Reading

Reading is a huge part of our curriculum and learning at St Edward’s Catholic First School. We promote high-quality books and texts across all subjects.

Please follow our school Reading Instagram page where we will post book recommendations and reviews from our Reading Ambassadors, upcoming reading events and Reading within the classrooms www.instagram.com/stedwardsfirstreads/ 

September Reading Newsletter

 Fiona Barker Author Visit 12.10.2023

We are hugely grateful for all of the support we have had to restock our class libraries with new, diverse and high-quality texts over the last year. Thank you to the families who have bought a book for their child’s class library. If you wish to donate a book, please use our A New Chapter book wish list. We update this each time a wish list is complete and add new, exciting reads to our collection. The current wish list has three books for each year group that will be used within the English lessons so that there are extra copies within the classroom for the children to share and follow along together.

https://www.anewchapterbooks.com/shop?Wishlists=St+Edward%E2%80%99s+Catholic+First+School

Reading Ambassadors

These are eight children from Years 3 and 4. Reading Ambassadors work towards promoting reading and reading for enjoyment across the school. They love to read, read books of different genres and authors and like sharing books and stories with others.

Say hello to this years’ Reading Ambassadors; Marianna, Thomas, Sid, Sophie, Gael, Hattie, Clemmie and Mia!

Reading Ambassador Application Form 23-24

Book Swap Station

Last year in the summer term, we introduced our Book Swap station. It was wonderful to see lots of excitement around reading and always found it to be a busy place at the end of the day!

We will be starting this again from next week. You will find three trolleys in the courtyard at the end of each day for you to have the opportunity to read new books and swap them for books you have already read and loved. Please make sure that if you borrow a book from one of the trolleys, you replace it with a book from home so that the trolleys are always full.

The book swap trolleys are aimed for not only children in our school, but parents, carers and school staff within our community too. Children who see parents enjoying reading are more likely to develop good reading habits – it is just as important for them to see their loved ones reading! 

We hope to see the Book Swap nice and busy each day with lots of excitement around new books and reads.

Reading Café

As a school, we have been focussing on encouraging and promoting reading for pleasure. Last year, we introduced our Reading Café which proved to be very popular. In the Spring Term, we will be opening the Reading Café up again! Each class will have a morning each term where their parents and carers will be invited to visit our Reading Café. The Reading Café will be open between 9am and 9:30am, with the exception of Fledglings who will have an afternoon session. The hall will be set up with tables, teas and coffees and a range of books for families to enjoy reading together. Please find the dates for each class below.

Owls:   Friday 19th January        

Nightingales: Friday 2nd February

Woodpeckers: Friday 23rd February        

Doves: Friday 8th March

Kingfishers: Friday 22nd March  

Starlings: Friday 3rd May

Goldfinches and Sparrows: Friday 10th May (9-9:30am)

Fledglings: Friday 10th May (2:15-2:45pm)

Our Reading Curriculum

Book Talk

In Years 1-4, we teach two Book Talk lessons a week through Jane Considine’s Hooked on Book approach. We begin our Book Talk learning journey with whole class Reading led by the class teacher in Year 1. The children use the reading rainbow to identify key aspects, themes and ideas within the text.

During Year 2, the children will transition to child-led groups of six when they are ready to, similar to Years 3 and 4. They will have copies of the book to read together and verbally answer and discuss the reading rainbow lens and sentence starter for the session. As the children progress, they will begin to identify quotes and evidence from the book to support their answers.

Demonstration Comprehension

In Years 3 and 4, the children have three comprehension Reading lessons based around a text. They will study 3 narrative texts, 3 non-fiction texts and 1 poem each half term. A chapter or section of a chapter has been carefully selected to read together, discuss and use their “reading brains”.

Day 1: The Big Picture

In the first lesson of the week, the children will be introduced to their key text. Their teacher will read it aloud and have a copy of the extract for the children to follow along to. Sometimes they may choral or echo read this text too to understand the flow of writing. Tricky vocabulary and contextual words will be discussed.

They will then move on to writing a short summary of what they have read in a sentence or two and discuss any readers’ questions that they might have now.

Day 2: Reading Like a Detective

The extract will be re-read as a class. Following this, they will create a making meaning mindmap together. This could mean that key ideas about a character, their emotions, the setting are pulled out from the text so that they understand more about what they have read.

After completing this together, they will then explain what their reading brain is thinking now after gathering all of this information.

Day 3: Demonstration Comprehension

The children will be introduced to three questions. The first question will be modelled by the class teacher. They will demonstrate how to plan jotting down points and thoughts on the question, as well as back up their ideas with evidence from the text. They will then show how they have used these plans to form an answer to the question.

As a class, the second question will be planned and written together in the same format. The third question will be answered independently by the children, using everything that they have learnt over the past three lessons.

Reading Curriculum Map 2023-24

Recommended Reads

Please take a look at the following links for ideas of recommended reads for your child.

Early Years Recommended Reads

Key Stage 1 Recommended Reads

Key Stage 2 Recommended Reads