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Reading: it’s a partnership
Reading is the key that unlocks the whole world of learning. It
is one of the most important life skills that schools teach their
pupils. But to succeed, learning to read must be a partnership
between home and school. What parents do at home is every
bit as important as what goes on in school, says Jo Carr Year
4 teacher at St Nicholas School, Church Crookham.
At school, children will have a variety of formal and informal
opportunities to read. Careful monitoring and assessment will
ensure your child has reading material appropriate for their
reading ability. Your child will be heard to read regularly and
their progress tracked. The school will have a reading scheme
to develop your child’s reading in a structured way and build
solid foundations for future reading. New sounds, vocabulary
and punctuation will be introduced at each stage.
Most days will have opportunities for children to read quietly.
This could take the form of DEAR time: Drop Everything And
Read. In addition, there will be a ‘guided text’ which the English
group will explore in detail and use as a starting point for
writing activities. If there’s time, there may also be a class
novel, giving the teacher an opportunity to demonstrate effective
reading aloud while the children listen and enjoy.
As well as introducing the children to longer novels, English
lessons will also use picture books which tell a beautifully
crafted story in a very few words. This allows narrative structure
and the author’s economical choice of words to be explored.
There will be opportunities for the children to engage
in paired and shared reading activities. Older children can
read to younger children or hear them read. Stories will be
used to be the starting point of drama activities. They can be
adapted into playscripts by the children to perform themselves,
improvising the dialogue.
Drama techniques can be used to explore a book’s themes and
bring them to life so that the children experience first hand
what is happening in the story. In ‘hot seating’, for example, a
child or the teacher will take the role of a character from a
story and the rest of the class asks questions. Or there is ‘conscience
alley’, where the children make two lines and a child
pretending to be a character from the story walks between
them. As he passes, each child offers thoughts and advice to
that character.
Many schools invite authors and illustrators may into school
to share their books with the children, tell stories and lead
workshops. It is truly inspiring for children to see these professionals
sharing their passion for literature. Each class may
have a poem of the day so that the children encounter figurative
language and imagery and experience the power a few
words can have.
World Book Day is an annual opportunity for schools to encourage
reading. They can organise a book week; there could
be book fairs or book exchanges can be organised. Teachers
and children can dress up as their favourite book characters.
Teachers can share their favourite childhood books, reading
them in site specific locations, by candlelight or out in the
school grounds. Children can make zig-zag books to read to
other year groups.
Alongside teaching the mechanics of reading, teachers will
take every opportunity to instil a love of literature in the chil-
26 x R&A HASLEMERE & VILLAGES February 2013