11 Plus Verbal Reasoning Exam – Year 4

Verbal Reasoning exam preparation Year 4

See our Verbal Reasoning in Year 4 guide for full advice.

While it is possible to do specific Verbal Reasoning preparation in Year 4 we strongly suggest parents do not go down this route. The reason is we know from experience that the better a child’s core Maths and English skills the better they will do in any 11 Plus exam. Time taken from that core skills work to look at Verbal Reasoning is often counterproductive.

If having done all the English and Maths work for year 4 we suggest then the following are useful additional activities that will help with Verbal Reasoning.

1/  Read even more widely.

2/  Do more paired reading.

3/  Do more spelling and vocabulary work

At this stage of development we suggest the following books:

Scholastic – Spelling and Vocabulary Workbook – Year 4

Scholastic – Spelling Cards

4/  If you have done the above AND are at the end of Year 4 and want to move to formal Verbal Reasoning work then we’d suggest moving to our Verbal Reasoning Year 5 recommendations.

REMEMBER:  Children without very strong vocabulary skills will make mistakes in VR regardless of how good their technique is. We know some parents cannot resist the urge to get into technique work and testing. All we can do is urge you to prioritise vocabulary development over technique work and testing at this stage. Children without a very strong vocabulary reach a ceiling of performance in Verbal Reasoning quite quickly.