listening to the poem being read aloud, and ask them to explain why

they felt the way they did. Did closing their eyes help? What is it about the poem that appeals to them, or not?

? Allow children time to learn the poem and perform it when they have finished the task. Discuss what helps

them to learn it, and what strategies they used.

Assessment guidance

Use the grid below to identify the assessable elements children are working on in this area.

2LfE1 and 2LfE2

2MI1, 2MI2 and 2MI3

Typically children working at the expected standard will: ? identify and/or comment on the writers' use of specific words or phrases e.g. `mumbling ` and `fumbling' remind you of the sort of noise bees make ? discuss and evaluate how writers use words, phrases and language features to have an impact on the reader, at word, sentence and text level

Typically children working at the expected standard will: ? m ake straightforward inferences from the text, e.g. he

closes his eyes to go to sleep because he has made a pillow out of his coat ? m ake inferences based on the evidence from different points and justify with evidence from the text, e.g. it's summer because there are bees and grasshoppers ? p redict what might happen from details stated and implied (above)

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Sample from Cracking Comprehension Year 5 Pupil Assessment Tasks

Teacher notes: By the River

Task 7

What to expect

1. In which season is the poem set? Give two examples from the poem to support your answer.

Children should understand that it is summer. The most obvious clues are probably the insects. Children may also refer to the strawberries and cream as a summer treat and the fact that he is lying outside near a river also indicates warm weather. More able children will be able to give more than one indication of the season, while others may refer to one idea only.

(2Ml2)

2. Why do you think the narrator closes his eyes?

Less able readers may suggest that he is going to go to sleep. More able readers may suggest that he wants to concentrate on enjoying the moment ? the sounds and the sensations of summer.

(2Ml2)

3. Choose five words which describe sounds in the poem and say why they help you to imagine the sound and the thing making it.

Children may explain that these words echo the sounds. More able readers may be able to refer to onomatopoeia and how poets use this to create specific effects.

(2LfE1)

4. Explain why you think the poet uses the words `branches', `twitching', `scratching' and `itchy' in verse 3?

Most children will explain that these words echo the noise the creatures make. More able readers may identify the repeated 'ch' and refer to onomatopoeia and how poets use this to create specific effects.

(2LfE2)

5. The poet uses two similes in the poem. What are they and why does he use them?

Less able readers may give a general answer that they make you imagine the sound or sight even more vividly. More able readers should be more specific, e.g. the sawing makes you think how the pigeon's cooing goes on and on for ever and starts to get on the writer's nerves, while the comb running through hair helps you imagine how the wind looks as it sweeps through the grass.

(2LfE2)

6. Out of all the things the poet describes, what one thing is most important to him?

Most children should be able to identify that it is the tea. More able readers may repeat the poet's exact words to support their answer.

(2Ml1)

7. How would you describe the overall effect of the poem? Give examples to show what you mean.

Most children will be able to describe the poem's overall impact. More able readers may explain how the poet has achieved that effect by language which describes soothing and dreamy sounds and sights.

(2LfE2)

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Sample from Cracking Comprehension Year 5 Pupil Assessment Tasks

By the River

Matt Simpson

Task 7

Lying on the river bank beneath the trailing willow, my anorak behind my head folded as a pillow,

I close my eyes and listen to the many sounds around me, lapping water near my feet, a mumbling, fumbling brown bee,

a jenny wren in the branches twitching among the twigs, a grasshopper not far away scratching itchy legs,

a coo-coo-cooing pigeon high up in an old oak tree, like someone sawing a plank of wood ? and sawing endlessly!

A breeze is whiffling through the grass like a comb running through your hair, and little-globs-of-amber-ants are scuttering here and there.

The river's sliding gently, dreaming of the sea, and I am thinking of only one thing: strawberries and cream for tea!

You may photocopy this page

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Cracking Comprehension Year 4 ? Rising Stars UK Ltd 2014.

Sample from Cracking Comprehension Year 5 Pupil Assessment Tasks

Task 7

Name:

Date:

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1. In which season is the poem set? Give two examples from the poem to support your answer.

2. Why do you think the narrator closes his eyes?

3. Choose five words which describe sounds in the poem and say why they help you to imagine the sound and the thing making it.

4. Explain why you think the poet uses the words `branches', `twitching', `scratching' and `itchy' in verse 3.

5. The poet uses two similes in the poem. What are they and why does he use them?

6. Out of all the things the poet describes, what one thing is most important to him? 7. How would you describe the overall effect of the poem? Give examples to show

what you mean.

You may photocopy this page

Cracking Comprehension Year 4 ? Rising Stars UK Ltd 2014. 33

Sample from Cracking Comprehension Year 5 Teacher's Guide

Unit 3 Childhood: You Can't Be That/The Colour of My Dreams

Key text features

These two poems are about the thoughts of two different children. ? The Teaching text, `You Can't Be That', is by Brian Patten and is a child's response to adults' aspirations

for him. ? The Practice text, `The Colour of My Dreams' by Peter Dixon, is a first-person poem written from the

point of view of a dyslexic learner.

Reading the Teaching text: You Can't Be That

? Do any of the children know what they want to be when they grow up? Invite them to share thoughts with the class. Or make a list of aspirational jobs together and ask the children to match their classmates to the jobs.

? Tell them at least some of the things you thought you wanted to be when you were younger. Did you become one of those?

? Read the poem together. Ask the children for their immediate responses to the poem.

Reading the Practice text: The Colour of My Dreams

? Read and discuss the poem. Invite any dyslexic children in the class to comment before asking the more fluent readers.

? Remind the children that they are now going to work independently to practise the strategies introduced during the teaching session.

Extending reading

`Growing' from Plum ? Tony Mitton (9781903015855, Barn Owl 2010) `Childhood Tracks' from Only One of Me ? James Berry (9780330418317, Macmillan 2004) `Chimney Boy's Story' from Boneyard Rap ? Wes Magee (9780750228602, Hodder 2001) `Why' from First Poems for Thinking ? Robert Fisher (9781898255307, Nash Pollock 2000)

Moving into writing

? Reread the poems. Ask the children to use ideas to make predictions about the careers that the narrator of either of the poems might follow: which is more likely to be a lawyer, an artist, an architect, a DJ, a magician. Ask them to find evidence in the poems to support their ideas.

? Challenge the children to insert another verse or two in the style of their chosen poem, explaining what happened when the narrator grew up.

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