Forum Topic: 2008 National Year of Reading

Discussion

• Posted by: sharris at at 22 March 2008 - 16:12

  I introduced E.R.I.C the bear into my year 2 class to motivate and inspire the children to read. E.R.I.C stands for Enjoy Reading In Class. The children have reponded really well to it and every day we have 15 minutes of reading for pleasure where the children choose a book from home or the School collection and read it. We have a feedback session where the children tell each other about their chosen books and we vote for our favourite review. That child then gets to look after E.R.I.C for the rest of the day. This has really inspired my children to enjoy and love reading and the difference in their reading skills due to this since September has been phenomonal. Steph Harris Year 2 teacher Wirral LA

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 25 March 2008 - 09:03

  Congratulations Sharris, by being the only entry this week you have automatically won the £50 worth of books! (Not that your tip wasn’t a good one, of course.) Please can you email your address to celetters@scholastic.co.uk so that we can send you your prize.

  Suggestions are now open again for next week’s draw…

  Charlotte

• Posted by: Book worm at at 25 March 2008 - 15:51

  I’ve got one. I think a lot of children prefer reading magazines than books as they seem very inviting and less intimidating, so I stock a selection of kids’s mags for them to look through if they’ve finished their work early.

  Can we submit more than one tip during the year if we win, by the way? (not that I’m saying this is a winning tip of anything…)

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 26 March 2008 - 09:52

  You raise a good point, Book worm. Yes, you can submit more than one tip during the year (although only one per week) even if you have won more than once. This competition is running for a whopping 40 weeks so, potentially, you could get a whole new library out of it!

  Charlotte

• Posted by: JillBurridge at at 29 March 2008 - 18:03

  I’ve found that limiting the number of books in the book corner enables Year 1 children to access the books as they are ones that become more and more familiar from story times and book sharing sessions. Having a larger number of good quality, visually interesting non-fiction books has particularly focused the boys on book enjoyment.

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 02 April 2008 - 09:33

  Congratulations Jill Burridge, your tip has been picked as this week’s top one! Please can you email your address to celetters@scholastic.co.uk so we can send you your prize.

  Charlotte

• Posted by: Brenda Whittle at at 02 April 2008 - 16:04

  My tip is to take a whole school approach to the quality of the stock of books in your school. If books are tatty, unappealing or out of date, children will not be inspired to read them. Get together as a staff and decide on and list, criteria that non-fiction and fiction books must meet to be on your shelves. Then be ruthless! Bin every book in school that doesn’t meet the criteria. That way, every book that any child picks up will be of good quality. Better to build on a small stock of books that children want to read, than have a large stock that they don’t.

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 07 April 2008 - 08:53

  Well done Brenda, £50 worth of books are on their way to you.

  Jill, your books are sitting all wrapped up on my desk. So email us and we’ll pop them in the post.

  Charlotte

• Posted by: Lex 1 1 at at 07 April 2008 - 11:11

  I change the stock of books in class every term to keep them ‘fresh’ and interesting and make sure the range includes poetry, non-fiction ‘picture’ books with sophisticated plots and language and even comics. When changing for PE, those ready early always select something to read from the class trolley while waiting for those who take longer. This prevents the children getting bored while they wait and it’s lovely when they bring books etc to you, which they were unable to read when the year started, with a beaming smile declaring “I can read this on my own!”

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 15 April 2008 - 09:04

  Well done helenb – £50 worth of books are coming your way!

  C

• Posted by: pinkjude at at 15 April 2008 - 16:44

  Hi , I ask the children what they are interested in, which could be football, music, favourite Tv programmes etc. I then look for books on those subjects. I find this inspires boys particularly as they want to pick up the books so they can learn more about favouirite footballers etc. omics and magazines related to hobbies/interests work well too especially with the year 2 children.

• Posted by: ccbaa1 at at 16 April 2008 - 21:34

  Hi, I make loads of class books for our library which the children love. Fairly obvious things like books about trips, and an on going Year 2 news book (which I do on Publisher) of photos etc. We do books of their poems, stories they have written and science expeiments which they have annotated. I have photos of each child which they add speech bubbles to for their ideas or what they did or found out etc. They love reading these as the have real ownership of them, parents enjoy them at parent’s evening too!

