Pearl

About Pearl Band

Readers of Pearl book bands will increase their knowledge of more technical and unfamiliar language as well as longer sentence structures. They will search and find information in texts, read with increased expression and gain confidence in discussing what they read and expressing opinions.

How to support your child reading Pearl level books

Children should be encouraged to work out any unfamiliar word. They should focus on all the letters in a word and relate to their phonics and spelling rules of common letter strings, suffixes and prefixes to decode a word and use the context to understand its meaning. Accurate reading of individual words, which might be key to the meaning of a sentence or paragraph, improves comprehension.
When reading with or to children, attention should be paid to new vocabulary – both a word’s meaning(s) and its correct pronunciation.

You can support them by:

• checking that the book makes sense to them, discussing their understanding and exploring the meaning of words in context
• asking questions to improve their understanding
• drawing inferences such as inferring characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justifying inferences with evidence
• predicting what might happen from details stated and implied
• summarising the main ideas drawn from more than 1 paragraph, identifying key details that support the main ideas
• identifying how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning
• discuss and evaluate how authors use language, including figurative language, considering the impact on the reader
• distinguish between statements of fact and opinion
• retrieve information from non-fiction.

My Pearl Band Reading Targets

• Apply their growing knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes (morphology and etymology), both to read aloud and to understand the meaning of new words that they meet
• Increase their familiarity with a wide range of books, including myths, legends, and traditional stories, modern fiction, fiction from our literary heritage, and books from other traditions and cultures
• Read and discuss an increasingly wide range of fiction, a variety of poetry, anthologies, biographies and autobiographies, plays, non-fiction and reference books or textbooks
• Read books that are structured in different ways and reading for a range of purposes
• Identify and discuss themes and conventions in and across a wide range of texts and genres
• Check that the book makes sense to them.
• Discuss their understanding and exploring the meanings of words in context. To consider synonyms and antonyms of new words.
• Ask questions to improve their understanding
• Predict what might happen from details stated and implied
• Distinguish between statements of fact and opinion
• Retrieve, record and present information from non-fiction
• Draw inferences such as characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions.
•  Justify inferences with evidence from the text, selecting particular words or phrases
• Discuss and evaluate how authors use language, including figurative language, considering the impact on the reader (see Glossary)
• Participate in discussions about books that are read to them and those they can read for themselves, building on their own and others’ ideas and challenging views courteously. Recommend books to others.