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PrimaryEnglish

8 Ways to Get Primary Children Hooked on Books

Convert struggling readers into book lovers and strengthen your teaching of reading with Jane Considine’s ideas

Jane Considine
by Jane Considine
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These eights ways to engage reluctant readers will be surefire hits in your school.

1 | Adopt an author

Being an author can be a very lonely occupation and some writers crave time away from their workstations. Many would welcome being adopted by a class. Once adopted, your class can email him or her regularly, find out more about why and how they write and look out for their new books to review.

2 | Book donation scheme

Some children are fortunate enough to have many books; others have few to none. A pupil donation scheme can be a welcome addition to a school library. Provide dedicated shelves for pupils to donate books.

Inside the front cover, place a sticker to show who has donated the book and the date. Children can write a message in the book too, if they would like to. Pupils enjoy sharing and it encourages both recycling and charitable gesture.

3 | Daily jackanory

Use a ten minute lunchtime slot to run a jackanory club. This can be run on a rota basis, so each staff member might only be required once every two weeks (depending on the size of the school).

During the slot, invite pupils to the library to hear a whole story (or the beginning of a story as a teaser) and film the teacher reading it. Upload the video to the school website so children can log in from home later to listen to bedtime stories from their favourite teachers.

This is a truly supportive way to promote both storytime and reading at home.

4 | Reader of the week

This is a weekly award with a book as the prize and is given to the pupil who has consistently read all week and shown excellent comprehension.

The winner’s photo could be displayed on an award board and they could have other special duties during that week, such as visiting a Reception class to read a story or helping a teacher listen to younger pupils read.

5 | Book awards

Organise an in-school ‘book awards’ using titles nominated for national prizes. Children on the school panel can decide if they agree with the final nominees. Encourage pupils to read the shortlist and see if they concur with judges nationally.

6 | Reading zones

Designate an area in each classroom, as well as spaces around the school, as fun places to read in. These can be soft, homely spaces – with sofas, soft furnishings and mood lighting – as well as being linked to classroom topics the pupils are studying.

On my travels, I have seen some awe-inspiring spaces linked to topics, including a London Underground network where pupils could ‘get on’ at well-known stations and enter well-lit carriages.

7 | Reading assemblies

Although value-based assemblies and celebrations of learning are both worthwhile activities, story-reading opportunities are gradually being squeezed out of assembly time. It could be useful to have an internal discussion about assembly practice, considering if there is at least some time that can be ‘ringfenced’ for storytelling.

The types of stories that need promoting on a whole-school level should be those with poignant moral messages, which address the rights of children and explore global issues such as education for girls. Assemblies are an ideal time to communally consider our views on aspects of being global citizens.

8 | Book club

Running a weekly book club in school is a worthwhile investment. Provide books for all group members, as well as deadlines for finishing each book.

Meet the following week, with drinks and biscuits, to discuss the book’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as exploring titles with similar themes and deciding which were more successful.

Provide assembly time for book club members to enthuse others about their ‘reads’ and announce awards for books read throughout the year.

Jane Considine is a teacher, education consultant and conference speaker. This is an extract from Hooked On Books (£19.99, The Training Space). Find her at thetrainingspace.co.uk and follow her on Twitter at @janeconsidine.

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