Reading for Pleasure
At Fair Acres Federation, we aspire that pupils are fluent, confident and able readers, who can access a range of texts for pleasure and enjoyment, as well as use their reading skills to unlock learning and all areas of the curriculum.
We firmly believe that reading is the gateway to learning and the key to unlocking all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.
Aims
We aim to build a culture and social reading spaces that create, develop and nurture a RfP pedagogy for our children.
We aim to:
· Ensure that children have a wide range of high-quality books; fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics and magazines to choose from.
· Ensure that every child is regularly read to.
· Ensure that, as a staff, we are passionate and knowledge about children’s literature and have a good knowledge of the children’s reading practices.
· Further develop reading communities within our school between staff, children and their families.
How do we approach Reading for Pleasure?
· We develop staff knowledge on the RfP pedagogy using professional development time. Staff regularly share book recommendations amongst one another, both formally and informally. All of our teachers have accessed ongoing training with LEAD, participating in the Teachers as Readers groups.
· Children are read aloud to every day in every classroom. Class teachers prioritise RfP within their timetables. Book talk is encouraged and valued.
· We hold termly parent workshops in school. These happen on the first Monday of every new term and parents are encouraged to share books for pleasure with their children.
Mystery Reader
Mystery Readers are special guests who come to our classroom to read a story to the children. The story can be one that you choose to bring in or one chosen by the teacher. It is important that you keep your identity hidden to get the full impact of a mystery reader, even from your own child!
We invite in friends, families and even our school Governors to read to the children!
Book Voting
Children vote regularly in each class from a choice of 2 books. The children use their counter to vote for which book they would like to read.
Parents and carers at home play a vital role in promoting reading for pleasure.
If parents and carers can encourage their child to read for pleasure, they will really reap the benefits. It might not seem like a particularly important task, but actually, research shows that reading for pleasure can be directly linked to children’s success throughout their time at school and even into adulthood.
Reading for pleasure opens up new worlds for children. It gives them the opportunity to use their imagination to explore new ideas, visit new places and meet new characters. Interestingly, reading for pleasure also improves children’s well-being and empathy. It helps them to understand their own identity, and gives them an insight into the world and the views of others.
Here are some ideas for encouraging your child to read for pleasure:
- Set aside a special time – just a few minutes a day is enough to create a reading habit.
- Get caught reading yourself – show that reading for pleasure is not just for children.
- Read to each other – if your child really doesn’t want to read on their own, then read together. You read a page, then they read a page. Or one of you could read any dialogue. Be brave and put on different voices.
- Value the books they choose to read – all reading is valuable for a child’s development. Some of us prefer non-fiction; some of us prefer comics. One child might like superhero books; another might a book of football statistics.
- Set a challenge – can they read ten books before they’re ten? Can they read a book from six different genres: a comic, an information book, a funny book, a sci-fi book, a classic and an instruction manual?
- Reading buddies – reading to a younger sibling can boost your child’s self-confidence and communication skills.
- Audiobooks – audiobooks allow children to experience a book above their own reading level. It also allows you to share a book together or make the most of those car journeys. Listening to a story over and over again can improve vocabulary and encourage deeper comprehension.
- Read-a-thon – join a sponsored reading event to raise money for charity.
- Stage and screen – use your child’s favourite films or games as a springboard into reading. Knowing the characters and storyline can be a helpful bridge into reading a longer story.
- Book club – find out about local book clubs.
Taken from : https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/