• Posted by: missw at at 16 April 2008 - 22:46

  Whilst I hear children read in guided groups the other children have the opportunity to use a range of texts. These include comics, topic books, general classroom books and Miss W’s special books (including books that I loved as a child). They love rotating around the activities during the week.

  I also encourage children to bring books in from home to read during our post-lunch quiet reading time. It’s useful for me to see what they’re reading at home and they’re always excited to show me their own books.

  We have a class bear that goes home with 3 children per week. They write a diary entry for him and really enjoy reading other people’s entries in the book. I think it’s lovely to give them the chance to read each other’s work – and it helps with writing as well!

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 21 April 2008 - 09:07

  Blimey three top tips this week – we’re not used to so much choice! The winner is ccbaa1as we love the idea of making class books for the library. Just email your address to us at celetters@scholastic.co.uk and we’ll send you some nice books to stock up your shelves.

  Until next week - C

• Posted by: ce at at 22 April 2008 - 05:56

  I use my home corner as a regularly changed theme, often inspired by the ‘Through the Keyhole’ feature – this month we’ve got a mermaid’s cave – and the small selection of books kept inside it are all on a seaside-type theme. The children love going into the cave to see what books are there. This also links with the ‘Seaside holidays in the past’ history topic and we do all our Big Writing about the mermaid’s adventures etc.

• Posted by: LpoolLou at at 23 April 2008 - 19:39

  When changing home reading books I ask children to recommend a book they have read to other readers of similar ability. This gets the pupils talking about the books they have read at home and also gives other pupils an insight into what the book is about. It has worked well as the children listen to each other and recommended books are snapped up by children who are keen to read them.

• Posted by: ccbaa1 at at 25 April 2008 - 19:31

  Thanks for lovely books they’re brill! ccbaa1

• Posted by: Bluething at at 26 April 2008 - 10:52

  I have an author of the month. The children recommend an author they enjoy reading and then we read a variety of books by that author in our story time. Books get put on display for the children to read after lunch and when they have finished their work, and I include information about the author and any interviews/photos of them I can find. I also try and find the authors website so that the children can do some research of their own. This makes the children feel like they really know the author and they get really interested in what they write about and where they get their ideas from. It has a great effect on their writing too!

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 28 April 2008 - 09:25

  Morning all. This week’s winner is Bluething. We really liked your author of the month idea. As always, please email your address to celetters@scholastic.co.uk and we shall post out your prizes.

  ce, it’s so nice (and rather flattering!) to know that your classroom is inspired by Through the keyhole. If your take a pic of your home corner and email it in, we’ll print it in the magazine – and post a few books your way for good measure.

  Oh, and Earth calling Jill Burridge! You’ve still not send us your address, so your books are just sitting here. They’re good reads, so it’s worth you claiming your prize…

  C

• Posted by: Bluething at at 03 May 2008 - 10:55

  Thanks for the books! They’re great!

• Posted by: missw at at 03 May 2008 - 19:58

  My school is celebrating the national year of reading and us teachers were allowed to spend some money on our reading areas. I’ve made mine look really bright and interesting by using lots of resources from the Sparklebox website and using lovely fabrics, ribbons and cushions. The children (both girls and boys) seem to love reading time in the reading corner!

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 06 May 2008 - 10:48

  Congrats missw – £50 worth of books will come your way as soon as as you email your address to celetters@scholastic.co.uk

  Hope you all had a good back holiday. The summer seems to be well and truly arriving (which is a mixed blessing for us here as it means Mike may start to wear his shorts!)

  C

• Posted by: Charlotte Ronalds at at 12 May 2008 - 09:09

  No tip this week; I guess everyone is too busy enjoying the beautiful sunshine! However, we do still love giving away prizes, so LpoolLou, we have chosen your tip from a previous week. So email us your address and we’ll send you some books.

  Charlotte

• Posted by: Bluething at at 16 May 2008 - 18:01

  I’ve just started using reading partners between my Year1/2 class and the Year R class. After we have done our Guided Reading the children in my class take the book down to the Year R class and share it with their reading partner. The Year R children love the stories and my class love reading them! We also share our own stories that we have written with our reading partners.

• Posted by: k_e at at 16 May 2008 - 19:33

  I teach reception so to encourage children to read in my class I have transformed the book corner into a jungle. I’ve used the Ikea leaf canopy, backed the wall in green with 2 lions hiding in painted grass and lots of animal print cushions. The children love curling up in this area with a book!