Reading Comprehension
Reading is not just about decoding the words. It is about understanding what has been read- for enjoyment and for information.
At school, children are encouraged to talk about the books they have read; to answer questions about different aspects of the book (eg. events, setting, characters, feelings) and to express their own ideas about a book.
Inside the reading diary, you will find Reading Challenge stickers that link to reading skills taught in school. The aim of these is for you to support your child to work on a particular reading skill. These challenges can also help you to ask your child effective questions.
In school we teach children reading skills called VIPERS
What are Vipers?
VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum. They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.
VIPERS stands for
Vocabulary
Inference
Prediction
Explanation
Retrieval
Sequence or Summarise
The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading and not the mechanics: decoding, fluency, prosody etc. As such, VIPERS is not a reading scheme but rather a method of ensuring that teachers ask, and students are familiar with, a range of questions. They allow the teacher to track the type of questions asked and the children’s responses to these which allows for targeted questioning afterwards.