Get to know your next class as readers!

landrew3
May 22
3 min read

Knowing the children in your class as readers is vital for nurturing reading for pleasure and build a community of readers.

With the end of the year approaching fast, why not look ahead and plan how you will get to know your next class as readers.

Transition sessions with your new class in July or early in September will be perfect times to begin learning about your new children's reading interests, habits and identities. This blog will give some ideas of transition activities that will help you do just this and highlight the evidence based research.

The research shows us that teachers knowledge of children's reading practices has a significant impact on our ability to nurture reading for pleasure.

In this short film researcher Professor Teresa Cremin, CBE and Head Teacher Sonia Thompson explain the implications of the findings and how we can address them in our teaching practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VWCMLdQimQ

Head to the OUP Reading for Pleasure website to read more about the research here -Teachers’ knowledge of children’s literature and other texts - Reading for Pleasure

So... what kind of activities can we plan for our transition sessions or early in September to help us get to know our children as readers better?

Class A-Z of authors, illustrators or titles

Split your class into groups and give them an A-Z sheet per group.
Ask them to write down all the authors, illustrators and titles that they know.
You could add an element of motivation by including a points system.
Let the children walk around and read other group's A-Zs and notice how the children talk about reading and books/texts. Note down what you notice and start to build your knowledge of them as readers.
Collate a whole class beginning of the year A-Z and display this in your classroom. This will give you a starting point for your
You could revisit this activity at certain points in the year or at the end of the year and review with your class how their A-Z has developed over the year!
You could even turn the answers into a Word Cloud to represent your class visually.

Chat with your class about which of these they like most and why.

Pupil surveys to gain insight

You could provide your children with a set of questions to answer around their thoughts on reading.
You could give your children a more open ended activity to gain an insight into their thoughts such as...

giving the children a person outline and asking them to write or draw about what they read around the outside and how it makes them feel on the inside.