The note
How schools teach it now
Many schools teach reading through VIPERS: Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve, Summarise. Children skim for the gist, scan for key words, and back answers up with evidence. For longer answers they use Point, Evidence, Explain: make a point, quote the words, explain how they show it.
5-minute kitchen-table activity
After your child reads a page of their book (or you share a short news article), ask three questions: a 'find it' (Where did they go?), a 'clue' (How did she feel? How do you know?) and a 'word' (Why 'crept' and not 'walked'?). Five minutes is plenty.
Worked example
Passage: 'The lighthouse stood on a rock a mile from the shore. Every evening at dusk, Mr Penrose rowed out to light the lamp.' When did Mr Penrose light the lamp? (A) at dawn (B) every evening at dusk (C) at midnight (D) once a week
- Underline the key words in the question: 'when' and 'light the lamp'.
- Scan the passage for those words.
- The sentence says 'Every evening at dusk'.
Answer: B: every evening at dusk
Common mistakes to watch for
- Answering from memory or general knowledge instead of the passage.
- Missing part of the question, such as 'Give two reasons'.
- Copying a long chunk of text instead of the exact words needed.
Encouragement
- Try saying
- “Great idea. Can you show me the words that told you?”
- Rather than
- “You've read it, so you should just know.”