THE LITERATE CHILD AT P6
READING ENGAGEMENT THINGS TO DO
Blessing the books
„Blessing the books‟ serves a number of purposes:
It raises the profile of books that children might otherwise not encounter.
It shows that there are texts for all tastes.
It demonstrates that the teacher is an enthusiastic reader and is keen to pass
on his/her enthusiasm
It establishes reading as a high profile activity in the classroom community
What you need to do.
Twice a week, choose four or five books from the school or classroom library that you
feel confident to talk about.
Prepare a 60 second sales pitch for each that you can deliver to the children. (e.g.:
this is a book about… It is written by… many children of your age find it
funny/challenging/fast… if you are the sort of person who likes… then you should
enjoy this…)
Make sure you choose a variety of books. Pitch texts to meet the demands and
interests of readers in your class. Remember to include quick reads and books
children can dip in and out of ( perhaps poems or short stories), and books where
illustrations play an important role, as well as long sustained readers that take time to
get through.
Refer to books you know the children have enjoyed in the past, so that they can
„hook‟ new texts into what they have read already.
Invite individual children to pitch a best book or one to avoid.
Be honest. Present yourself as a reader with preferences of your own. Choose texts
you are really enthusiastic about or that you know children in your class will like.
Make sure that the books you bless are available for the children to borrow.
Find an unobtrusive way to monitor the children‟s uptake of these books.
Using ERIC/USSR to find out about reading preferences
Only when pupils read something that is important to them, do they understand
why it is important to read. It is a good idea for teachers to use ERIC/USSR time
to help children understand this, and to help teachers understand more about
individual children‟s reading preferences.
At best, ERIC/USSR provides:
o Time when the whole class can focus on reading as something that is
worth doing for its own sake
o Time for the teacher to spend quality individual time with children talking
about their reading and teaching appropriate mini-lessons
What you need to do
o Whilst your class read, take time to talk to individuals about the book they
are reading and keep records of who you talk to, and what you talk about.
Spend 4 or 5 minutes on each child, with the aim of getting the child to
speak most during that time. Say things like: Tell me about this book.
Why did you choose it? What is it about (encourage recognition of the
themes as well as what of happens). What do you think of it? How does it
compare to the last book you read? Who else in this class might enjoy it?
Target different pupils each time and aim to talk to all over the weeks.
Encourage pupils to be honest. Are there books that are really not worth
having in the class/school library? Do they have recommendations?
o Each week encourage pupils to predict how many pages of their book they
can read at home/ odd points in school before the next ERIC time.
o Help your weakest readers to choose a book that is a) interesting to them
b) within their reading capacity but be mindful of their self-image and of
the messages that a book can send out to others in the class. An „easy‟
book will be read with 95-100% accuracy –teach them to do the 5 finger
test (open a page at random and read. For every word they can‟t read they
put down a finger. If they get to 5, the book will be hard –although this
doesn‟t mean they shouldn‟t read it if they really want to)
o If some pupils are not making good use of ERIC time, put them onto
paired or shared reading.
Turn the ‘Can but don’t’ readers into ‘Can and do’ readers.
Gemma Moss shows that it is helpful to think about the class as three groups:
those avid readers who can and do read; those who can read but don‟t; those who
can‟t yet read and don‟t. Moss explains that it‟s the „can but don‟t‟ group who
often get little focused attention. These are children who are generally doing OK
in class, and whose work seems to be about average. Targeting „can but don‟t‟
readers:
o Raises the overall standard of reading in the class
o Tips the balance of a class from mostly children who choose not to read
over into children who choose to read
o Can be the key to setting the tone and aspirations of the class as a whole.
What you need to do:
o Go down your class register and identify who is in each group.
o Then focus your attention on the „can but don‟t‟ readers. Build activities in
class that will increase their motivation to read. For example:
o Organise reading clubs so that groups agree to pass their individual
favourites on to others in their group, before coming together to decide
their top book.
o Get groups to take it in turns to “sell” their top book to others in their
class at the start of library time. Think about the range of texts that
groups pick. Find ways to increase this range and encourage children
to try new authors or genres?
o Talk to the librarian for help about different kinds of books that might
appeal. Ask children to reflect upon the range they have sampled and
explain why they prefer x.
o Use avid readers to model some of this to the rest of the class.
o Make a space in the classroom for “good reads” so that books that
children have enjoyed can easily be found by others.
o Make reading in your class something that is social and relaxing so that
children want to be seen doing it.
o Find ways of getting the right book to the right child
o Find more ideas at :
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Campaign/Champions/celebchamps.html
Promote quantity (or ‘through-put’) to develop independent reading from the
start in younger readers.
Many children find the leap from being a dependent reader to an independent
reader daunting. Having relied for so long on parents and teachers to select,
monitor and pace their reading, they find themselves suddenly confronted with
what seems like unlimited choice and little support to help them use it wisely. It is
at this transitional stage that some children lose the motivation to read at all.
Helping children bridge this difficult time by providing choice and independence
at an early stage is effective because:
o It gives children the confidence to behave like real readers who make
choices from the beginning
o It teaches them to make informed, rather than random choices
o They learn that intrinsic motivation can fuel reading just as well ( if not
better) than external pressures
What you need to do:
o Provide a basket of 6-8 carefully (but unobtrusively) levelled books for each
pair of children in the class. Let them choose which books to read but let them
work their way through all the books in the basket, either individually,
together or both.
o Ask a librarian to help make the baskets using the „bookbands for guided
reading‟ to level the books (although remember that the list is based on
professional judgement and you may want to adapt it after seeing pupils read
the books).
o Find a level that a pair of children can read for relaxation (95-100% accuracy
rather than the 90-94% accuracy on first reading that you would expect from
an instructional level reading book). Put the baskets on the table, where each
member can get at them and encourage reading as a way to settle the class
after play, before lunch, for early finishers… etc.
o Let the pupils rate the books by giving them „stars points‟ on a list in the box
as they read them. This list can travel to other pairs and form the basis of
interesting class discussions.
Paired reading
Various versions of paired reading are common in schools, but many focus on
developing children‟s decoding skills and fluency, rather than on the way they engage
with texts. Here the focus is on the children‟s motivation to read and the importance
of choice, commitment and friendship in sustaining that reading. Running paired
reading in this way should:
Encourage children to make informed and sensible choices about their
reading
Provide a safe and supportive forum for partner book talk
Capitalise on peer pressure to keep children reading
What you need to do:
Sort the children in your class into pairs. Do this either by ability or friendship.
There are advantages and disadvantages for both. Friends provide the best
support, but the partnership will not work if the children need very different
texts. Ability pairings provide a good match, but if the children do not like
each other, they will not talk much. You will know best how to organise your
own class.
Explain to the children that each pair needs to choose a book that both partners
want to read. When they have done this they decide:
o How much they will have read by the next time they meet
o How they will spend the time they have together once they have made
this decision. (They might choose to read silently, to read together, to
take turns reading out loud.)
o That when they meet again, they will have time to talk about what they
have read, and decide on a new target.
Decide how much support your class will need to talk about what they have
read. Will they need prompts or questions to keep them going?