The Little Green Reading Spine
What is the intent?
As a school we see reading for pleasure as fundamental in how we approach and support reading for life; reading IS our ethos. Reading underpins Powerful Knowledge. Reading develops Community Well-Being. Creating a love for reading, encourages a love of learning - a positive Attitude to Learning. A huge part of this is ensuring that the children at Little Green have access to a bank of high quality and enjoyable texts which are continuously updated throughout the school; thus the launch of our Reading Spine. A different list, or spine, of books has been produced for each year group (see below).
Survey feedback responses from pupils, parents and teachers alike suggested that the previous 'colour spot book band' approach was neither popular nor effective for the purpose of developing reading for pleasure. We wanted to move towards having a selection of purposely chosen, age-appropriate, high quality texts.
How were the books selected?
A wide range of stakeholders had an input into our Reading Spine - children, staff, governors and county advisers. Primarily the Spine consists of high quality stock we had already in our classrooms and library, alongside new books selected for their quality using the subject the knowledge of our staff and governors here at Little Green.
We have retained and refreshed a selection of phonologically matched books to support those children below the age related expectation for reading.
Click the buttons below to access the current versions of our Reading Passports.
Updating the Reading Spine to keep it relevant and interesting is essential. Additionally, we noticed that the Spine was not as inclusive as we would expect it to be on launch and have updated it accordingly (see below).
The Reading Newsletter has been a successful method of suggesting high quality, age-appropriate books in the past. Ideally, I'd like to make this part of the curriculum for pupils across the school - they can develop micro-blogs on books they enjoy, reading spine or not, and add these to the digital reading newsletter below.
Trialling a model for measuring impact
I asked a Year 6 class how much they enjoy reading towards the end of the Autumn term; the response (left) is really positive with 18 children out of 25 saying they would give reading 8/10+
Some of their comments are listed below:
I have just found books I like more this year.
The books are really good and my Teacher helps me choose the right book!
Because I have found the right books like horror or gory books.
I think i am reading more because I have found books that i enjoy!
I think I am reading more this year because last year I didn't even get half way on a book but this year I have read two books and I am almost finished my third book.
I have just found books I like more this year.
I have always enjoyed reading but in year 6 I have enjoyed it a bit more and I have already read more than 12 books this year. I like that there are more horror books I can read this year and currently I am reading freeze which I am enjoying.
I think I am reading more because there are more fun and horror books.
In a school which has developed culture of reading for pleasure, it goes without saying that a child should be able to share the names of books they've enjoyed. Indeed a typical OfSTED 'deep-dive' question for pupils might be: What is your favourite book you've read at school this year? I tested what the response for this might be with a similar question (What is your favourite book and when did you read it?) for some Year 6 children and was delighted with their responses.
24 out of 25 children were able to name at least one book for their favourite (some in excellent detail) and only one child responded with 'I don't know'.
Staff CPD - November 2021
Staff CPD focusses on National Curriculum coverage, the assessment of reading, restocking of classroom book corners.
It is important to remember that when planning Reading, we use the HfL Planning Platforms to ensure sequential building of skills year on year.
Click the button below to get a flavour of some of the things that are happening at Little Green to enthuse and excite readers.
Barrington Stoke Update - January 2022
In January, we invested significantly into Barrington Stoke stock for our Reading Spines - over 100 new books have been brought in to directly support readers who cannot access the age-related texts on the Reading Spine. The books have been selected to be high interest for the age of the spine onto which they have been placed, but crucially, inclusive, accessible and dyslexia-friendly. Teachers will be asked to direct appropriate children towards taking these books to read, and will be encouraged to use one of these books in their guided reading lessons to promote the 'normality' of them and to capture interest.
Update May 2022
All year group spines have been boosted with a number of dyslexia friendly Barrington Stoke books since January and these have been added to the Reading passport. Additionally the approach to bottom 20% has been revamped, especially in Year 3 where phonetically matched colour spot books have been purchased and now all bottom 20% chn receive weekly one to one reading conferences with a teacher. Teachers have also been directed in CPD to the importance of selecting correctly pitched books with all their children and conferencing them all on their reading. This approach is still in the early stages of implementation and needs continued monitoring this term. Supportive enquiry from linked governors was a huge factor in supporting and driving this progression.
Next Steps:
When the book fair money comes through we’ll have a good amount to invest in a non-fiction spine and/or even more hi/lo books for spine to make it even better.