Our New Recommended Reading List Is Here

“So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray,

Go throw your TV set away,

And in its place, you can install,

A lovely bookshelf on the wall.”

Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Promoting a Love of Reading

At Burton Road we want all pupils to develop a love of Reading - to read books for pure enjoyment and pleasure. To enthuse about the content, discuss their favourite books with their peers and recommend their favourite reads. In seeking to establish this we wish to establish a love of literature that is entirely independent of the academic disciplines within the Literacy curriculum. Whilst some of these skills are essential, their intense focus can be counterproductive to the pure enjoyment of enjoyment of reading a good book. When enjoying every day reading for pure pleasure people do not focus upon: fronted adverbials, vocabulary choices or the author’s intent. They simply seek to turn the pages to keep enjoying the story.

In developing this love of reading the school has devised a recommended reading list for all age/year groups, from F1 through to Year 6. These have been shared as… ‘Twenty Top Reads..’ and pupils are encouraged to read this full selection throughout the school year. This is also promoted to parents and feeds into the school’s rewards scheme for reading at home. The expectation is that parents will prioritise reading and find time for supporting children with their reading at home. There is no expectation for parents to teach any reading skills and this is to be left to the teachers and the school’s preferred method of delivering this. Parents need to: share books with their children at the youngest age, read  them stories and encourage a love of reading. As children become readers through school then parents need to hear their children read regularly, in order to assist their child in developing the necessary reading fluency. It is recommended that parents hear their child read four times a week.