At our school the classroom teachers are the ones who drive this and are very successful at keeping our year 5/6 reading. They are all required to complete the PRC and always have a novel on their desk for reading etc. They also still borrow a levelled reader each week and have set reading times for this during their reading rotation in class. They also do author studies where every student selects a book from the library by a particular author, Theile, French or the like. I suggest seeing if you can assist the teachers to build reading in to their programs. - Nicole Taylor
In the past I have encouraged reading in other mediums. Sometimes that engages Stage 3 students more. Magazines, audio books, instruction manuals etc. I had a really unmotivated reader but he loved fixing up mowers and selling them. So I got him a bunch of different mower manuals of models he’d recently acquired. I find with year 5 & 6 it’s about meeting them at their interests and motivations, sometimes they, and we, forget reading can take many forms. - Holly Pirie
We are thinking about getting them to review the books, record their reviews on a ipad so then they can be watched by others. - Jenni Chismon
and an added suggestion from Holly Pirie: You could also create a QR for the video reviews and attach them on the inside of the book covers so they could be used for years to come. The kids might find it super exciting to have their reviews in the books for “life” as such.
I’m looking at having a ‘committee’ review team of students help me with purchasing…. Looking at brochures catalogues etc…. Had it a few years ago and was quite successful. - Dawn Tomney
Our yr 5&6 kids love reading. It is encouraged in class by their teachers that they read 10-15mins a day when they come inside after lunch. It’s become a standard expectation that they need to borrow or renew their books each week to keep in their classroom tote tray. They can also borrow additional books to take home. At different times I run a book returned competition for a term. I keep a tally of how many books each class returns on a weekly basis and the class with the most returns will share a prize at the end. They love reading books by ahn do, wings of fire, baby sitters club, I survived series, my Australian story series etc. Many are starting to become interested in Alan Gratz novels too. I keep these books that are in a series together on a separate shelf in the library, especially when the individual texts are by different authors. If you have any students who are lower ability readers you can ask for the prc guideline to be adjusted to allow yr3-4 books which helps them to borrow and read books they can independently manage. If students see books in bookclub that they like but are unable to buy I ask them to let me know and I add it to the list to purchase. Gabby Sauer