Doorways to Stories

You know what it’s like, your body finishes school for the Easter holidays…..but your brain has other ideas. As English lead, I am keen on giving children a purpose for their writing – and if that links to reading for pleasure as well, then so much the better.

So my brain said what if children could write to another child about their reading? Which authors they enjoy and why, recommend books and receive new ideas for what to read next. I put the idea on twitter and a couple of people expressed interest. Maybe it was just me who thought this was a good plan. I also belong to the Facebook Reading for Pleasure in Schools group and so I decided to float the idea here too. And that, dear reader, is how I created a monster!

Over 100 classes expressed an interest – The idea obviously had legs! I heard from small schools with mixed year groups to larger 3 and 4 form entry schools; book clubs within schools to overseas schools. I spent time matching up school as best I could and let teachers know their Doorways to Stories pen pal partner school. What happen next is up to them. I’m hoping they let me know if they write, zoom, meet up? As long as the children keep reading and have a purpose for for their writing, I will be happy and the monster that I have created will have been worthwhile.

I’m a sucker for a book with ‘extras’! My class know this and always ask ‘is there another bit’ when we finish a story. These notes, questions and interviews somehow make you feel closer to the author and the story.

A wonderful example of this is in The Titanic Detective Agency by Lindsay Littleson. The story follows Bertha as she strives to solve a mystery on the ill fated maiden voyage of the Titanic. Once we had finished the story, the children were enthralled by the photographs and biographies at the back of the book. That Bertha and Johan were real made for a very sobering footnote. Fiction and non fiction linked and it led to several children finding out more outside of school, real engagement with a text. Before we started our next class read they were keen to know of the characters were real too….thankfully Crowky from Land of Road is not!

The Essential Modern Classics version of Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones has an interview with the author called a ‘Spotlight on’. I read this book as part of my CLPE Reading Teachers group having never read her work before. I read parts of the author Q&A to the class when we finished the story and they had their own ideas on which historical figure they would like to meet. They loved the interview because it meant that the author was ‘real’ and this made writing more achievable to some. The only down side was that Diana said to only write what you enjoy and apparently that doesn’t cover all that I ask them to write!

Finally, I have recently read Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes (not to my my class yet) and this was the first time that I had come across the story of Emmett Till. The book was pacey and portrays the consequences of Jerome’s death in a very sobering way. The characters that we meet through him all have a story to tell and the ‘Afterword’ from the author answered many of the questions that I had. The ‘further resources’ list gave information about where to read more widely about this topic.

‘Extras’ in all of their forms add to the enjoyment for me (and my class) as it brings us all closer to the author and the story, the characters and the themes. By doing this, it really develops that lifelong love of reading that reading for pleasure brings. Next time you choose a book (hopefully in an independent bookshop) please consider the ‘extras’.

Teachers:

Back to school this week so time to get my ‘Whole School Reading’ head on. Whole School reading inset on Wednesday but ‘end of term me’ obviously had very little faith in ‘end of holiday me’ so training was mostly organised in July. As the new DFE Reading Framework came out just before the end of term, this will be an opportunity for me to ‘drip feed’ it to staff. Areas to cover in inset:

Reading aloud and how to choose book

The reading framework – teaching the foundations of literacy (publishing.service.gov.uk)

The importance of reading aloud to children cannot be stressed enough and it was therefore nice to see this recognised in the new framework document released at the end of last term (link above). Staff that I work with are very good at prioritising this so we now need to think about how we choose the books that we read. We will be using this grid from the framework as a starting point:

Lowest 20% of readers

It is an important part of my role as Reading Champion to ensure that we are working to remove the barriers to decoding and reading for pleasure for all pupils in school. As staff begin to get to know their new classes, they will be able to identify the readers who need additional support. We can then put our heads together to see what we can do for each individual child to remove the barriers to their enjoyment of reading. The progress of these children can then be tracked at Pupil Progress meetings.

