At the end of Key Stage 2, year 6 students in England are required to undertake a one hour reading test. The purpose of this assessment is to provide an opportunity for children to fully demonstrate their reading proficiency prior to them leaving primary school. Can a one hour test truly and fairly reflect a child's reading abilities? Many would agree that this is debatable.  Whether or not you have reservations about SATs, they are the system that is in place at the moment. The marks that pupils get in these tests can affect their future, so they do matter. If you are a teacher who is wanting to ensure your pupils do as well as they can in the KS2 Year 6 reading test, the tips outlined in this article will help.

1. Develop Fluency

It is not too late to focus on developing fluency in year 6, and improving it can make a huge difference. There are three texts in the KS2 reading test. The government states that the combined word count of these texts should range from 1500 to 2300 words. Children have a lot to read within the allocated test time of one hour. If they are not fluent readers, they may not make it beyond the first two texts. It is extremely unlikely that pupils who do not complete all three texts will gain the expected level.

Pupils need to read fluently not only to complete the paper, but also to improve their understanding of the content. Research shows that fluency improves comprehension. Fluency involves more than reading at speed.  The fluency rubric designed by Tim Rabinski measures levels of fluency based on the following criteria:

• Expression and Volume
• Phrasing
• Smoothness
• Pace

If pupils have serious problems with decoding, it will be obviously be difficult to develop their fluency. We should help these pupils as much as possible, but they are unlikely to pass the test. A government assessment is not needed to determine that year 6 pupils who cannot decode well are working below the expected level. However, for year 6 pupils who can decode, I have found that fluency can be developed surprisingly quickly using the following methods:

• Provide Personal Feedback: Though it may be difficult to find the time, a teacher or a teaching assistant should hear every pupil in year 6 read on a 1:1 at several points during the year and provide feedback on fluency where needed.  Many pupils develop a habit of reading in a certain way but can easily change it when given specific direction. Teachers should consider providing interventions for any pupils who are really struggling with fluency.
• Explicit Instruction: Ensure pupils are aware of what it means to read fluently. Teachers could share the fluency rubric with them. Click here to download it.
• Modelling: Whole class reading sessions where the teacher reads a selected text aloud provide a great opportunity to demonstrate what fluent reading sounds like. Teachers could try occasionally interspersing echo reading . This technique involves reading a short segment of text aloud and asking pupils to reread it aloud echoing the teacher's style of reading and fluency. It is often used with beginner readers, but I've found it can be also be a great way of practising fluent reading in year 6.

2. Use Reading SATs Papers From Previous Years

It goes without saying that year 6 pupils should prepare by doing a mock test based on a previous reading SATs paper at least once before the actual exam. In reality, many schools do practice papers frequently throughout the year. It is common for schools to do one every half term. It is not necessarily the case, however, that the more practice papers pupils do the better it is for them.

Here are some of the problems that can arise from repeatedly doing practice test papers:

• Pupils can get tired and bored of doing tests reducing their motivation.
• Pupils  may become disheartened if they keep scoring poorly.
• It can be hard for teachers to keep up with marking them leading to stress due to a heavy workload.
• It can take a lot of time out of the timetable effectively reducing valuable teaching time.

On the other hand, here are some of the benefits of doing practice test papers:

• Children become familiar with the timings, types of questions and layout of the paper.
• Children become used to being in a test situation so they are likely to feel more at ease on the day of the real tests.
• Teachers can monitor pupils' progress.
• Teachers can discuss and analyse mistakes make on the test with pupils in order to drive improvement.

It is important to get the balance right when doing practice tests so that the process is not too draining. Overdoing practice tests could result in both pupils and their teacher running out of stamina half-way through the year! A schedule for when year 6 practice tests will be done should be set at the beginning of year 6 .

When selecting practice papers, teachers should select ones which are fairly recent as question styles have changed throughout the years. There is no point doing practice tests using SATS papers from years ago as the questions are very different from the ones that today's pupils will experience.

