Reading at Sharples Primary School

At Sharples Primary School we encourage the children to read to learn and to read for pleasure. Reading can benefit a child’s education, social and cognitive development, their wellbeing, and their future aspirations.

The DfE Reading Framework 2023 states:

Whatever pupils’ socio-economic background, making sure that they become engaged with reading from the beginning is one of the most important ways to make a difference to their life chances. For this to happen, however, they need to learn to read as fluently as possible and be motivated to continue reading.

At school the children enjoy listening to adults share a range of books with them across our curriculum and during ERIC time. Whilst we do everything we can at school to help develop children’s reading skills, there are many ways that parents and carers can help too.

  • Encourage children to read aloud fluently – even if they are proficient readers.

Just a few minutes a day can have a huge impact on children of all ages and abilities. Remember, fluency is not about reading fast, it’s about going ‘as fast as you can, but as slow as you need.’

  • Read aloud to children regularly.

Read to children as well as letting them read to you.

  • Encourage reading choice.

Give children lots of opportunities to read different things in their own time – it doesn’t just have to be books.

  • Read together.

Choose a favourite time to read together as a family and enjoy it. This might be reading different things at the same time or sharing a book all together.

  • Create a comfortable reading environment.

Make a calm, comfortable space for the family to relax and read independently – or together.

  • Make use of a library.

The school library is open to pupils and parents and carers at 3:20pm each Wednesday.

Details of Bolton Libraries can be found at www.bolton.gov.uk/libraries

To promote a love of reading at Sharples Primary School, we have created our Reading Journey which is a list of 15 books we want our children to read and enjoy in each year group. We share some of these books in school during ERIC time and we also encourage the children to read or share them at home too. The class Reading Journey can be found on the back of the children’s reading record. Whilst these texts are generally recommended by year group, each child’s reading ability, level of maturity and interests are different. Some children may be able to read the books themselves, whilst others may listen to them read aloud by an adult.

When children read any of the books on the list, they are given a sticker to add to their Reading Journey. All the books are available in school, but children may also wish to acquire copies at home.

We hope that there will be books on our Reading Journey that will inspire and motivate the children to read even more. If they do enjoy a particular text, there might be other texts in the same series or by the same author which they might also like to read. A very useful website is www.lovereading4kids.co.uk which allows children to read the first chapter, or an extract, from different books to see if they like it. This site can also recommend books similar to those your child has enjoyed.