KS2 Literacy

According to the National Curriculum, engaging with non-fiction texts is a key part of a child’s learning in Literacy.

Though the Research Champion stories are, from a narrative perspective just that – stories – their content is factual. What’s more, the interspersed ‘Fact Boxes’ contain purely non-fiction information and are written with the conventions of non-fiction.

As a result, the stories can be used to teach children about non-fiction writing.

Each contains a glossary at the end, and scientific language that children will likely not have encountered before. This means they will have to use their word knowledge to work out new words, and use dictionaries if they find words that are not covered by the glossary. Furthermore, the ‘non-fiction story’ style will likely be a new structure for many children, that they can learn about.

The stories could be used to cover, or add to the coverage of, the following aspects of the National Curriculum for Literacy.

Lower KS2:

• Developing knowledge and skills in reading non-fiction about a wide range of subjects.
• Building on what children have learnt.
• Applying knowledge of root words, prefixes, and suffixes, both to read aloud and to understand the meaning of new words that they meet.
• Developing positive attitudes to reading, and understanding what is read.
• Retrieving and recording information from non-fiction.
• Participating in discussion about both books that are read to them, and those they can read for themselves.
• Locating information using glossaries.

Upper KS2:

• Applying knowledge of root words, prefixes, and suffixes, both to read aloud and to understand the meaning of new words that they meet.
• Read and discuss an increasingly wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-fiction, and reference books/textbooks.
• Retrieving, recording, and presenting information from non-fiction.
• Participating in discussion about both books that are read to them, and those they can read for themselves.
• Explaining and discussing their understanding of what they have read, including formal presentations and debates, maintaining a focus on the topic and using notes where necessary.