* Where the unit title is asterisked, detailed planning exemplification has been produced and can be accessed by clicking on the title.

Teaching approaches

Reading aloud and re-reading
Reading texts aloud to children brings them alive and lifts them off the page. The act of listening to the language and 'voice' of the author or poet and provides an important background for children's own reading of the text and in their writing.

Visualisation and responding to illustration
Asking children to picture or visualise a character or a place from a story is a powerful way of encouraging them to imagine the fictional world. Children can be asked to picture the scene in their mind's eye or walk round it in their imagination.

 Introducing a new book with a key illustration is a way to intrigue and motivate the children to want to find out more. Using an illustration can encourage children to predict what the text will be about, the genre, who the main character is etc. Children can suggest what the illustration tells them about the setting, character, main theme of the text. Teachers should record points from the discussion for later reference.

Discussion
Open questions such as what did you like or dislike about the opening, did anything puzzle you, to which all children can respond, are more likely to result in extended and fruitful discussions at the beginning.  Later on the teacher will focus in greater depth on particular aspects of the text, but continuing to keep questions open is the best way to promote discussion. for example:

• Why do you think that...
• What might be happening...
• How do you know that...
• I wonder if...

Reading journals
Reading journals provide opportunities for children to reflect on their reading experiences and respond through writing or drawing activities. They can support children's development as readers and also provide a record of their progress. They can take the form of a dialogue between child and teacher, a group or class activity where responses are recorded by the teacher or a child, or can take the form of more structured activities or investigations such as making word collections or creating character sketches. 

Readers Theatre/scripting
Readers Theatre is an approach to reading a text which treats the text as a playscript. Characters and narrators perform the story. 2 or 3 pages of a novel, short story or picture book can be marked up into a script as a whole class or group reading activity. Groups of children can then work on performances for the rest of the class.

Drawing and diagrams
Children's texts can include both drawing and diagrams – for example a story map or character sketch.

Shared reading and writing
Shared reading is a key approach for helping children to focus on key parts of the text. Shared writing helps the teacher to support and structure a piece of writing: the class is encouraged to take part in deciding, for example, how the writing might begin, be structured, or draw on language which has been collected.

Text marking and annotating
Text marking and annotating can be carried out as a class, group, paired or individual activity. It is usually better for the teacher to demonstrate the purpose of the activity to the whole class first, before asking children to carry out the activity independently.

Drama and role play
Role play and drama provide immediate routes into the fictional world of a story and allow children to explore texts actively. Children can put themselves into a particular character's shoes and imagine how things would look from their point of view.

Writing in role
Taking the role of a particular character enables young writers to see events from a different view point and involves them writing in a different voice.

Based on Jane Bunting and Deborah Nicholson, BookPower, Literature through Literacy, Years 5 and Year 6, CLPE 2006/2007