Year 6 SATS English reading

[Thingsthatgo]

My DS is pretty academic, and is doing well at school. The English reading paper is the trickiest for him, as some of the questions appear ambiguous, and when I try to help him, I see the same ambiguity (so I can't always help!).
For one example, he was reading about king Henry VIII, and the question said 'why do you think King Henry wanted to be the Head of the Church of England?'
The answer is so that he could divorce his wife, but DS wrote about why he might want to be the head of the church (ie power, respect, closer to God) not why he introduced a new type of Christianity.
Anyway, this is a long winded why to ask... is there a way I can help him see what the exam is asking? Is there a specific way to approach these questions, that might help him bypass the ambiguity?
Thank you

Focus on inference and deduction discussions whenever you read together.

@WGACA thank you so much for replying. Could you explain a little more? Or is there somewhere I can read a bit more about inference and deduction for KS2?

Talk about how characters might be feeling in books and films. Ask your child’s teacher if they have any comprehension tasks which focus explicitly on practising these skills. They may be able to print you some bits from twinkl or photocopy some pages from their resource books for you to use at home. It can be hard for children to look beyond the literal.

www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zs44jxs/articles/zh9qkty

I agree OP - my DS has a workbook from school that I assume is basically past DATS papers or SATS type content. It had a really tricky piece of text in from Dickens's autobiography. I've got an English A-Level and had to read carefully to fully understand what was being asked by some of the questions.

Anyway - what I was really wanting to say is remember the SATS are just for schools. They really don't mean much in terms of your son's long term school/academic career. At secondary they will test him again and move him up and down sets according to how he's doing. Even if they use his SATS results to predict GCSE grades, it is just that - a prediction. 🤷🏼‍♀️

It’s still important for a child to be able to ‘read between the lines’ as it makes reading more pleasurable. Frequent of reading for pleasure is the single biggest factor for success in future life above all others.

One thing to remember is that answers need to be using evidence from the text, so if the text didn't mention that Henry was power-hungry and deeply religious, then your son's answer doesn't work. Whereas if it says Henry desperately wanted a divorce and that the Catholic Church didn't allow it, then that would be a reason for him to want to be head of the C of E.

@WGACA thank you, that's really helpful. I'll have a look at some of those examples.

Check if his potential secondary school uses SATs for streaming or predicted grades before investing any energy into them. Otherwise, if you want to do extra work, you can spend the time more productively E.g. widening his range of reading

@tillyoumakeit you are absolutely right... they are not important, and I am ensuring that DS knows that. The school he is going to does some additional CATS when the year 7s start anyway. I'm just helping him because he asked me. He really enjoys school, and wants to do well (not like me, who did as little as I could get away with!)

@Bsmirched that is a good point, thank you. The questions that start 'why do you think...?' Are still looking for evidence from the text, not a random musing! I shall check that he fully understands that.

Yes, even if it says 'Why do you think...' the answer should still be based on the text with a quote to back it up rather than any background knowledge/musings.

All state secondaries have predicted results from SATs. It isn't something they do themselves: it's done to them and how a child achieves at GCSE compared to the predictions is the sole progress measure used to judge secondary schools.

Every year, we get parents saying "Oh but they matter more for the school, don't they?" and the honest answer is no. Since "Progress 8" and how that is used to judge secondary schools, the SAT results have a noticeable, longer-term impact on the child than they ever do on the school.

OP the point about evidencing from the text is a good one. The test is reading focused so it honestly doesn't care what prior knowledge of history/science/etc.a child brings to it. Whilst the points your son made were valid from a historical perspective, if those weren't the points referenced in the text itself then, from a reading perspective, they'd be marked as incorrect.

@Iamnotthe1 thank you. To be fair to my DS, in the text those points were made regarding King Henry VIII, but in a separate paragraph.
There was another question about fact or opinion. '

The medal was sold for a lot of money'
DS put opinion, as 'a lot' of money depends on a person's perspective. The answer book said fact.

If you're using a revision book or book of comprehensions then there is a reasonable chance that some of the mark scheme will be wrong or overly restricted when compared to how things would be in an actual test. For the example you gave there, that would never be accepted as a question because of the ambiguity.

Your original example would also be more direct in an actual exam. If the text was restricting answers to a specific point but other valid points were made elsewhere in the text, the question would say: "In the paragraph beginning..." so that there was no ambiguity.

@Iamnotthe1 thank you. That's good to know.