Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

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moved
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Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:42 pm
Location: Chelmsford and pleased

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by moved »

In the inner-city schools where I work the children work on this for 1.5hrs per day. There is writing included but it is all comprehension based. The schools are all good or outstanding, but lack any creative curriculum IMHO.
Guest55
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Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:21 pm

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by Guest55 »

It is done at all Primaries but not called 'comprehension'.

PEA is not a GCSE approach .... it's too simplistic.
heartmum
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Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by heartmum »

... not a lot of comprehension at DCs school :? and finding I am having to cover this topic at home to ensure DC has more of an understanding of this area of subject (especially with 11+ looming :shock: ). It is unfortunate that this is DCs weaker area, likes to read the passage and answer the questions by putting in what DC thinks the writer of the text is trying to say rather than what is being said. Trying to speed up DCs reading speed, needed for 11+, is frustrating and at the same time ensuring DC is reading the text and not skimming is a hard slog :roll:

Recently had a meeting with DCs teacher, raising concerns with the lack of comprehension work, to be told this is the area they are to be covering next term (April onwards) which to me is quite late in the term. But there again the school are more interested in KS2 tests in the May of Y6 rather than the 11+ in September :shock: :?
Heartmum x x x
yoyo123
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Location: East Kent

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by yoyo123 »

children a re notoriously bad at remembering what work they have done, the comprehension may be part of another exercise or presented in such a way that they don;t realise they are doing 'work', our classes do both, comprehension exercises are part of guided reading, but reading a passage , looking for evidence or inferring something from a text are part of many other lessons and activities too.

I spent ages working through 'Oxford Junior English' books when I was in primary, but don't think they taught me as well as modern literacy lessons do, it was more straightforward answering of questions ( and really boring). We opened the book and worked through.
parent2013
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Joined: Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:13 am

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by parent2013 »

heartmum wrote: But there again the school are more interested in KS2 tests in the May of Y6 rather than the 11+ in September :shock: :?

Your last line is nail in the head. Our local school has no interest in 11+ and did not even acknowledge by saying "Well done" to all the children who worked hard into securing places at GS. All what they wanted was 100% attendance and homework on time :(
southbucks3
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Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 11:59 am

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by southbucks3 »

Yes it is frustrating, especially in bucks where partner prep schools do loads of prep, in one form or another.

I wish they would concentrate more on the basics in the summer term before the test, forget trips and plays for a few months...do those at end of September. I also wish they did 20 spellings and meanings a week, they do 10 spellings now, that they have to put in a sentence which is an improvement on just rote learning, but they are only tested on the spelling though. Full on spelling and meanings would be great, and more helpful for synonyms and antonyms which forms a hefty part of the 11+

You are right, inference, point of view, drawing conclusion are all left to year 6, for the reading sats, which is mad when comprehension features in the 11+ and the school would not get pulled up for teaching it by the LA or the academies.

Also word problems in maths would be great, but only the select few are taken off to do trickier problems, the others do not even get the work sheets as an option for home.

You would think as the bucks state schools are getting less and less kids into our grammars, they would be pulling out all the stops. The annoying thing is, depending on the heads stance on the 11+ some of the state primaries do focus more, and yet others berate parents for coaching! There needs to be a common objective with regards the year 5 curriculum and the 11+ just like there is in year 6 for sats.
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by mystery »

The English teaching at our school is poor in all respects. It is like the art teaching was in my day - either you could do it well or you could not. Sad.
push-pull-mum
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Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:52 pm

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by push-pull-mum »

DS does Comprehension pretty regularly (Year 5) but they don't teach them how to do it well. The assumption is that if you can read with understanding then you can complete a Comprehension paper successfully and if you can't score highly on Comprehension then you obviously haven't understood what you have read.

Until I prepped two children for 11+ I probably would have thought the same myself but, in my defense, I am not a qualified teacher.
parent2013
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Joined: Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:13 am

Re: Amount of comprehension done in school at year 5&6

Post by parent2013 »

I think cracking comprehension is an art that comes over time. It does require good vocabulary, good reading speed and obviously good eye to find the facts that are hidden or written between the lines. IMHO, the 10 yr old are generally erratic when it comes to focussing. Also the length of passage and complexity can put them off regardless of the questions asked.

We were given comprehension strategy (by our tutor) and ds was told to read it every time before doing any comprehension. Then after attempting the test, the same was used to check which points were missed out. It took 4-6 months to start getting decent scores. I think the overall objective was that even before reading the passage, they should know what they are scanning/skimming for?
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