Tag: reading for pleasure
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Miss P’s Literacy Calendar 2021-2022
It’s that time of year again! As you all know by now, I love to plan ahead and each year I update what I call my ‘Literacy Calendar’ to include key dates, competitions, book awards, events, days and weeks that help to inform my school planning for the year ahead. This is my third year…
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Children’s Literature: Summer CPD
CPD doesn’t have to be in the form of attending a course; professional learning as a process comes in many guises. It could be something as simple as joining in a twitter chat, attending a book festival, watching a Youtube tutorial or reading a book for pleasure! I am well aware that ‘Summer CPD’ is…
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#21 Create a miniature book
Not only is this one of the most creative and engaging ideas I’ve seen online recently, it’s also one of the cutest. The British Library is calling on the nation’s children to write their own tiny tales, which will form part of an online “National Library of Miniature Books for the toy world”. I’ve written…
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#8 Guess Who? (inference skills)
This is a really fun task that allows children of all ages to practise their inference skills. However, it does require a little preparation by the adult first. You may need to find some props from around the home (or school!) and either put these in a special sack, or brown envelopes before you begin…
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Online English Tools for Home Learning
In times like these, sharing teaching resources with each other is more important than ever! Below is a list of 10 useful (and FREE) online resources for teaching English, which may prove useful in the coming weeks during school closures. Please do feel free to share with teachers, colleagues and parents… 1) CLPE’s PoetryLine is…
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Reading Aloud: The Poet-Tree Project
This project was inspired by the Teachers as Readers (TaRs) research and through my role as the leader of an Open University/UKLA TaRs Book Group (you can find out more about that here). Our book group is based in Blackheath and meets approximately once per half term. We share and discuss children’s literature and explore…
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2019 Egmont Reading for Pleasure Teacher Awards
Yesterday I was honoured to receive the 2019 Egmont Reading for Pleasure Teacher Award, in the category of experienced teacher! The announcement was made at the OU/UKLA Finding and Sharing Pleasure in Reading Conference in London, where I also led my first workshop on The Power of Reading Aloud. My RfP journey started little over…
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The Power of Reading Aloud
“Reading to children should not be presented as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.” (Kate DiCamillo) Everybody loves to be read to. Almost everyone has nostalgic memories of being read to as a child, or reading to their own children or grandchildren. I was lucky enough to…
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Encouraging Book Clubs at Home
The Teachers as Readers research project (Cremin et al, 2008) highlights the importance of relationships between children, teachers, families and communities and how this has a strong influence on RfP (Reading for Pleasure). I wanted to build reading relationships beyond the classroom not only between the kids in my class but also between the children…
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Book Clubs for Teachers: Widening reading repertoires
I had known for some time that my knowledge of children’s books was a weak area and when I came cross the Open University’s self-review document for teachers whilst scrolling through twitter one day, I thought, ‘why not?’ I clicked on the link and started dutifully answering the questions. It was worse than I thought. I was lured…
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Blind Date with a Book
I was thinking about National Libraries Week (taking place from 8 – 13 October 2018) and how we might celebrate our much-loved school library, when I stumbled upon the idea of having a blind date with a book. The aim is to encourage children to explore new genres and authors in an exciting, engaging way and the ‘blind…
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Happy New (school) Year!
The start of a new year always brings a raft of changes and challenges. As teachers, we are constantly reflecting on our own practice but, at times, it’s important to remember not to be too self-critical. Obviously, reflecting on what you would improve is a worthwhile pursuit, but it’s also important to focus on what…
Literacy with Miss P 