I have been thinking about and researching how to improve comprehension skills using a range of high quality texts, images, picture books and of course film. 
After a number of sessions with children in schools using the new content domains, which can be found on the gov.uk website, I found that all of the key comprehension skills were being covered through the domains. As some of you who follow this blog will know, I like a mnemonic.  So I set about thinking about a mnemonic that could be used by teachers, other adults who read with children and also the children themselves.  My first attempt - MR SIP TEA was not the catchiest so we have come up with Reading Vipers.  Vipers cover the key comprehension skills in line with the 'new' content domains. 

At Literacy Shed the minions are now busy making a whole host of resources that will link to Reading Vipers.  There are now 30+ Film VIPERS on www.literacyshedplus.com

We are also creating a range of comprehension materials based on extracts from classic texts such as Black Beauty, The Time Machine, Robinson Crusoe and many more which will soon be available here. www.literacyshedplus.com   Until then you can download The Time Machine sample (as seen below) by clicking here. =

The same key viper skills can be rehearsed effectively using single images or picture books.

Take a look at this example using the picture book 'Return' by Aaron Becker. 

There are over 30 sets of VIPERS questions for the Literacy Shed films now on www.literacyshedplus.com

The question stem documents can be downloaded by click on the relevant image below. 

As always comments are welcome! 
Click the text below for further reading. 

Today I had the pleasure of delivering a keynote at a conference in Wolverhampton today alongside some great speakers and the team from Wolverhampton LEA. 

One thing I will take away is using technology to aid spelling in writing.  Mark Smith and others demonstrated how Siri can be used to aid those children whose spelling problems stop them from using a dictionary properly.  His example was with children looking up 'mystery' in the dictionary by searching in the m-i-s- section and being unable to find the word they want. 

Here is a video of Noah in Y2 asking Siri to spell 'Caterpillar' for him:

As you can see in the video as well as displaying the written spelling it also reads the spelling to the child. 

We then tried it with a homophone 'allowed' with mixed results.   There is also an option on Google Search using the microphone button there.  Here is what happened: 

So as you can see it may be that homophones confuse the situation, but it could still be a useful tool for some children. 

We were advised today that if this is normal classroom practice that STA will accept it as independent writing for assessment purposes. (when used for single words and not whole sentences) 

​Even if you do not think you would like to use it in independent writing it could be useful for novice writers in other year groups who can write but struggle with spelling. 

Comments welcome as ever. 

​Rob