Topaz
About Topaz Band
Topaz books offer longer and more demanding texts for children to investigate and evaluate. Children moving on to Topaz books will be developing an opinion and preferences for particular text types and books by certain authors. They will be able to compare and contrast books and characters with confidence. Children will be developing skills to discuss a wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-fiction and reference books or textbooks. They also provide opportunities to discuss words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination.
How to support your child reading Topaz level books
Your child may well not want to read aloud to you anymore because they probably enjoy silent reading more. This is fine as long as your child continues to read actively and not just pass their eyes over the words. You can help them by:
- continuing to make a time available for regular quiet reading sessions, and reading your book while your child reads.
- Establishing an expectation of a conversation at the end of each book.
- Ask questions which make your child go back to the book to find answers and use inference and deduction.
- Support your child as they develop skills in skimming and scanning to find the information to answer your question.
- Ask your child to read aloud to you in order to practise using expression.
My Topaz Band Reading Targets
- I can read a range of appropriate texts fluently and accurately
- I can justify my predictions by referring to the text
- I can identify and use structures and grammatical features of non-fiction texts
- I can use clues from actions, dialogue and descriptions to establish meaning
- I can skim and scan texts in order to locate specific information quickly
- I can identify features of different fiction genres
- I can read the Year 4 and 5 Common Exception Words
- I can frequently answer comprehension questions which require using inference and deduction
- I am starting to make preferences involving text types and authors
- I can comment on the author’s use of language using the correct terminology
I can distinguish between fact and opinion