Reading AFs

	Assessment focus
AF1	Use a range of strategies including accurate decoding of text, to read for meaning
AF2	Understand, describe, select or retrieve information, events or ideas from texts and use quotation and reference to text
AF3	Deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts
AF4	Identify and comment on the structure and organisation of texts, including grammatical and presentational features at text level
AF5	Explain and comment on writers' uses of language, including grammatical and literary features at word and sentence level
AF6	Identify and comment on writers' purposes and viewpoints and the overall effect of the text on the reader
AF7	Relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts and literary traditions

AFs are not hierarchical, age or ability related, and they define broad areas in which evidence can be examined in order to determine how well pupils are progressing.
Readers use a range of strategies to decode texts (AF1) which become more automatic with experience, as listening to pupils read throughout Key Stage 2 demonstrates.
Reading involves making meaning from content, structure and language (AFs 2-5).
To develop as readers who can make sense of a wide range of texts, pupils need to be secure on AF3. Securing AF3 is a vital underpinning for progress through level 4 and above.
The AFs which highlight evaluation and analysis (AFs 4-7) build on the skills in AFs 1-3.
In exploring a text, readers respond to specific aspects (AFs 4-5) and to the text as a whole (AF6) and consider how the text relates to their wider reading and experience (AF7).