Inspiring a Love of Reading
At Bishop Martin, we love reading!
Reading at home is one of the most important ways in which you can help your child make good progress. At school, we teach the skills they need to decode and comprehend words daily but, to consolidate these skills and grow as confident readers, they will also need lots of practise. Children who read with their families develop these skills much more quickly and develop a love of reading that can last a lifetime. At Bishop Martin, we recognise the incredibly important role that families have and want to support this in every way we can.
Reading Reward Scheme
This year, to further encourage and celebrate the home reading of all children, we have launched our whole school reading reward scheme: Bishop Martin's Author Collection
Starting with children's authors for the first term children will be issued with a sticker album, for every 5 times they read they will recieve an author sticker, their aim is to complete the collection for th term and take part in a fun reading reward afternoon. Children will then move onto poets and classic authors in the spring and summer terms.
Why have we introduced this scheme?
Reading at home is one of the most important ways in which you can help your child make good progress. At school, we teach the skills they need to decode and comprehend words daily but, to consolidate these skills and grow as confident readers, they will also need lots of practise. Children who read with their families develop these skills much more quickly and develop a love of reading that can last a lifetime. At Bishop Martin, we recognise the incredibly important role that families have and want to support this in every way we can, and we hope the ‘Bishop Martin's Author Collection’ will continue to motivate your child to read. In addition, we also aim to improve children’s knowledge of different authors and poets.
How does it work?
The scheme is simple and is designed to celebrate all the amazing reading that is being completed at home already. Children are encouraged to ‘read’ their way through the different authors collecting the stickers as they go.
As always, we strongly encourage daily reading and ask that children’s reading records be updated to include the date read, the name of the book/pages that have been read, as well as a comment that will give a brief summary. Attached are some comment ideas and question prompts that you may find useful when reading with your child. Older children may wish to sign their own reading record, though this will also need to be signed by a parent/carer (initials are fine).
There are 65 days to read in total to complete the first part of ‘Bishop Martin's Author Collection’ which would equate to reading 5 nights out of 7 each week to complete. We are aware that our families have various commitments throughout the week, including work and extra-curricular activities, and are again trying to make this reading reward system as flexible as possible. For example, one week you may be able to read every night, but the following week may only be 3 due to other commitments; this would still equate to 10 reading sessions. Please note: we have not included weekends or half-term but obviously you may wish to use these days to complete the incentive.
Each class teacher will be keeping track of all children’s reading and stickers will be placed within reading records to keep you updated. Happy reading!
The Bishop Martin Reading Spine
The Reading Spine is a core of books that create a living library inside a child’s mind. It is a store of classics and essential reads that help children engage at a deeper level and enter the world of the story.
Selected by literary expert Pie Corbett, we are now using this Reading Spine to:
- Bring reading to life with a classic read aloud programme
- Foster a love of reading with the best-loved books for Reception to Year 6
- Deepen comprehension and teach drama and writing by drawing on the core books
Please see the attached ‘Reading Spine’ document for more information relating to these high-quality, recommended texts for each year group (Reception to Year 6). We would ask that all children at Bishop Martin read these books over the course of their respective year. Copies of these texts have been purchased by the school and will be available for children to borrow and take home, though we have attached the document as you may also wish to purchase these for home use.
Reader of the Week
To celebrate children’s reading at home and the recognise their achievements and engagement, we have a weekly ‘Reader of the Week’ prize which is announced in our Celebration Worship each Friday. Our 'Readers of the Week' will then be given a special bookmark.
Useful websites
Take a look at some of these fantastic websites which will help your child while reading at home:
Liverpool Libraries - Did you know your local library has thousands of ebooks and audiobooks?
You can borrow them, instantly, for free, using just the device in your hand. Click here for more information on how to register and to see titles available.
The BookTrust Bookfinder will help your child discover magical mysteries, astonishing adventures & fantastic non-fiction. Simply choose an age range, pick as many themes as you want to, search through thousands of book reviews and get reading.
Audible Stories are a great way to explore a variety of books to help children continue dreaming and learning. Here you will find a collection of stories that you can stream on a laptop, phone or tablet. Explore the collection, select a title, start listening and enjoy!
Storynory - Latest audio stories
Storynory features a collection of original, fairytale, and classic children’s audio stories. Children can follow along with the story as it is read to them, as the text is also included on the site. There are also some great features available that give you the option of downloading the audio to your computer, listening to “catch phrase” explanations, translating text into different languages and more!
Have a look at some suggestions for books to read with your child!
An analysis comparing the engaged reading time and reading scores of more than 2.2 million students found that students who read for less than five minutes per day saw the lowest levels of growth, well below the national average. Even students who read 5–14 minutes per day saw slow gains that were below the national average.
Only students who read 15 minutes or more a day saw accelerated reading gains – that is, gains higher than the national average. Students who read just over a half-hour to an hour per day saw the greatest gains of all.
Please see these 10 top tips for parents to support children to read .