Classroom reading areas are so important! It can be tricky to get them right. Read this blog for ideas of how to create a reading area which is enticing and social.
What does the research say?
Professor Teressa Cremin and colleagues at the Reading for Pleasure Open university have carried out a wealth of research into the pedagogy of social reading environments. Many of the ideas in this blog are based on this research. Follow this link to read more Social reading environments - Reading for Pleasure (ourfp.org)
Top Tips for when Planning your Classroom Reading Area
Choose texts that tempt
All books on the shelves should be ‘texts that tempt’ – high quality, attractive books in good condition.
Continue to remove very tatty and unwanted books from your book area if there are any.
Create an enticing display with your books to draw children in
Try displaying your books ‘front-facing’ so that the front covers can all be seen, rather than only the spines.
Labelling your shelves clearly to indicate the genre/theme of the books helps children to choose when browsing.
Displaying books on books stands really helps to showcase them, enticing children in.
‘Treasured’ texts or new books could be given their own prominent place to remind pupils of favoured books and highlight new ones!
Think book shop! It's our job to entice them into the reading area.
Limit the number of books available
Too much choice can be overwhelming! You might know this from trying to find a good deal in certain clothing shops.
Limit the children's choices by choosing the books to display and then rotating these books to refresh the choices when necessary.
You can store the books not currently on display in your cupboard. However, don't forget about them! You could add in dates for book rotation into your diary.
The children could take some ownership over this. You could give them a choice of what goes into the reading area. Learner led reading areas are the most effective!
Promote a social reading environment
All book corners should have some form of reading display. If possible, position your book corner next to a display board or free space on the wall where an interactive reading display on the wall could be created.
The display should help to promote a love of reading in your classroom. It could include:
- Book reviews
- Pupil recommendations and favourites
- ‘Hot lists’ - books your pupils/you are currently reading or have previously read
- A focus on a particular author or genre of text
- Lists of who will read a particular popular book next
It is important that pupils have a good level of involvement in their class reading display, so consider a way for your display to engage them and represent their reading preferences. This should not be too onerous in terms of workload - although it should be updated regularly, encourage pupils to manage this!
Examples of displays to promote reading identity and book recommendations
Examples of book recommendations and voting for a story
Enjoy planning and creating your new reading areas with
Reading for Pleasure in mind!
For more information about us and our support go to English Hubs - St Wilfrid's English Hub (stwenglishhub.co.uk)
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