Dear Parents,

We looked at a lovely poem in English this week which ignited fabulous discussions about our emotions. We continued with multiplication and division and we have thoroughly enjoyed creating our rainforest dioramas.

Upcoming Events
A few notes for your diary - more details will be on the newsletter as we get nearer to the time:

Thursday 7th December - Christmas jumper day
Friday 8th December - PTA Christmas Movie Night
Friday 15th December - PTA Christmas Grotto
Wednesday 20th December - Last day of term

HOMEWORK
Must Do:
Year 3/4  Homework Tasks - Due Thursday 23rd November
Homework Pages:
Year 3
English Pg 14+15
Maths - Pg 26
Year 4
English Pg 16+17
Maths - Pg 27

Reading Skills

Every week we encourage you to keep up all your reading at home as this makes such a huge difference. We wanted to spend a little time this week speaking more about reading skills because as your children move through school they need to ensure that they understand a text as well as be able to read it. 

Understanding what they have read (or comprehension) is vital for your children and we support this through our VIPERS reading skills. This stands for:

Vocabulary    Infer    Predict    Explain    Retrieve    Sequence

You can explore these ideas with your child after reading using some of the following question prompts:

Vocabulary - have a good range of vocabulary in order to understand the text

• What does the word _____ mean in this sentence?
• Find a word that means _____ on this page.

Infer - understanding reached through reasoning about what you have read

• Why was _____ feeling _____? How do you know?
• Why did _____ happen? 

Predict - what you think will happen based on what you have read

• What do you think will happen next?
• How will this character's action affect what will happen next?
• What do you think this book is about?

Explain - what your thoughts and opinions are about the book

• Who is your favourite character? Why?
• Would you like to live in this setting? Why?
• How do you know ____?

Retrieve - discuss the characters, events and setting of the story or answer questions about a text you have read

• Who did _____?
• Where did _____?
• How many _____?

Summarise - retell the key events in the story

• What happened at the beginning?
• What happened at the end?
• Can you retell this story in your own words?

We hope this helps you discuss the books your child reads at home as the more they practise these skills the more fluent in comprehension they will become.

• Reading: Remember 15-20 minutes at least 3 times a week is super important. You will have taken your Reading Record home for your parents to comment on. These will be collected by teachers and checked from time to time. Please make sure you bring your book and your reading record in with you every day. As soon as you are ready you can take a quiz at school. Remember that you need 3x 100% scores to move up a level.

• High Frequency Words - Learn the words in your Reading Records. Practice spelling them out loud and writing them down.

• Times table practice - this week we are looking at 6s. Please practice these as we do in school.

• TTRS - Year 4 please can you log on and complete the MTC check and practise. Thank you.

Can Do:

• Continue logging on to TTRS, Sumdog - your log ins are stuck in the front cover of your Reading Records.

• Create a poster on your favourite book. Imagine you had to sell it to us. What do you like about it? Why? What is your favourite part? Who are the characters? Why should we read it?
  **EXTRA CHALLENGE** Rewrite your own blurb for your favourite book on the back of your poster.

Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs. Hurley, Miss Harvey & Mr. Greenfield