Comprehension is a key skill for all learning and can impact on social skills too. 

Once your child has mastered reading words on a page, they need to build comprehension skills so that they read to learn. 

At Norwood we use 8 strategies to teach children how to comprehend what they are reading.

1. Activate Background Knowledge                                                                                  Click here for a video on Activating Background Knowledge
2. Predict and Ask Questions                                                                                              Click here for a video on Prediction                                                                                    Click here for a video on Asking Questions
3. Visualise
4. Think Like a Detective                                                                                                    Click here for a video on Thinking like a Detective
5. Notice breakdown...                                                                                                        Click here for a link to Notice Breakdown... and repair it
6. ...and repair it                                                                                                                    Click here for another video on Noticing Breakdown and repairing it
7. VIP words/ phrases/ ideas
8. Build GIST

This is a new initiative for the academic year 2020-2021. All children from Reception to Year 6 are taught each strategy in isolation and then add it to their current strategy collection. All strategies will have been taught by the end of this academic year. 

You can help you child by using these strategies when you read to them or when they read to you. Attached below are some bookmarks with questions that you can use to ask your child when you share a story together. There is no need to work on all strategies at once but by asking your child to use one of these skills, you will be supporting their learning at school and deepening their understanding. 

Year 2 and 3 are currently trialling Oxford Reading Buddy which is an online reading provision which supports children to read books at their reading level and comprehend books with an online reading buddy who uses the Reading for Inference strategies. To find out more about Oxford Reading Buddy (ORB) please see the powerpoint introduction below.