Any Questions? Consideration of the Reading Content Domain
The 2016 KS2 Reading SAT has long gone but the repercussions of 'that paper' are still being felt in Y6 classrooms across the land. There has been much written about the paper and I'm not going to add much more. What I can do though, is offer a couple of solutions.
My first solution comes in the form of the Primary English KS2 Guided Reading Prompts (see below). This little booklet of reading comprehension questions is one of the most popular downloads from our resources page. It provides plentiful question stems organised by Content Domain and is an essential tool for planning high quality reading comprehension sessions. The reason I suggest this as a solution is this: I think the style of the 2016 questions was more of a concern than the challenge of the texts. This being the case, the Primary English KS2 Guided Reading Prompts have had a make-over. They now include question stems based on those found in the 2016 test. You'll find more of 'what impression...' and less of 'what thoughts...' than in the previous edition, which should better help you prepare your pupils for the end of Key Stage tests.
Questions matched to the 2014 National Curriculum Content Domains. Suitable for guided and whole class reading activities.
My other solution comes in the form of the Reading Detectives series from Collins Keen Kite. As the series editor and author of the Y6 book, I can guarantee that this series offers a solution to the thorny issue of question style. When writing the Y6 book I constantly referred to the questions in the 2016 SAT and made sure mine were as similar as possible. I also endeavoured to explain how the answers had been derived and the types of skills pupils needed to apply. The Reading Detectives are an essential addition to the KS2 reading comprehension curriculum that will help you familiarise pupils with the high demand of questions in the end of Key Stage tests.
If you like our KS2 Guided Reading Prompts, you may also like these for KS1:
Questions matched to the National Curriculum Content Domains. Suitable for guided and whole class reading activities.
If you liked this article, you may find this one about reading retrieval interesting.