School reading culture...breakthrough moments

Last Thursday, I was absolutely delighted and extremely humbled to have been awarded the Egmont 2018 Reading for Pleasure Teacher Award. I travelled to London with my headteacher to attend the BERA/UKLA/OU Reading for Pleasure research symposium, and was presented with the award by Michael Rosen.

Being part of a school with reading at its heart is absolutely fundamental to what I believe in as a teacher. I'm fortunate to work in an environment where I'm supported, trusted and actively encouraged by my headteacher to take risks and try new ideas, as well as alongside an amazing group of teachers and support staff who understand the importance of creating a deep, genuine and firmly embedded reading for pleasure culture. They know that it can't be achieved with quick fix solutions and short term interventions. They know that adult knowledge of children's literature is essential, and that independent reading time must be protected against the pressures of the timetable. They know that reading aloud, in all its various forms, is crucial, and that encouraging spontaneous and informal book talk at every opportunity is an important way for children to truly engage with their reading. They know all this, and much more, and they do their best to make sure it happens.

After three years of extremely hard work from everyone in our school community, it's noticeable that over the past few months, there's been a significant cultural shift in the attitude towards reading. Conversations and interactions are happening between pupils, staff and parents that are making it a very exciting place to be.

For example, just before Christmas we introduced pupil-staff reading buddies (visit the Open University Reading for Pleasure site for more details). I'd been working with my buddy from Year 2 for several weeks. He wasn't a keen reader at home, showed little interest in reading at school and was one of those children who, if not picked up, could easily slip through the net. He'd always dutifully come along to our meetings and listen politely to whichever book I'd selected, but didn't really engage with the stories. In fact, most of his time would be spent looking out of the window or rearranging the cushions he was sitting on. After a couple of weeks, he started to show more interest, making an effort to listen to the story and even asking the occasional question. One lunchtime, just before half-term, he sauntered into the classroom (to be honest, he saunters everywhere), with his hands hidden behind his back...

"Hello, lovely to see you. How are you?"

"Mmmm, yeah, alright."

"Have you come to talk to me? Is everything OK?"

"Mmmm, yeah."

Slightly awkward pause...

"So, did you want to show me something?"

"Mmmm, yeah."

Slightly more awkward pause...

"Right then...what is it? Are you holding something exciting in your hands?"

At this point, he gave an enormous grin, and whipped out a copy of Harry And The Dinosaurs Go To School from behind his back.

"I found this book in my classroom and I brought it. I think it's going to be really good and we should read it."

"Well, I'd be delighted to, absolutely delighted."

It felt like a massive breakthrough. He'd found and chosen a book that he thought he'd enjoy, and had wanted to share that experience with someone. It was another tiny, but significant, step on his journey to becoming a genuine reader and I was thrilled to have been there for it. Moments like those can't easily be measured or quantified (apart from by the size of a smile!), but they're the moments that genuinely matter, the moments that can have an impact on a child's attitude to reading forever.

A second example, several weeks ago I was heading along the corridor to make (yet another) coffee when I walked past three teachers, all from different year groups, discussing the wonderful Letters From The Lighthouse by Emma Carroll. About ten minutes later, having made my drink, I came back and they were still there, but this time comparing the book and film versions of Wonder by RJ Palacio. Teachers, who had a thousand other things that they could be doing, were standing around and talking about children's books! Reading is increasingly becoming an essential part of the daily conversation across the school and it's very, very exciting.

Similar breakthroughs are happening across the school community. There are staff giving up five minutes of their break to seek out books that their reading buddies will enjoy. There are Year 6 children wanting to read stories to children from Year 1 and 2 in the library at lunchtime. There are parents working with their children to create book characters from potatoes. There are classes spontaneously starting informal book groups based on shared interests (the Amulet group is growing by the hour!). There are pupils cheering when new deliveries of books arrive in the post. There are about half of our teaching staff attending a local Teachers' Reading Group. There is a real book buzz, a reading buzz, a feeling of gathering momentum and a sense that the school reading community is beginning to take on a life of its own. We're not yet a reading for pleasure school, there's still a lot that we need to improve and develop further, but we believe we're heading in the right direction and we're very proud.

A Year Six view of reading

Last week, ten-year-old Gracie, a girl in my class and one of the most passionate readers I've ever been fortunate enough to teach, wanted to write about what books meant to hear. She wanted other people to understand how important reading was and to explain how she believed it can help make people understand each other. Below is exactly what she wrote:

Ever since I was about five years old, I've always loved reading. I love it for so many reasons that it would be impossible to tell you them all, so I'll share just a few.

I love it because a book can be thought about in lots of different ways. You can just think of a book as a piece of paper with ink printed on it or you can think of it as an adventure in your mind. A book has the power to make you feel things; it can make you joyful, it can make you frustrated, it can make you jealous and it can even make you cry. Isn't that wonderful?

The power of words on a page is never-ending. They can take you to incredible places, such as Hogwarts, Camp Green Lake, Narnia or London during Victorian times, and can even leave you shipwrecked on a desert island. Books are time machines transporting you back hundreds of years, books are spaceships zooming across the sky, books are ships sailing across a distant ocean, books are doors to another universe, but the one thing that they're not is just words on a page.

When I sit down with a new book, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. It's an incredible feeling, wondering what amazing story will come next. Books can be so full of twists and turns that you may think you know where you're going but you can never be sure until you get there. Have you ever read a book where you're confident you know what's going to happen and then, a paragraph later, you realise that you were totally wrong? What an incredible feeling that is! Sometimes the plot of a story isn't as important as getting to know the characters. Stories where nothing much really happens can be just as incredible as books where the characters are saving the world every few chapters. Have you ever read Wonder? It's only really about a boy who goes to school for the first time but, when we read it as a class, we never wanted it to end.

