Our first reading countup of Autumn 2 will be this Monday - hopefully everybody has already logged their five reads this week, but don't forget to get those reads in over the weekend if you haven't!
Why do we make such a fuss about reading anyway?
"You're always going on about reading, Mrs E. Why are you always going on about reading?" Year 6 pupil this week.
Well, Year 6 child, I am pleased you asked! Buckle up....
There is a growing body of evidence to prove that reading regularly at home has the single biggest impact on a child’s academic progress at primary school.
We review our children's engagement with home reading every single week, because it's that important. The weekly spelling and maths tasks are important, but reading individually is set, and expected, daily, because encouraging reading every single night is our absolute top priority.
We can see that many of our families do engage fully with supporting their child with reading every day, with corresponding benefits almost immediately evident in the attainment and motivation of their children. Thank you all so much for making these small amounts of regular time a priority – you are making an enormous difference. Every little helps!
November and (especially!) December are a particularly busy, pressured time of year - so do take a moment to to think about how you and your children are incorporating these “small but mighty” periods of time into your working weeks. Be it a ten-minute read at the end of the day, or having a chat about the story you're reading in the car on the way to school, or even just delaying the Minecraft session until we've got our reading record out of our bag, getting into good habits really is pretty much the whole battle!
Your child’s teacher (most of them parents themselves and we get it, we promise!) is always available to talk through any difficulties or challenges you’re facing with supporting your child at home - do come and ask for help or let us know if there's a problem. We completely understand that it isn't always plain sailing, but please, please, don’t give up, decide it doesn't really matter, or put it off. You are your children’s first and most important teachers and role models, and it’s what you do with them, day in, day out, which will shape their stamina and resilience for work in the long term. Primary school is preparation for secondary school, which is preparation for the workplace. Those five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes of practice at primary school are, like all habits, worth building slow and solid. Your children are constructing the foundation of who they are as learners, and it starts with reading. Evening by evening, story by story, page by page, we all have a role to play in helping them develop the best relationship with reading that they possibly can.
And that is why we're always going on about reading!
Have a lovely weekend.
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