Book corners/Library/Love of Reading

Book corners come in all shapes, sizes and themes and teachers are incredibly resourceful when utilising space to create enticing reading areas. The only consistent resources you will find in all of our book corners across the school are the design of the box labels (editable so that staff/children can decide on genres), and the list of 100 Recommended Reads from

The Reader Teacher | Children’s Books | Reads, Reviews & Recommendations

These recommended book lists are displayed in classrooms and sent home in contact books for parents to see. With regard to genres, I like to let the children sort the books in a way that suits them. Using the ‘Book Blanket’ approach, I let the children spread all of the books out on the floor and then they sort them into categories themselves, boxes are then labelled accordingly. As teachers we do like to ‘sort’ and ‘organise’ but by allowing children to do this, they have far more ownership over the choices they make. More information on using Book Blankets can be found here:

The Reader Teacher | Children’s Books | Reads, Reviews & Recommendations

The most exciting prospect for our children this year will be more regular use of our school library. Sadly, although this was opened by The Gruffalo just before the first lockdown, use has been rationed ever since to allow for quarantining. During our Deep Dive into Reading at the end of the summer term, many children mentioned their excitement at being able to borrow books again in this inspiring space.

Still to come

Over the next couple of weeks I hope to have recruited by new Key Stage 2 Reading Ambassadors, re-embed Active Reading (our approach to Guided Reading) and started my book clubs. Exciting Times!

Useful websites

alittlebutalot – Even if you’re little you can do a lot – useful reading blog

No Shelf Control | Mister Bodd (wordpress.com) – blog a newsletter detailing new books for KS1

CLPE | Centre for Literacy in Primary Education – resources and research

Under the Teachers section of this website can be found details of the Rivers of Reading approach and several book reviews.

Parents

Well where did the summer go? Back to school with new teachers, new classrooms and maybe even a new school. This brings excitement and apprehension for everyone – teachers included!

A constant through all of this will be books and reading. Teachers love to hear what children have been reading over the holidays, and don’t forget to let your the new teacher know if your child has been involved in the library Summer Reading Challenge.

I am often asked what books I would recommend for children and the following website has recommendations by year group (thus ensuring that they are age appropriate)

The Reader Teacher | Children’s Books | Reads, Reviews & Recommendations

If your child is stuck on a particular author but has exhausted all of their books, then maybe have a look at the ‘book match’ section of the website which will tell you which books are similar to a particular author.

It is vitally important that you hear your child read, even when they are in Year 5 & 6 when they might appear competent readers. Talking about what they are reading – and what you are reading, will set those life long reading for pleasure habits. At the start of the school year when routines are being set, try to find a regular reading time and place (teachers know that this is not always as easy as it sounds), and join the local library if you have not already done so. Borrowing books is free and a good source of old favourites and new ‘must reads’.

Still to come

Over the next couple of weeks I will signpost some websites to help you help your child read at home. There are book reviews for years 4,5 & 6 already on the parent section and more to come. Please get in touch if you have any questions about reading with your child.

And remember….

Keeeeeeeep Reading!

So why am I writing this, and why are you reading it?

Before Lockdown I was happy to read and recommend books to children and staff at school, and pass on resource ideas to colleagues in my roll as Assistant Head and Reading Champion at a two form entry primary school in Kent. My use of computers, blogs and social media was limited to Facebook, Amazon and keeping in touch with my grown up daughters who live in the Midlands.

Then, necessity meant that I suddenly had to become a ‘techy’ as I was, at the age of 55, having to get to grips with teaching remotely on Zoom. A VERY steep learning curve I can tell you. I am very glad that OFSTED never got round to dropping into online lessons as I desperately asked 31 10 year olds ‘can you see my screen now’ over, and over and over again. As time went on, I began to embrace this Brave New World and started to think about how I could use technology to ensure the children at school were still reading and that book blather could still happen.

This led to a book blog for our school community and the idea for this website was born. A sort of One Stop Shop for all things book related. There are so many resources, ideas, events and much cleverer book bloggers than me out there, and I thought how much easier to have links to these all in one place.

So, my aim, over time is to share ideas that have worked for me, recommend books to children, parents and teachers and signpost other websites that might be useful to other voracious readers.