Teach Primary 18.8

FEATURES LITERACY 4 | ENSURE ACCESS TO BOOKS EVERYWHERE Books don’t just have to live in a library or book corner, they can be anywhere – on a table in the corridor, by reception, near the hall or in the playground in a reading shed. Give your children the opportunity to pick up a book wherever they may be. The more your children are interested in the books you provide, the more they will want to read. Make this even more engaging by tapping into children’s current interests. For example, every January we offer books related to films they may have watched over Christmas, and in October we celebrate the best poetry books to coincide with National Poetry Day. 5 | REVIEW YOUR FUNDING OPTIONS We all know that books can be costly, and school budgets are getting smaller. Approach your PTA and see if they can provide funding to purchase new books and look into applying for grants. Our local bookshop started a scheme where community members could purchase books for the school library. Consider running a second-hand book sale, selling off unwanted stock to raise funds for new books. 6 | CELEBRATE READING ALL YEAR ROUND Think about events that are taking place nationally. Are there books that support that area or topic, whether it’s fiction, non-fiction or even news articles? Highlight different reading materials at key moments such as Black History Month and World Book Day. At the same time, promote external and internal reading competitions as they’re a great way to build excitement across the school. Get your whole school excited about books with these simple steps 6 ways to boost reading for pleasure LEIA SANDS is the librarian at Steyning C of EPrimary School and Swiss Gardens Primary School. Steyning Primary recently won the Peter Usborne School Library of the Year Award at the School Library AssociationAwards. www.teachwire.net | 11 sla.org.uk/awards | @uksla 1 | GET TO KNOW YOUR CHILDREN In autumn term, share a short survey, or take time to talk to pupils to find out what their reading journey has been like so far. Do they enjoy reading? If so, what genres? What are their favourite books and authors? Do they read at home (with and without adults)? How often do they read outside of the classroom? By getting to know your children as readers, you can adapt any reading corners you have and find enticing books full of recommendations, tailored to their needs and interests. 2 | GET COLLEAGUES EXCITED ABOUT READING Do the teachers, teaching assistants and members of the SLT show themselves as readers? At Steyning Primary, we start staff meetings with book recommendations and have a WhatsApp group, Book Buzz, to share thoughts and feedback. I encourage all adults to follow authors on social media and participate in initiatives like the Reading Agency’s Teaching Reading Challenge. If you get the adults excited about reading, their enthusiasm filters down to the children. 3 | THINK DEDICATED READING ASSEMBLIES We hold dedicated reading assemblies where we share different books and highlight different authors, often linking to key awareness days, such as Anti-Bullying Week, or covering books that reflect our children’s experiences, such as being young carers. Our children take an active role too. We have ‘Books that made me a reader’ segments, where pupils interview a member of staff to find out which books got them excited about reading when they were a child. And, at the end of the academic year, our Year 6 pupils run the reading assembly, sharing their favourite books from their time at the school. These assemblies are a fantastic way to create excitement around reading.