Although I enjoy most types of books, the ones that have the biggest impact on me are stories based in realistic settings such as Not As We Know It, Once and How To Fly With Broken Wings. You could say that they're sad stories, but they have their own beautiful way about them. They leave a lasting impression on anyone who reads them because they're stories that could be real, and they really have the power to change how people think. Trust me, reading books like that will make you empathise with people from all around the world. In fact, reading any kind of book will help you to understand people better.

My teacher once told me a story about a man he met on a train, who didn't learn to read until he was about 40. He was so proud that he had finally learned and he said that he didn't realise what he was missing. He now reads books whenever he can. This man couldn't actually read and that wasn't his fault, but some people just choose not to. People who don't read miss out on the chance to truly relax and let their thoughts roam freely. If you read, it's like an amazing light that shines out of a book into your mind. If you don't read, it's like you're left behind in the darkness. There's a lot of dark and scary places in the world already, so it's up to everybody to pick up a book and try and make the world a lighter place.

 

Reading aloud in class

'Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read.' Marilyn Jager Adams

Reading aloud to a class of any age can be a wonderful experience and is absolutely essential in helping to create a class reading community. To find out more about the numerous benefits, have a read of this great blog post by Nikki Gamble.

However, choosing the 'correct' book is never easy. It needs to tick several boxes: it has to capture their imagination in the first few pages, it should provide opportunities for them to reflect and think about the world, it should entertain them and make them want to read more and, equally importantly, it should be a book that the teacher also enjoys. I've occasionally started books before with classes without reading them first, got about three chapters in and realised that if I'm totally bored by the book, then there's a pretty good chance that the kids are too. I'm now well into my second year of teaching the same class and we've read some absolutely incredible books together, many of which I intend to revisit in the future.

A story I often read with a new class (Year 5/6) is The Busker by Paul Jennings. Paul has written a huge number of short stories, most of which are thoroughly enjoyable with a clever twist at the end. However, out of them all, The Busker is the one that always has the biggest emotional impact. It's a story about a busker who wins several million dollars in the Australian lottery and the incredible loyalty of his dog. Gasps of shock and outraged faces are guaranteed.

One of the most popular novels that we read in Year 5 last year was One Dog And His Boy by Eva Ibbotson. It's not my favourite book of hers (that would Journey To The River Sea, which I adore) but it is my favourite one to read aloud. It's about a young boy, Hal, whose parents are far too busy and far too important to spend any quality time with him, so they try and make up for it by buying him expensive gifts. All Hal wants for his birthday is a dog and he's absolutely delighted when he is given Fleck as a present. Unfortunately, Hal doesn't realise that his parents have only hired Fleck for the weekend. He comes home from school on Monday, finds Fleck missing and decides that his only option is to run away to find him. It's a simple story, beautifully written, and always causes lots of discussion (and quite a few tears) in class. It has a lovely ending, where Hal's parents finally discover the error of their ways and realise what is actually important in life.

Another Year 5 classic is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the story of Nobody (Bod) Owens, a small boy raised in a graveyard. Bod came to the graveyard as a toddler, escaping after the murder of the rest of his family by the man Jack. It's full of action and slightly scary in places, with a wonderful range of characters for the children to enjoy.

Last year, I also read Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman with a class for the first time. It's one of my favourite books but I wasn't sure how it would be received, as it's about two child refugees from Afghanistan who are trying to flee to Australia. It was actually the most popular book of the whole year! I think because we'd done a fair amount of work about the refugee situation around the world, the children were able to empathise with Jamal and Bibi, the two main characters. There are some highly emotional chapters, especially when the children get separated from their parents, but every child in the class was desperate to hear how the story turned out. Several of them have asked if we can read the follow-up, Girl Underground, later this year and some of them have already read it independently.

We also read some more light-hearted books across the year. The ones we most enjoyed were a couple in the Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face series by John Dougherty, and The Spy Who Loved School Dinners and Baby Aliens Got My Teacher by Pamela Butchart. Both series are enjoyably written, with ridiculous plots, and are an absolute treat to read aloud.

In Year 6, the highlight so far has definitely been Wonder by RJ Palacio. It's already regarded as a classic and, in my opinion, should be read to (or by) every child in Year 6. It tells the story of Auggie, a ten-year-old with a rare facial deformity, and his experiences when starting middle school. It's written in the first person from a variety of character viewpoints and, as well as being a heartwarming story, teaches valuable lessons about empathy and understanding. When we finished the book, several parents asked if they could borrow it to read, as their children had gone home every day telling them about how amazing it is!

We're currently enjoying Welcome To Nowhere by Elizabeth Laird. It's a fantastic book, although I've had to selectively edit a couple of the more graphic passages. It's led to a lot of questions and further reading about refugees by the children, although it's possibly more suited to Year 7 upwards.

Below are some of the class stories we've read, or are planning to read over the next few months. We also try and share picture books together as often as we can. This year we've read Isn't It Great by Gerard Greverand,  My Big Shouting Day by Rebecca Patterson, Azzi In Between by Sarah Garland and Mr Wuffles by David Wiesner as well as several others. All of them can be enjoyed on more than one level and be used as a basis for some interesting debate.

Several of these books will definitely make the cut for next year (assuming that I'm teaching in Year 6), but it's also exciting to read new books with a class. Next year, I'm very tempted to give The Nowhere Emporium by Ross MacKenzie a try, as well as Once by Morris Gleitzman. I'd be really interested to know which books other teachers enjoy reading to their class and try to revisit regularly.

'You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.' Dr Seuss