A Sign for the Pond

Reading together

This original Level 12 reader is written for students aged 11–20 who benefit from accessible text and age-appropriate characters. It uses familiar vocabulary, a little more connected text than our Level 11 readers, clear dialogue, and opportunities to follow causes, clues and changes of plan. Each story has a problem, actions and a resolution. Level 12 is the intended difficulty, not a formal PM assessment. Reading age 5–6½ is an approximate guide to text difficulty; it does not describe the student’s age or maturity.

Before reading

Read the title and look at the cover. Introduce the characters shown there. Explore pond, nest, sign, path, peace using familiar examples. Invite a prediction about what might happen.

During reading

Introduce unfamiliar character names and useful topic words before reading. Help the student blend unfamiliar words using letter–sound patterns they have learned. Explain a word with an untaught pattern, then reread the sentence. Use illustrations to discuss meaning and check understanding; do not ask students to guess printed words from pictures. These School Readers are not a phonics-sequenced decodable programme.

Read at a comfortable pace. Help with unfamiliar words, then reread the whole sentence for meaning. Use Talk Together for a prompt on each page. Encourage students to look back at both the words and the pictures to support an answer.

After reading

What does the duck do? What might the footprints show? Why is the sign hard to see? Why choose the bend? How do the visitors use the sign? What makes the sign useful?

Retell why the students make a sign and why they change its position. Explain how watching from the path helps the duck. What makes a message useful?

Reading-age guide

Levels 1–20 describe this library’s editorial progression. Reading-age ranges are approximate orientation guides, not tested scores or automatic equivalents to PM, Oxford Levels or Reading Recovery. Choose a book by listening to the student read and checking fluency and understanding. Match the characters and subject matter to the student’s age and interests separately from text difficulty.

Activities

Eleven separate question cards include recall, cause and effect, “why”, feelings and word meaning. Explore five vocabulary words, build them from movable letters, order three story pictures and retell the story. Students can drag with a mouse or finger, use tap controls, or use the keyboard. Personal discussion answers may vary.