Your October Primary Update
Your October Primary Update
Your October Primary Update
In June this year, we kicked off our Share a Read campaign to encourage more people to pick up a book and feel the benefits of reading for pleasure. We wanted you to discover new books and share the joy of reading them with everyone.
‘If I visited your school’, I often ask teachers and school librarians, ‘would I know that it’s a school that values reading… before I got to the library?’ (This assumes the library’s lively, well-stocked, welcoming, and used). ‘Would I see photographs of a recent author visit on your entrance area’s computer screen? Would I see, at child’s-eye level in the corridors, jumbled book titles, ‘children’s picks’, and author bios? Are there poems in unusual places, like the back of toilet cubicle doors?
Do you remember reading and writing for pleasure during your school days? Perhaps your class had a cosy nook for devouring books during breaks – or maybe a teacher enthused you with the joy of making up your own stories just because. If so, you may not realise what a great springboard that was for later life.
When a child makes the leap from reading because their teacher tells them they must, to reading for pleasure, they have picked up a good habit for a lifetime. True, not everybody is a great reader, and we all have our own unique skills to offer the world, but anybody’s reading can improve with time and patience. This is especially true for children who have the advantage of minds that are keen to learn and absorb information. That’s why helping children to keep gaining confidence in their reading, whatever their natural ability, is so fundamental and it is best achieved when the duty is shared by homes and schools.
As dates for the autumn term diary go, few hold more creative potential than National Poetry Day. This year, the theme for the UK-wide celebration is ‘Choice’ – so we’re encouraging teachers and pupils alike to choose to take part in the action! To help you along, here are Five Top Tips to encourage your pupils' engagement on Thursday 7 October and beyond.
Reading for pleasure is more than just a hobby. In fact, research across the decades suggests it is likely to be integral in fostering significant life skills for young learners.
In our latest post, teacher Laura Meyrick shares findings about reading for pleasure at secondary level, along with some ideas to encourage teachers as role models.
This Primary Update special brings you our informative Back-to-School toolkit and looks at the power behind reading for pleasure. We look at supporting your CPD with the Professional Development Academy, explore what's new in Bug Club Phonics, Power Maths and more!
Whether by reading all together – or drawing on the amazing breadth of stories, characters, authors, illustrators, and formats out there – so long as their reading experience is a positive one, children can be encouraged on a lifelong reading journey. Debbie Hicks, Creative Director at The Reading Agency takes a look at how teachers and families can work together to get them going, helping young readers head in the right direction.