Reading Newsletter

Dear All,

Welcome to our third edition of the Lark Rise Reading Newsletter. I am delighted to share this with you and hope that you will find it a useful way to hear about our developments in reading in school and also to offer ideas and suggestions of how you can support your child with reading at home.

I hope you have time to have a little look at the festive Book Recommendations page. This half term I have included lots of Christmas themed books which may be lovely ideas for gifts for any children you know. They are all perfect to sit and enjoy with a hot chocolate whilst counting down the days to the arrival of Father Christmas! Books have been organised into age groups, there are some newly published titles along with a couple of Christmas classics too.

Next week, we will be announcing our Reading Ambassadors. These are Key Stage Two children who have applied for this exciting new role in school. We have been looking for some truly inspiring reading fanatics to help promote reading in many ways, including; reading to younger children in the school, helping write this Reading Newsletter and selecting books titles for our Reading Robot and class libraries. Thank you to all the children who have applied, I have loved reading your letters and suggestions.

I am pleased to share some more reading news with you. After lots of research, we have decided to invest in a a new reading programme called Accelerated Reader. It is an exciting development for us at school and means that children will have more choice in the books that they are reading and ensures that they are reading books that are suitably challenging for them. The children will complete an online quiz in school after they have finished their reading book and complete STAR assessments each term. This combination means that we can hold the most up to date data about every child's current reading ability and can ensure they continue to make fantastic progress. Giving the children more ownership of their reading will hopefully increase their enjoyment too. This will all be explained to the children when Accelerated Reader is officially launched at Lark Rise in the new year.

This half term we are lucky to have had a Q&A with Sarah Oliver who is the author of 'The Best World Book Week Ever'. She has shared some fantastic tips for parents to support their children with reading and some tips for young budding authors too. Read them on our Q and A page.

If you click on the 'More' tab at the top of this page, you will also find our Reading Roadmaps and this term's winners of books from our 'Reading Robot'. Well done to those children who have enjoyed a visit to buy a book to keep from the robot. I know that the children are really enjoying being rewarded in this way.

Finally, a big thank you to Mrs Lang! This year her Christmas gift to the children is a tree advent calendar, as in the photo below. Every day to the end of term a different class receives the gift of a book. The children were so excited when this was launched in a live assembly earlier this week. What a lovely festive way to celebrate reading!

Kind Regards,

Mrs Victoria Smith

Reading Subject Leader