3. Practise With Mini-Tests

Doing full SATs papers can be incredibly time-consuming. After completing a SATs paper, many teachers like to go through it with their pupils discussing the questions, common errors and suitable answers. Teachers may find pupils' need to work on their timings or practise certain types of questions.

Using full SATs papers is worthwhile but it takes a very long time. It is not always necessary to do a whole SATs paper to get practise and drive improvement. Rather than doing a whole test, teachers could help pupils prepare for SATs by doing segments of previous papers or mini-tests.

The one-hour reading SATs paper is typically divided into three sections. This means  pupils have approximately 20 minutes to complete each section. Setting a timer and asking pupils to complete one section of the text in 20 minutes provides pupils with excellent test practice. It is also less onerous to go through just one section of the text with the pupils when discussing suitable answers whilst completing post-test analysis.

The most difficult section of the test is usually a fiction text extract which is situated at the end. Primary Texts provide reading practice test materials which allow pupils to practise reading a challenging fiction text and answering related SATs style questions in a set time. Check out our popular mini-tests. Click the images below for more details:

4. Focus on Inference

After pupils have done a practice test, it is common for an analysis to be carried out. The purpose of the analysis is to work out which types of questions the pupils are struggling with and which reading domains require focus. In my experience, the results of an analysis often highlight that a significant number of pupils find questions involving inference tricky. Questions involving deeper inference such as those posed in 3 mark questions are often poorly answered.

If you have found the same, you might want pupils to have more practice in these areas. At Primary Texts, we have created an Inference and Impressions pack. This pack includes high-quality, engaging, challenging text extracts accompanied by short comprehensions. Click the images for more details.

5. Remember Reading for Pleasure

It can be so busy in year 6 that reading for pleasure may get pushed to the side. This is a mistake as numerous studies have shown the more children read, the better their comprehension is. Teachers should ensure there is regular time allocated on the class timetable for reading for pleasure. Allocating time for reading for pleasure can help pupils develop their reading comprehension incrementally day-by-day.

I have found that wherever possible, providing 15 minutes for pupils to relax and read a book of their choice after lunch time makes for a lovely calming start to an afternoon.  It also provides a brief respite in the school day where they can take a mental break and indulge in escapism thereby reducing any stress they may be feeling. After having around 15 years of experience of working with year 6, I know that despite a teacher's best efforts many pupils do begin to feel the pressure of the upcoming assessments. It may be hard to find the time for reading for pleasure, but it is worth it.

Teachers should also encourage reading for pleasure at home by ensuring that time is allocated for home readers to be changed. There should be an enticing selection of home readers provided. It is even better if children have regular access to a school library.

6. Practise Reading Skills Across the Curriculum

There are opportunites to teach reading skills in many areas of the curriculum. The reading test commonly contains a non-fiction section which might be based on any subject. Pupils need to be familiar with non-fiction reading texts, understand their layout and how to quickly extract information from them.

This can naturally be done through regularly incorporating an element of reading comprehension into lessons such as science, geography, history or D.T. For example, if you were studying the planets in science, it is likely there would be an opportunity to read a text linked to this topic and follow-up with comprehension questions. Doing this would deepen understanding of the topic in tandem with developing reading skills.

This may seem onerous, but it doesn't have to be. At its most basic, teachers could simply create literal comprehension questions or true/ false questions for a text related to a topic they are studying. If this seems time-consuming, the good news is that  I have found asking pupils to create such questions themselves works even better. See section 7 for more information on how to get pupils to create a quiz.

7. Revise Retrieval

It is often a surprise to teachers when during practice tests pupils answer fairly straightforward retrieval questions incorrectly. This is often due to misreading question starters. For example, I have frequently seen when confused with where. Though retrieval questions can often appear to be simple, for many pupils they are not.

It is important to spend time practising how to answer retrieval questions. They have accounted for between 32 and 38% of the total mark in recent tests. Increasing understanding of how to answer these questions is likely to lead to higher test scores.

