Inspiring a Love of Reading

At Bishop Martin, we love reading!

Reading at home is one of the most important ways in which you can help your child make good progress. At school, we teach the skills they need to decode and comprehend words daily but, to consolidate these skills and grow as confident readers, they will also need lots of practise. Children who read with their families develop these skills much more quickly and develop a love of reading that can last a lifetime. At Bishop Martin, we recognise the incredibly important role that families have and want to support this in every way we can.

 

 

Reading Rewards

Reading Reward Scheme

This year, to further encourage and celebrate the home reading of all children, we have relaunched our whole school reading reward scheme: 'Bishop Martin's Journey Around the World'.

 

Autumn term

Spring term

Summer term

European Explorer 

African Adventure

Across the Americas 

Why have we introduced this scheme?

Reading at home is one of the most important ways in which you can help your child make good progress. At school, we teach the skills they need to decode and comprehend words daily but, to consolidate these skills and grow as confident readers, they will also need lots of practise. Children who read with their families develop these skills much more quickly and develop a love of reading that can last a lifetime. At Bishop Martin, we recognise the incredibly important role that families have and want to support this in every way we can, and we hope the ‘Journey Around the World’ will continue to motivate your child to read. In addition, we also aim to improve children’s understanding of chronology and hope that this incentive, across the year, will strengthen children’s understanding of capital cities.

How does it work?

The scheme is simple and is dsigned to celebrate all the amazing reading that is already being completed at home. Children are encoraged to 'race' their way around the capital cities around the world. For the 'European Explorer' in the autumn term children will start in Dublin, Ireland and end in Oslo, Norway. In the spring term children will move onto an 'African Adventure' where they will start in Dakar, Senegal and end in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Finally, in the summer term children will move onto the Americas with 'Around the Americas'. Every 5 days' worth of reading will move children onto a new capital city with children earning a capital city landmark sticker which will be placed in their reading records so children know where they are up to. There will be a special reading activity afernoon for all children who complete the capital city landmark collection at the end of each term. 

Each class teacher will be keeping track of all children’s reading and stickers will be placed within reading records to keep you updated. Happy reading!

 

The Bishop Martin Reading Spine

The Reading Spine is a core of books that create a living library inside a child’s mind. It is a store of classics and essential reads that help children engage at a deeper level and enter the world of the story.

Selected by literary expert Pie Corbett, we are now using this Reading Spine to:

  • Bring reading to life with a classic read aloud programme
  • Foster a love of reading with the best-loved books for Reception to Year 6
  • Deepen comprehension and teach drama and writing by drawing on the core books

Please see the attached ‘Reading Spine’ document for more information relating to these high-quality, recommended texts for each year group (Reception to Year 6). We would ask that all children at Bishop Martin read these books over the course of their respective year. Copies of these texts have been purchased by the school and will be available for children to borrow and take home, though we have attached the document as you may also wish to purchase these for home use.

 

Reader of the Week 

To celebrate children’s reading at home and the recognise their achievements and engagement, we have a weekly ‘Reader of the Week’ prize which is announced in our Celebration Worship each Friday. Our 'Readers of the Week' will then be given a special bookmark and spend time in the library reading with Heidi.

 

Useful websites

Take a look at some of these fantastic websites which will help your child while reading at home:

 

Liverpool Libraries - Did you know your local library has thousands of ebooks and audiobooks?

You can borrow them, instantly, for free, using just the device in your hand. Click here for more information on how to register and to see titles available.

 

The BookTrust Bookfinder will help your child discover magical mysteries, astonishing adventures & fantastic non-fiction. Simply choose an age range, pick as many themes as you want to, search through thousands of book reviews and get reading.

 

Audible Stories are a great way to explore a variety of books to help children continue dreaming and learning. Here you will find a collection of stories that you can stream on a laptop, phone or tablet. Explore the collection, select a title, start listening and enjoy!
 

Storynory - Latest audio stories

Storynory features a collection of original, fairytale, and classic children’s audio stories. Children can follow along with the story as it is read to them, as the text is also included on the site. There are also some great features available that give you the option of downloading the audio to your computer, listening to “catch phrase” explanations, translating text into different languages and more!

 

BookTrust's list of the 100 best books for children from the last 100 years: the ultimate booklist to read before you're 14!

Have a look at some suggestions for books to read with your child!

 

The magic of 15 minutes

An analysis comparing the engaged reading time and reading scores of more than 2.2 million students found that students who read for less than five minutes per day saw the lowest levels of growth, well below the national average. Even students who read 5–14 minutes per day saw slow gains that were below the national average.

Only students who read 15 minutes or more a day saw accelerated reading gains – that is, gains higher than the national average. Students who read just over a half-hour to an hour per day saw the greatest gains of all.

 

Please see these 10 top tips for parents to support children to read .

Files to Download

Student Login

STAFF LOGIN
PARENT LOGIN
SCHOOL BLOGS