Home Reading

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At Dell, we develop a love of reading. We encourage pupils to choose books that are appealing, spark interest and progress their reading skills. Reading at home, which is closely monitored regularly by teaching staff, compliments the reading curriculum. Adults in school listen to children read 1:1 on a weekly basis and pupils's reading levels are tracked. Pupils are expected to bring their reading records and reading books into school every day.

The Reading Race is embedded in all year groups and supports participation through the awarding of certificates and tangible rewards per reads. Adults read with pupils weekly within school and influence choices pupils make with regards to home reading books to ensure that progression and challenge are balanced. Each pupil has a written record of reading at home and we encourage dialogue between home and school. With the balance of reading for pleasure and having access to texts that are appropriately balanced, we strive to develop competent and resilient readers.

 Tips for listening to children read

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Allow children to develop a flow which may take a few moments of reading aloud and ask domain content questions to ensure children have understood what they have read:

● Repeated reading is the practice of having a student read the same text over and over until their reading is fluent and error-free. This strategy can be applied individually or in a group setting;

● Echo reading - model how to read parts of a text – segmenting phrases and using intonation and the prosody of reading. Adult reads and then the child echoes the reading back.

To develop independent readers:

● Ensure a child holds their own books and turns the pages themselves. They need to be active readers and not passive;

● Ensure a child is able to follow the text independently (please don’t point to the words);

● Use phonic knowledge to support reading unfamiliar words and don’t jump in too quickly with a word;

● Give children strategies for tackling longer words – for example discuss content for fluent readers and root words / breakdown longer multi-syllabic words;

 ● Discuss the meaning of words to ensure the story can be understood;

● Ensure children are pronouncing proper nouns correctly;

● Direct children to other books which they would possibly enjoy.

Reading Rewards

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For reading at home, children earn tokens that can be redeemed in our ‘Library Shop’, for a variety of items, ranging from smaller things such as pencils and notepads to books.  The more vouchers children collect, the better the item they can buy with their tokens.

1 token is given for every 10 reads at home. There are lots of things to purchase in the shop priced at either; 1, 5 or 10 tokens.

Whilst we want children to be intrinsically motivated and read for pleasure, it is also nice to receive a tangible reward for effort! 

We hope you will support us in encouraging reading at home. It really does make a huge difference and the pleasure in getting lost in a good book is something we want for all of our children.

Happy Reading!