A Walker has worked as an LEA Literacy Consultant, an Expert Leading Literacy Teacher, a primary school teacher, an author and was responsible for teaching and learning at one of the UK’s leading Independent Prep schools. She is an author of educational materials used in schools for Cambridge University Press, Pearson, Rising Stars and Cambridge Hitachi and is an experienced KS2 & KS3 English teacher.
A Walker has worked as an LEA Literacy Consultant, an Expert Leading Literacy Teacher, a primary school teacher, an author and was responsible for teaching and learning at one of the UK’s leading Independent Prep schools. She is an author of educational materials used in schools for Cambridge University Press, Pearson, Rising Stars and Cambridge Hitachi and is an experienced KS2 & KS3 English teacher.
This mat provides question prompts to use with any poem. It helps to develop deeper understanding with highly able readers. It uses higher order reading skills and develops the pupils ability to support answers with evidence from the text. It could be used with individuals, or small groups.
Poetry guided reading mats - comprehension questions on any poem aimed at 3 ability levels. Can be used for group and individual speaking and listening, guided reading or class discussion.
Poetry and Narrative Guided Reading Mats - questions for highly able readers on any poem, or story. There are two poetry questions mat - one aimed at younger and one at older children and a narrative mat. The questions can be selected to suit the ability level of the children. They could be used for book talk speaking and listening or comprehension tasks. It could be used for whole class, group or individual pupil work.
A poetry mat - with question prompts for highly able readers to be able to discuss any poem in guided reading.This mat provides question prompts to use with any poem. It helps to develop deeper understanding with highly able readers. It develops the pupils ability to support answers with evidence from the text. It could be used with individuals, or small groups.
Character - positive character traits vocab building list. I cut up the words and pupils sorted the list into words they knew, thought they might know and definitely didn't know. Words could also be used to sort, for example, words with linked meanings and made into Mind Maps. Suited to some pupils in Upper Key Stage 2, but also some pupils in Key Stage 3 and 4.
This is a great lesson on character. The modelled writing task makes pupils focus on Dahl's style.
There are two word documents for pupils to adapt to create modelled character descriptions.
See the two pdfs which show the work produced by the task.
Pupils are given the opening of Secret Garden and a grid giving clues to techniques used to show character.
An example of the grid is below:
Point - We find out about Mary Lennox’s character from what the narrator tells us directly about her. Evidence – I know this because it says… Explanation – This shows that…
Working with the word document, pupils have to copy quotations from the text that prove the character points listed and paste them into the grid table. Next they fill in the table by explaining how their quotation proves the point.
There are three sheets, differentiated for different abilities, requiring children who need more support to just fill in the section explaining how their quotation proves their point.
There is a worksheet to show pupils how to work out clues to a character and an explanation of PEE (point, evidence, explain)
the task can also be done on paper without a computer using the text. I asked the children to use three colours for the point, evidence, explanation.
An easy simile poem idea that can deliver some surprisingly creative ideas There's an example, ideas sheet and scaffold. I found an example of a 'If my Thoughts Took Shape' poem years ago and recently made the scaffold and ideas sheet to structure and support pupils.
Sorting task for parts of rivers a course.
1. Pupils sort words into Upper, Middle and Lower Course of a river
2. Pupils sort words into sequence to support their writing of a paragraph about each of the stages of a river.
Writing and responding to the painting ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie’ by Mondrian. It would be useful to look at a version of the image on the whiteboard in class, so that there is better quality of image for discussion, than the image on the worksheet.
Visual literacy questions to prompt discussion or writing. There is another TES resource available linked to this, so please check out my other Mondrian resource. There are more resources available at .
Writing and responding to the painting ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie’ by Mondrian. It would be useful to look at a version of the image on the whiteboard in class, so that there is better quality of image for discussion, than the image on the worksheet.
Visual literacy questions to prompt discussion or writing. There is another TES resource available linked to this, so please check out my other Mondrian resource. There are more resources available at .
