Information about reading in Year 2. 

We understand that many of our children have continued to regularly read at home during the past lockdown and sincerely appreciate all your continued efforts to support your child with the progress of their reading at home!  

Over the past few weeks we have carefully and regularly listened to all our children in Year 2 read and conducted reading assessments to match their reading ability to an appropriate book band level. We take into account their current Read Write Inc assessment (which assesses their decoding ability) and their comprehension/understanding in reading from their reading assessment and the weekly teacher assessments we make whilst reading. 

With this in mind, please also note the reading book bands are not set in stone. They are fluid and children often move relatively quickly too as their skills continue to progress. Each coloured book band contains a variety of challenge and genres (play scripts, information texts, fictional stories, poems and stories with rhyming patterns) allowing children to develop and broaden their skills in reading.  

Please be careful not to confuse your child’s ability to decode (sound out) words as evidence of their comprehension. Your child needs to understand the meaning, inference and deductions within the book, which may not always be obvious.  

In order to do this it is essential that your child can fluently read the majority (around 95%) of the text. More simply, if your child has to stop to sound out a lot of words they will struggle to understand what they are reading. 

We understand that some parents have made further progress across book band levels at home and may feel concerned that their child appears to be in a lower book band to what they were anticipating. Please rest reassured that we have seen significant progress with children’s reading since year 1 and also trust that we have used our teaching skills and past experience to match your child’s abilities to books that will allow them to make the most progress during year 2. 

We have listed a range of questions below that you can also ask at home to further develop your child’s skills in reading. Please also be mindful that children learn how to participate in discussions about books, poems and other texts that are read to them and those that they can read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say. When reading at home perhaps also take it in turns with your child to read different pages each to further develop these skills.   

From Monday 14th September the children will bring home 2 reading books a week. The children will be listened to read by their teacher once a week then have their book changed once more in the week without being listened to (book swap). Reading books sent back into school will be quarantined for 3 days before anyone else uses them.

Please can children bring their reading book and reading record into school everyday so they are ready to read with their teacher on their reading day and in case we get extra reading opportunities.

In order to limit the contact staff are having with the reading records, we ask that parents and carers write in the reading records. We have included an example below to show you how it might be completed. Staff will check them when we read with your child, and will use a stamper to show we have read with them (These have not arrived yet, so you will not see the stamp yet!)

Please try to read little and often and daily if at all possible. 

Please remember, we are reading with the children for the first time this week, so we will assess and change their books accordingly over the next few weeks.

P.E.

Year 2 will be doing P.E. outdoors on Monday mornings and Tuesday afternoons.

Please can the children come to school dressed in outdoor P.E. kits on both Monday and Tuesday.  

Please ensure all clothes are named.  See below for winter P.E. kit information.

• Uniform Information

Reminders

• Please can you ensure all school uniform is named.
• Please can children bring a named pencil case into school including the following items (with your child's name on); pencil, coloured pencils, pencil sharpener, rubber, ruler and a glue stick.   This pencil case will then stay in school - please check with your child each weekend if they need to replace anything in their pencil case.
• Please don't arrive at school too early for your drop off in the morning as this makes it very difficult for all to social distance. 
• Please arrive on time to pick up your child.  Don't forget on Friday it is 2.20pm. 

Thank you as always for your continued support.