The Great Sandcastle Challenge Reading guide

Phonics focus

Lessons 95–96: comparative and superlative spelling changes; doubling, drop-e and y-to-i in past tense

Practise -er, -est and past-tense spelling changes in these words: tall/taller/tallest, wide/wider/widest, big/biggest, strong/stronger; stop/stopped, plan/planned, smile/smiled, move/moved, try/tried, carry/carried. Read practice words in their meaningful parts and compare related forms. Use the programme lessons to introduce new sounds; the story is original.

Bold red vowel letters and bold blue consonant letters show the selected focus spellings. Read selected prefixes, suffixes, changed letters and review spellings in context. Vowel y is red. Apostrophes and punctuation remain dark. Discuss how meaningful word parts change meaning and spelling. Colour is a visual aid, and every letter in a spelling does not represent a separate sound. Read the guide note for each pattern. Help children with other letters and patterns in the word when needed. A highlighted letter does not mean the whole word is independently decodable.

Adult supported words

An adult reads the title with the child. Preview Jack, Rose, built, castles, beach, wanted, tower, wall, Let’s, try, both, piled, sand, grew, then, tipped, Rose’s, first, was, thin, made, base, help, stand, castle, together, wet, patted, flat, Then, small, wave, reached, its, edge, washed, away, one, broken, hard, What, could, change, farther, Together, their, finished, Its, but, took, picture, before, left, best. Help with unfamiliar parts of focus words too. These are supported shared-reading narratives; not every word is independently decodable.

Before reading

Read three practice words and name the selected spelling. Look at the cover, name the setting and predict what might happen.

During reading

Read each sentence aloud together. Point to the highlighted letters, blend the focus words and reread naturally. Use Talk Together to discuss the character, problem, actions and ending.

Narrative structure

Jack and Rose test taller towers and wider walls. After a wave damages their castle, they move up the beach and build a stronger one together.

After reading

Invite the child to retell what happened first, what went wrong, what the character tried and how the story ended. Reread the book to build confidence.

Compare stop/stopped and plan/planned (double consonant), smile/smiled and move/moved (drop e before ed), try/tried and carry/carried (y to i). Selected changed letters and endings show these patterns; -ed may say /t/, /d/ or /id/. In widest and wider the base’s final e is part of the spelling change; biggest doubles g. Highlight the changed g in biggest too.