Comprehension (Quick Fix for Year Six) (Paperback) by Donna Thomson (Author), Ruth Nixey (Author), Gary Davies (Illustrator) Scholastic Ltd (2007)
(2 customer reviews) Amazon.co.uk (Nominated for the 2007 Education Resources Awards)
The 2006 revised Primary National Strategy recognises the need for the explicit teaching of literal, inferential and evaluative thinking, as well as the essential comprehension skills: prediction, questioning, clarifying, imagining and summarisation. Indeed, the revised PNS states that the explicit teaching of comprehension “helps children go beyond literal interpretation and recall to explore the complex meanings of text using inference and deduction”. Quick Fix For Year 6: Comprehension is an invaluable resource for teachers who want to know how to implement these key thinking skills in KS2.
Quick Fix for Year 6: Comprehension offers a sequence of 24 carefully structured and attractively resourced lessons. While each lesson can be taught as a ‘stand alone’, the learning in each lesson builds directly on the last and, as such, provide a complete programme for the systematic and sustained teaching of literal, inferential and evaluative comprehension skills. A feature of this resource is teacher modelling to develop thinking skills, encourage independent learning and broaden children’s understanding and enjoyment of reading. Each lesson has a clearly stated learning objective, a detailed lesson plan and a thoughtful plenary. The main points of each lesson are made clear and there is additional support for children (and teachers!) in the ‘Don’t Panic!’ section of each lesson.
The learning activities encourage children to know the difference between types of questions and, most impressively, teach children how to generate their own questions. There’s no place for passive learning here!
If the inspiring sequence of 24 lessons in Quick Fix For Year 6: Comprehensionisn’t enough for the busy teacher, eight sample SATs style comprehension tasks are included at the end of the book, with hints about how to understand mark allocations and model answers.
Donna Thomson and Ruth Nixey have developed these materials in their own school. The results have been impressive: 90% of children achieved Level 4/5 in Reading Comprehension. While the effectiveness of Quick Fix For Year 6: Comprehension in the Year 6 classroom is without question, the thinking skills that these lessons encourage are essential for children at KS3 and beyond, not just in Literacy, but across the curriculum.
Quick Fix For Year 6: Comprehension has been written specifically for teachers and children preparing for the KS2 SATs. However, there are strategies and activities here that can be equally well used in the KS3 and KS4 classroom, and not just in English lessons.
Review by: Jane Richardson
English KS3 Co-ordinator / Year 7 Curriculum Co-ordinator
King Edward VI Community College, Totnes, Devon
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"Very impressive" 17 Feb 2007
By Lavina
I've found the use of characters to facilitate learning particularly appealing. There's PC Page - he works alongside children to develop their literal comprehension. The higher ranking `Text Detective' guides children through the higher order skills: inference, deduction and evaluation.
Quick Fix For Year 6: Comprehension doesn't just teach children to jump through SATs hoops. The learning activities encourage children to know the difference between types of questions and, most impressively, teach children how to generate their own questions. There's no place for passive learning here! My class have thoroughly enjoyed the activities and I have been so impressed with their deeper understanding of comprehension.
"At last - a resource that actually explains how to teach comprehension!" 17 Feb 2007
By Shona Costella
It has been so good to finally find a resource that not only explains the steps involved in answering comprehension questions properly, but also provides detailed instruction on how to accurately gather literal, inference and evaluation information from fiction and non-fiction to enable children to ask and answer their own questions from the text.
I used to think that teaching comprehension was a rather hit-and-miss affair, which was simply a case of giving a child a text and asking them to answer questions. Exactly how they arrived at the answers, especially for inference and evaluation questions always seemed a mystery to them and to me. I know that I am not alone in this! My search on the internet for support to teach comprehension reading skills revealed that many other teachers struggle with the same problem. In fact, I don't think that the majority of children fully realise that there are different types of comprehension question! Unlike this resource, the questions and answers are not explained, so it is hard to know if you are doing it right anyway!