One way of practising is to have pupils create quizzes based on retrieval. This is a fun activity which builds understanding of this question type. Feasibly, this can be done with any type of text, but non-fiction is the easiest to begin with. Simply do the following:

• Provide pupils with a text of one or two sides.
• Write a list of literal question starters on the board e.g. Who...? What...? Where...? When...? How many...? Which...?
• Add other starters which are often used as starters for retrieval tasks e.g. Name... List...
• Ask pupils to create 5 to 10 questions based on the text.
• Pupils can then swop their questions with a peer who then answers them.
• The questions are then returned to the test creator to be marked.

Pupils might also create true / false questions in addition or as an alternative to this.

8. Develop Vocabulary

The more words pupils know, the more able they will be to understand the content on the year 6 reading test. Expanding vocabulary should be a focus of all teacher-led reading sessions. Pupils should continually be introduced to new words.

There should also be a huge focus on eliciting the meanings of words in context. This can be done not only in reading lessons, but also when studying texts across the curriculum.Developing this skill enables pupils to work out the meaning of new words when reading independently. There are often questions checking pupils ability to do this on the test.

For those 3 markers which require pupils to think of words to describe impressions of characters and personality,  it helps if pupils have mentally formulated a wide bank of words to choose from. This is also the case for questions which require pupils to explore character's emotions. Primary Texts Higher Level Vocabulary word mats are designed primarily to support writing. However, using them frequently throughout the year in writing lessons will have the knock-on effect helping pupils to expand their vocabulary in general. Click below to download this useful free resource.

9. Practise Skimming and Scanning

Pupils need to have understanding of both of these skills in order to do their best in the reading test. It is easy to get mixed up with which is which.

Skimming is when you quickly look over a text to get an idea of what it is about. I would suggest that with the time pressure of the reading SATs paper, this is the best way to approach any type of non-fiction text with subsections. Pupils need to be understand that non-fiction can be read in a very different way to fiction. Skimming involves the following:

• Reading the title
• Reading the introduction
• Looking at any subheadings (in interview texts, questions act as subheadings and are often in bold)
• Noticing pictures

After doing the above, readers often have a good idea of what a text is about. Pupils will find that after skimming a non-fiction text which has subheadings, they are able to jump straight into answering questions about it. They will find that they are able to use subheadings to locate answers.

Scanning is when you look through a text quickly searching for specific information. This is a skill that pupils need when they are answering questions. Pupils should be taught that identifying key words in questions can help them locate relevant information in the text. It is important that pupils understand that in the reading SATs, questions are almost always in the order of the text. Knowing where to look when scanning the text will help pupils to avoid wasting time.

10. Use a Range of Comprehension Activities

Practising how to answer questions is an important part of preparing for the year 6 reading SATs; however, this will only take your pupils so far. There are many questions they will not be able to answer properly if they are not used to stopping and considering what they are reading at a deeper level. Strange as it may sound, ensuring that you do some comprehension tasks which do not directly involve answering questions can help pupils become better at answering them.

Exploring characters, settings, events using a variety of activities (including discussion) can help pupils to develop the habit of thinking about what they are reading in depth. This can lead to real improvement in comprehension skills which can help them to answer more complex questions on the reading SATs.

Here are some examples of engaging reading activities which are likely to increase comprehension abilities:

• Discussion / Sharing opinions
• Drawing imagery from the text
• Hot-seating, role-play and other drama activities
• Writing in role, eg. diary entries, emails, letters

To build comprehension, teachers need to find a balance between showing pupils how to answer questions, exploring other ways of providing a written response to a text and sometimes doing practical activities that require no writing at all.

The Primary Texts resource below was created to help pupils develop their inferential skills through discussion. It does not necessarily involve pupils answering direct questions and writing answers. Despite this, it works really well in helping pupils to prepare for the challenging fiction text that is a frequent feature of the year 6 reading SATs test. Click the images below for more details.