Year 4
English Curriculum
2014 / 2015
Medium-term planning Spring 2: Romans
Overview
Learning Objectives to be covered
● To read books structured in different ways and read for a
range of purposes.
● To listen to and discuss a wide range of fiction and nonfiction texts.
Comprehension
● The focus should continue to
be on children’s comprehension.
The knowledge and skills that
children need in order to
comprehend are very similar at
different ages. The complexity of
the writing increases the level of
challenge.
Week 1
YEAR 4
6
weeks
● Children should be taught to
recognise themes in what they
read. They should also learn the
conventions of different types of
writing, such as the greeting in
letters or the use of
presentational devices such as
numbering and headings in
instructions.
● Children should be taught to
use the skills they have learned
earlier and continue to apply
these skills to read for different
reasons, including for pleasure,
● To check that the text makes sense to them,
discussing their understanding and explaining the
meaning of words in context.
● To draw inferences and justify them with evidence,
predicting what might happen from details stated and
implied.
Resources
(suggested)
The
Gruesome
Truth
About: The
Romans
Jillian
Powell
Romans
(Usborne
Beginners)
by Katie
Daynes
● To identify how language, structure, and presentation
contribute to meaning.
● To discuss writing similar to that which they are
planning to write in order to understand and learn
from its structure, grammar and vocabulary.
● To plan their writing by discussing and recording ideas.
● To compose and rehearse sentences orally,
progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and
an increasing range of sentence structures (see
Appendix 2).
● To learn the grammar in column 1 of Years 3 and 4 (see
Appendix 2).
Who were
the
Romans?
Phil Roxbee
Cox
Rome and
Romans
(Usborne
Time
Traveller)
Heather
Amery,
Patricia
Vanags,
Anne
Civard
Assessment
For assessment of reading, refer to
Assessing Pupil Progress: Gathering
Evidence in Reading
Can write appropriate speech
bubbles.
Can use role play to analyse a scene.
Can use appropriate grammar.
● To identify how language, structure, and presentation
contribute to meaning.
Word Reading
Week 2
● At this stage, teaching
comprehension should be taking
precedence over teaching word
reading directly. Any focus on
word reading should support the
development of vocabulary.
● When children are taught to
read longer words, they should be
supported to test out different
pronunciations. They will attempt
to match what they decode to
words they may have already
heard but may not have seen in
print: for example in reading
technical, the pronunciation
/tɛtʃnɪkəl/ (‘tetchnical’) might not
sound familiar, but /tɛknɪkəl/
(‘teknical’) should.
● To compose and rehearse sentences orally,
progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and
an increasing range of sentence structures (see
Appendix 2).
● To draft and write narratives, creating settings, characters
and plot.
● To indicate grammatical and other features by using and
punctuating direct speech.
● To use dictionaries to check the meaning of words that
they have read.
● To use the first two or three letters of a word to check its
spelling in a dictionary.
● To assess the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing
and suggest changes.
● To propose changes to grammar and vocabulary to
improve consistency.
● To revise all of the handwriting curriculum objectives in
Years 3–4.
Roman
Britain
(Usborne
British
History)
Ruth
Brocklehurst
The
Thieves of
Ostia
[Fiction]
Caroline
Lawrence
For assessment of reading, refer
to Assessing Pupil Progress:
Gathering Evidence in Reading
Can write a narrative text.
Can punctuate speech.
Composition
Week 3
● Children should continue
to have opportunities to write
for a range of real purposes
and audiences as part of
their work across the
curriculum. These
purposes and audiences should
underpin the decisions about the
form the writing should take.
● Children should understand,
through being shown, the skills
and processes that are essential
for writing: that is, thinking
aloud to explore and collect
ideas, drafting, and re-reading
to check their meaning is clear,
including doing so as the writing
develops. Children should be
taught to monitor whether their
writing makes sense, checking
at different levels.
● Grammar should be taught
explicitly: children should be
taught the terminology and
concepts set out in Appendix 2,
and be able to apply them
correctly to examples of real
language.
● Children should start to learn
about some of the differences
between Standard and nonStandard English and begin to
apply what they have learned.
● To discuss writing similar to that which they are
planning to write in order to understand and learn
from its structure, grammar and vocabulary.
For assessment of reading, refer
to Assessing Pupil Progress:
Gathering Evidence in Reading
● To plan their writing by discussing and recording ideas.
● To draft and write narratives, creating settings, characters
and plot.
● To indicate possession by using an apostrophe with
singular and plural nouns.
