Reading Curriculum
A Love for Reading
At Boarshaw Primary School, we want children to choose to read and enjoy it both in and out of school. We use book banded (coloured levels) books from Rising Stars Reading Planet to ensure structure and progression of skills, but we also want children to read a range of books beyond these. Reading for both pleasure and purpose is important and we encourage you to help your children to continuously increase the range and types of books that they choose. Sometimes, in trying different genres (styles) of books, we can discover styles that we were not expecting to enjoy!
As children become more independent readers, they often have favourite authors and parents can worry about this; however, many adults are the same! Reading these for pleasure is valuable so when your child finds an author that they love, allow them to read for pleasure. You can always encourage them to read non-fiction, such as newspapers, at opportune moments to help keep some balance. Equally, help your child to find new series that they may wish to read. Book shops and the staff at local libraries, are often happy to make recommendations and talk about new releases and the internet is packed with extracts and reviews. To engage with your child, if they are reading longer books, ask them to discuss their book, help them with book reviews or even read it yourself and talk in a ‘book club’ way!
Reading at Boarshaw Primary
Reading is a vital skill and can bring much pleasure; as adults we need to act as role models and encourage and inspire children as much as possible.
Reading in class is taught by sharing books and novels with the whole class/in small guided groups. Pupils are encouraged to unpick new vocabulary, identify genres and common themes, improve their inference and deduction skills as well as recognise how and why an author creates a certain effect within the book. Books selected are always age-appropriate yet challenging texts to help engage pupils and strengthen that love for reading. Each year group has a list of books, taken from our cultural capital, to read throughout the year, either as a focus text or just for pleasure as a class novel.
To find out more about early reading, have a look at our Phonics webpage.
The School Library
Our school has a large school library which is an inviting place for pupils to come and read. The library is well resourced with a variety of non-fiction and fiction books suitable for all ages. There is a variety of picture books and a new bi-lingual section to help encourage reading for EAL pupils.
All classes are encouraged to come and use the school library at least once a week to allow pupils the experience of listening to stories in this stimulating environment. All pupils can also make use of this time to borrow a library book to take home. We change books weekly and there are many recommended reads available to help promote new books and also to encourage the reading of those classic well-loved stories! Reading Ambassadors have worked together to create the following rules from the school library.
Our school library often has themed displays linked to current and relevant events. There are recommended reads and reading activities linked to these events on display for pupils to borrow/take home.