Understanding Traditional Stories

Karen Moncrieffe is an experienced primary school teacher and a former literacy co-ordinator. She currently teaches in Birmingham. Karen has produced a variety of resources for teachers to use to develop their pupils' reading and writing skills. She loves both writing and teaching, and is passionate about helping pupils to develop a love of literacy. Visit her website www.primarytexts.co.uk.

• Introduction; How to Use this Book; FABLES: The Wind and the Sun (Greece); The Ant and the Grasshopper (Greece); Hare and the Tortoise (Greece); The Miller, his Son and the Donkey (Greece); The Tale of Two Fishes and a Frog (India); The Flying Turtle (India); The Singing Donkey (India); FOLK STORIES: Abu Ali Counts his Donkeys (Middle East); Rabbit Catches the Sun (America); The Giant Turnip (Russia); The Greedy Lion (Africa); Tortoise and Baboon (Africa); The Fox and the Tiger (China); The Lion and the Jackal (Africa); The Fox and the Bagpipes (Scotland); Why the Emu has Short Wings (Australia); The Lizard and the Sun (Mexico); FAIRY TALES: The Elves and the Shoemaker (Germany); The Gingerbread Man (America); The Magic Porridge Pot (Germany); The Three Billy Goats Gruff (Norway); The Ugly Duckling (Denmark); Cinderella (France); Goldilocks and the Three Bears (England); The Three Little Pigs (England)

Subtitled 'Differentiated Comprehension and Reading Activities for 5-7 Year Olds Using Retellings of Stories from Around the World', this is an excellent book which satisfies the requirements of the KS1 curriculum and is especially good beacuse of the range of texts from around the world. Accompanying the story texts are teachers' notes (including follow-up activities) and reading tasks which develop comprehension and reading skills - the tasks can be photocopied for class use. The activities will help prepare pupils for their Year 2 tests in which they are required to demonstrate that they not only have the ability to decode words and retrieve information, but also that they are able to use skills such as inference, deduction and state their opinion of a text. I like the fact that many of the tasks ask children to do a drawing - this encourages those who find writing harder and gives all children an additional way to express themselves. Many of the suggested follow up activities link to PSHE and to other areas of the curriculum such as science, giving the book excellent cross-curricular value and making it a good staffroom resource. The curriculum introduced in 2014 places a heavy emphasis on speaking and listening skills and the activities are carefully planned to develop these skills. The stories are wide-ranging with many less familiar texts, including The Lizard and the Sun and The Fox and the Bagpipes - it's great to see that children will be learning new stories. (Parents in Touch)