● To use the perfect form of verbs to mark relationships of
time and cause.
Can plan a pictorial story.
Can use the perfect form of verbs.
Transcription
● Children should learn to
spell new words correctly and
have plenty of practice in
spelling them
Week 4
● They should understand how
to place the apostrophe in
words with regular plurals
(girls’, boys’) and in words with
irregular plurals (children’s).
● As in Years 1 and 2, children
should continue to be supported
in understanding and applying
the concepts of word structure
(see Appendix 2).
● Dictionaries are not useful
for children who cannot yet
spell, since these children do
not have sufficient knowledge
of spelling to use them
efficiently.
● Children should be using joined
handwriting throughout their
independent writing. Handwriting
should continue to be taught, with
the aim of increasing the fluency
with which children are able to
write down what they want to say.
This, in turn, will support their
composition and spelling.
● To use the first two or three letters of a word to check its
spelling in a dictionary.
For assessment of reading, refer
to Assessing Pupil Progress:
Gathering Evidence in Reading
● To draft and write narratives, creating settings, characters
and plot.
Can produce a text formed of words
and pictures.
● To assess the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing
and suggest changes.
● To propose changes to grammar and vocabulary to
improve consistency.
● To proofread for spelling and punctuation errors.
● To compose and rehearse sentences orally,
progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and
an increasing range of sentence structures (see
Appendix 2).
● To spell words that are often misspelled.
● To write sentences dictated to them that include taught
words and punctuation.
● To revise all of the handwriting curriculum objectives in
Years 3–4.
Can spell words with common
patterns.
Week 5
Transcription
● Children should learn to
spell new words correctly and
have plenty of practice in
spelling them
● To apply their growing knowledge of root words, prefixes
and suffixes (see Appendix
1), both to read aloud and to understand
the meaning of new words.
● They should understand how
to place the apostrophe in
words with regular plurals
(girls’, boys’) and in words with
irregular plurals (children’s).
● To read books structured in different ways and read for a
range of purposes.
● As in Years 1 and 2, children
should continue to be supported
in understanding and applying
the concepts of word structure
(see Appendix 2).
● Dictionaries are not useful
for children who cannot yet
spell, since these children do
not have sufficient knowledge
of spelling to use them
efficiently.
● Children should be using joined
handwriting throughout their
independent writing. Handwriting
should continue to be taught, with
the aim of increasing the fluency
with which children are able to
write down what they want to say.
This, in turn, will support their
composition and spelling.
● To discuss books that they have read and
listened to, taking turns to share thoughts.
● To revise all of the handwriting curriculum objectives in
Years 3–4.
● To discuss writing similar to that which they are
planning to write in order to understand and learn
from its structure, grammar and vocabulary.
● To draft and write non-narrative material, using simple
organisational devices.
● To use dictionaries to check the meaning of words that
they have read.
● To draw inferences and justify them with evidence,
predicting what might happen from details stated and
implied.
● To plan their writing by discussing and recording ideas.
● To identify main ideas drawn from more than one
paragraph and summarise them.
For assessment of reading, refer to
Assessing Pupil Progress:
Gathering Evidence in Reading
Can produce an appropriate nonfiction text.
Can use dictionaries to find meanings
of words.
Can make inferences.
Week 6
Comprehension
● Children should continue
to have opportunities to listen
frequently to stories, poems,
non-fiction and other writing,
including whole books and not
just extracts, so that they
build on what was taught
previously. In this way, they
also meet books and
authors that they might not
choose themselves. They
should also have opportunities
to exercise choice in selecting
books.
● Reading, re-reading, and
rehearsing poems and plays for
presentation and performance
gives children opportunities to
discuss language, including
vocabulary, extending their
interest in the meaning and origin
of words. These activities also
provide them with an incentive to
find out what expression is
required, so feeding into
comprehension.
● To recognise some different forms of poetry.
● To discuss words and phrases that capture the reader’s
interest and imagination.
● To discuss writing similar to that which they are
planning to write in order to understand and learn
from its structure, grammar and vocabulary.
● To compose and rehearse sentences orally,
progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and
an increasing range of sentence structures (see
Appendix 2).
● To assess the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing
and suggest changes.
● To revise all of the handwriting curriculum objectives in
Years 3–4.
● To prepare poems and playscripts to read aloud and to
perform, showing understanding through intonation, tone,
volume and action.
For assessment of reading,
refer to Assessing Pupil
Progress: Gathering Evidence in
Reading
Can draft and edit a monologue.
Can identify the effect of the poet’s
language choices.