This resource provides an extremely lucid step-by-step guide to the real teaching of comprehension and all its complexities. The lessons always refer to the author and his/her intention. The progression is brilliant! It starts with the basics and the previous objective always builds on the next. It's logical and very effective - and the children's progress is clear. It provides a wide range of fun and interactive activities that the children love and the questions supplied have comprehensive answers that identify whether they are literal, inference or evaluation. It also offers a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts.
This book is not just for SATs or guided reading sessions! I consider it an essential tool for teaching thinking skills across the curriculum within KS2.
Comprehension: Years 1 and 2 (New Scholastic Literacy Skills) (Paperback) March 2009 by Donna Thomson (Author),Elspeth Graham (Illustrator), Cathy Hughes (Illustrator)(3 customer reviews) Amazon.co.uk
Comprehension years 1-6 are a series of books that provide you with a complete resource to teach children key comprehension skills. The books are split into seven chapters which include:Retelling/Summarising, Predicting, Clarifying, Literal,
Questioning, Inference Questioning ,Evaluation Questioning, Reviewing.
The book and CD-ROM provide teachers' notes and background knowledge on the skills and a focus on writing.
Ages 5 - 7 years old
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Fantastic, 21 May 2009
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C. A Gill
Literacy Co-ordinator
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This is a fantastic resource for teachers. An absolute must if you want your children to develop questioning skills. My class have eagerly followed the lesson plans, enjoyed the selection of text and the brilliant resources. They amaze the rest of the teachers with their discussion and enquiry skills. I urge you to buy it and see for yourselves!
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Excellent New Comprehension Book, 29 Jun 2009
This book is an amazing find!!It has creative and fun lessons that come with interactive games, activities and worksheets to suit each literacy lesson, which the children at my school absolutely love.
It's easy to follow, fun and has been brilliant to use, I haven't come across a book before which is so packed full of ideas and fun for both the teacher and the children!!Every page is another brilliant idea and activity-ALL teachers should have one!!
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Ground-breaking!!, 13 May 2009
I've had fantastic results in my Yr 1 class already using this resource! |
Comprehension: Year 3 (New Scholastic Literacy Skills) (Paperback) March 2009 by Donna Thomson (Author),Elspeth Graham (Illustrator), Robin Edmonds (Illustrator)(1 customer reviews) Amazon.co.uk
Comprehension years 1-6 are a series of books that provide you with a complete resource to teach children key comprehension skills. The books are split into seven chapters which include:Retelling/Summarising, Predicting, Clarifying, Literal,
Questioning, Inference Questioning ,Evaluation Questioning, Reviewing.
The book and CD-ROM provide teachers' notes and background knowledge on the skills and a focus on writing.
Ages 7 - 8 years old
Buy it!, 21 May 2009
At last, a clear step by step process to teach children comprehension strategies and questioning skills. This book, and series, stands head and shoulders above the rest out there, accompanied as it is with brilliant resources and activities which can't help but activate children's love of books. Each lesson's notes are clearly set out and the background knowledge for each will enrich the teachers and child's understanding of the philosophy which underpins this series. I can't recommend it enough.
Ages 8 - 11 years old
Comprehension: Years 4 - 6 (New Scholastic Literacy Skills) (Paperback) March 2009 by Donna Thomson (Author),Elspeth Graham(1 customer review) Amazon.co.uk
Comprehension years 1-6 are a series of books that provide you with a complete resource to teach children key comprehension skills. The books are split into seven chapters which include:Retelling/Summarising, Predicting, Clarifying, Literal,
Questioning, Inference Questioning ,Evaluation Questioning, Reviewing.
The book and CD-ROM provide teachers' notes and background knowledge on the skills and a focus on writing.
Highly recommended, 23 May 2009
This latest book is a worthy follow-up to the excellent 'Quick Fix for Year 6' comprehension resource. Donna Thomson and Elspeth Graham have delved even deeper into how to teach children to summarise, predict, clarify and question. It provides easy step-by-step instruction with great CDROM interactive team challenges that not only teach the children how to generate their own literal, inference and evaluation questions from text and images, but also enables them to collaboratively get to grips with a range of quality fiction and non-fiction levelled text using the four comprehension strategies to guide them.
