Salesbury - a reading school!
At Salesbury we believe it is important to foster a love of reading. From Nursery through to Year Six, children are encouraged to read fiction, non-fiction and poetry so they have plenty of opportunities to grow in knowledge and imagination! We are fortunate to have a very well-stocked library, which is supplemented by the School Library Service. Reading our class novel at the end of the day is a non-negotiable within our curriculum and an important time to come together and read.
Spaces to read around school
Reading Highlights -
Creating Reading Memories - a planned journey of reading highlights as children travel through primary school
Nursery: Build Story Sacks
Reception: Family Share-a-story
Year One: Outdoor Book Hunt & Wee Willie Winkie Bedtime Story Evening
Year Two: Brilliant Book Awards & An Outdoor Story Evening
Year Three: Class visit to the Library & Begin E:Book subscription
Year Four: Work with an Author & Work with a Poet
Year Five: Reading Sleepover!
Year Six: Fantastic Book Awards, Work with an Author & See a Book Performed on Stage!
Our Annual Reading Sleepover
Our sleepover has now become an annual event for Year Five children in Autumn Term.
The children shared their books with each other, read by torch light, carried out a book hunt, listened to their teachers reading to them and also created a green screen of their favourite book. There was lots of laughter and enjoyment in the school, along with some pizza, juice and breakfast!
Reading Club
In January 2024, a selected group of pupils in Year Six were set the task of reading The Boy at the Back of the Class. Children met each week to discuss their reading and take part in various activities. These included debating whether refugees should be supported, re-enacting part of the story, writing character descriptions, creating comic strips and writing poetry. In May 2024, we took the group of children to see the story performed on the stage at The Lowry, in Salford. The children really enjoyed watching the performance and made some great comparisons between the book and the play.
World Book Day
We celebrate World Book Day each year and try to ensure we create memorable experiences for the children.
Salesbury's Reading Spine
Our Reading spine is made up of a selection of Fiction, Non-Fiction and Poetry books that we would like children to access in each year group. This might be during shared reading or guided reading; it may be used as a class novel, read independently by the children or available in the book corner to browse throughout a topic. Our spine can be found in our school library and reading activities linked to it will be carried out during the year.
Reading Bookmarks
Our Reading Bookmarks have been designed from our Reading Spine. They include the fiction, non-fiction and poetry books that the children will read during the year and also include discussion prompts to support adults when talking to children about books. Children are given a new bookmark each year as they progress on their journey through school.
Reading Patron
For the past two years, our children have been very fortunate to work with author Jo Welch. Jo became a Reading Patron for us in Autumn Term 2018 and has worked across the school with lots of children, promoting and sharing her love of reading. Jo writes coding literature for children and has carried out various coding workshops across the school, resulting in children creating their own codes for their peers to solve.
The piece below gives further information about her visit in Spring Term 2019.
Regular Reading counts!
We know that regular reading makes a great difference - and it certainly helps create a lifelong habit. We encourage children to build in a little reading at home through our Reading Gameboards - children read around the gameboards with an adult signing each night they read at home, certain squares on the gameboard mean that children get the night off and parents do the reading instead!
Over the years, we have had a range of gameboards based on different themes - Roald Dahl books, historical periods, read around the Ribble Valley with places of interest, authors, planets, popular story books etc. The completion of a gameboard leads to a small certificate or prize and so many children get to the very end of each Reading Challenge.