Today’s blog offers a focus on KS2 children and their reading - in particular preparing them for SATs - and being effective at understanding everything they’re consuming. I want to focus on the importance of asking the right questions, and how we can encourage our young readers to engage with texts at all levels to create deep analysis. With the right questioning, even the toughest text can be pulled apart and understood. First though, here’s some fun facts:
Research suggests that 95% of the words in the text need to be understood to read successfully.
73% of children pass their SATs reading paper in Year 6 nationally (2023 data)
It is estimated that a frequent reader should read about 44 books a year. Infrequent readers can read as little as 5-22 books.
Children who read regularly and talk about books and language can learn up to 5000 words a year!
Why did I decide to share these wonderful facts? It’s simple really; how do we give our children the best chance to succeed? We know that reading at home and in school is massively important, but we sometimes forget why. Think about a child learning thousands more words than another child, consuming twice as many stories and information texts, and having rich conversations about both this world and the many imaginary ones their favourite book characters inhabit. Think now about the impact that can have on them; their imagination… their story writing… their passions and interests.
How many would-be archaeologists never find themselves because they didn’t get to read that one magical information text about fossils and ancient civilisations?
How many nurses and doctors are hidden inside people who never got the chance to read about the human body and its mind-blowing design?
How many hidden sports people never got to express their talents because they didn’t read that biography on a famous athlete?
Everything we read has the potential to impact us. It has the power to change us and plant a seed within us that inspires and motivates us to achieve. Every character and person we read about enables us to empathise and understand others. Every fact we learn gives us hope for the future of science and technology. Every wizard and witch, hero or heroine, and adventurer or expert has the power to help us find our inner truth.
Reading is an enchantment… But… Reading will not enchant people freely. It is also a skill. It requires of us more multitasking than perhaps any other skill in the world. It relies on us to use past experience, wider knowledge, and linguistic expertise to pull apart the text and understand its true meaning. This is new to children. They are learning this very tricky skill, and for most, without our help, they will become stuck. This is where questioning comes in.
Below, I have included a fantastic tool to help us ask questions that pull apart the text and help our young readers find the answers they need to not only understand, but learn from the text. It is called the perhaps-not-so-inspiring ‘reading matrix’:
It is super simple to use, and well worth having by your side as you read with your child. Working from top to bottom, you have a range of question stems that get deeper as you progress downwards. Follow these up with the top row of words to create both shallow and deep questions. Both types of questions are very important. We check the child has understood the text on a basic level first, and then we follow through with deeper questions to pull out that understanding and create learning opportunities:
“What does the character say about his friend?” is a fantastic starting question. It has one answer.
“How could he tell his friend how he feels?” is a powerful follow up question. The first checks they read the text and absorbed what was read. The second checks they understand the text, and has the added benefit of helping the reader to understand a bit about communication and what your child expects from a conversation (making predictions!).
Let’s follow those two questions up with something even deeper: “How might the character tell his friend?” – suddenly we’ve got our young reader thinking about the character’s behaviour, how they’ve communicated in the past in the book, and making thoughtful musings on how the character will act in the future. This is all a network of knowledge that first helps our children understand the story/text, but then also has implications for their investment in the characters and their excitement for the next chapter, next page, or next book.
The next time you read with your child, or your child reads to you, try using the matrix in this blog. Try starting with some simple questions about what you’ve read together, and then try going deeper. You may find yourself amazed at just how wonderful your child’s brain is, and how capable they are.
Gosh… this blog has gone on longer than I intended! I hope it helps you, or, at the very least, gave you some bedtime reading before those eyes draw to a close and the many books and stories of your past come to life in that dream-like imagination of yours. Perhaps our children can enjoy that too, if we enable them.
