Reading for Pleasure
Reading for Pleasure - The Osgodby Approach
We recognise that reading for pleasure can have a huge impact on academic development and wellbeing. We have recently been involved in the 'Lincolnshire Reading Pledge' project.
Research shows that a robust RfP pedagogy encompassed four practices:
- Reading aloud
- Informal book talk and recommendations
- Independent reading time within a highly social reading environment
- These three practices are underpinned by a teacher’s deep understanding of children’s literature and their reading lives.
Aims
Ultimately our main aim is to build an immersive reading environment. One which creates, develops and nurtures a RfP pedagogy for our children. RfP is too vital for a child’s development and future success to leave to chance. It is not enough to teach our children to decode.
Our aims are to:
- Ensure that every child is regularly read to.
- To develop social reading environments that raise the profile of RfP, spark interest in reading and encourage ‘comfy’ reading.
- To ensure that children have a wide range of high quality books; fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics and magazines to choose from.
- To ensure that as a staff we continue to be Teachers as Readers.
- To build reading communities within our school between staff, children and their families.
- To increase the amount of high quality, current children’s literature, available for all children to read.
Strategies - How does this look around school?
The first step was to continue to develop staff knowledge on the RfP pedagogy using staff meeting and Inset time. Staff regularly share book recommendations amongst one another. In addition they are provided with input on the importance of Reading for Pleasure from our reading lead.
Children are read aloud to every day in every classroom. Class teachers prioritise RfP within their timetables. Formal and informal talk is encouraged and valued. The school participates in the yearly Book Day celebrations and children take part in the Summer Reading Challenge.
Every classroom has an inviting reading area along with RfP displays featuring specific authors and book recommendations. Reading areas have been created throughout school to promote independent RfP. We have recently completed work on two new library spaces. We have removed any outdated texts as well as books which are in a poor condition. We have restocked out libraries and classrooms with high quality texts using the 'Teacher Reader' book lists to help guide our choices of texts.
We have developed an Outdoor Reading Area where the children can choose to spend their lunchtimes independently reading for pleasure.
In order to involve parents in our Reading for Pleasure project, we also hold regular parent reading sessions. Parents are invited into classrooms to share books with their children.
Staff continue to promote their recommended reads and display the books they are reading, encouraging and developing ‘informal book talk.’
We run regular book swaps to ensure that our children and their families have access to high quality children’s literature and that they have books in their homes.
As a school we pride ourselves on the fact that every child leaves our school as ‘a reader’ and we also don’t believe that it is enough for children to just decode text. We have always strived to have a reading culture and place RfP at the heart of what we do.
As a staff we are all passionate about developing ourselves and our children to be life-long learners. The impact the research has had has helped us to add another piece of the jigsaw to our reading journey. We now have a staff with a growing knowledge of current children’s literature and are able recommend the right book, to the right child, at the right time. This has been very powerful in setting all the children on a journey of lifelong pleasure in reading. The excitement that is generated when the children receive their next book bundle is amazing as the children are now all so excited to ‘read for pleasure’ and share their enthusiasm for reading with their friends and teachers.