A love of books and reading runs through my bones. Raised as the granddaughter of a Chief Librarian with a mother who collected illustrated children’s books, I grew up in a home where every room had a bookcase or two. Now I often spend what free time I have amongst books. This past weekend I volunteered at two charities and had the pleasure of spending more of the funds raised from the last school book sale on new books for the library - many new and some second hand but in mint condition.
When preparing books for school, the first thing I do is look up their lexile which is a measure of a text’s complexity reflecting the vocabulary used and sentence length. Not all books have been assigned a lexile but those that have, their levels can be found on the website https://lexile.com/ under Lexile Tools and ‘Find a Book’.
The lexile is one measure that helps me to decide where the book will be best placed in the school’s library collection: for confident readers in Year 2, in the Apthorp fiction library or the main library. Other considerations are the themes within a book and the presentation and structure of the text.
I also buy non-fiction that supports the interests that Mrs Volioti (our school librarian) and I know that children have, and books that complement their academic studies. This week for example, a book on psychology will join the main library for a year 8 pupil with a particular interest in this as an area of further study; ‘The Secret Lives of Unicorns’ will head off to the Pre Prep library for all the unicorn lovers; and children in year 5 and 6 will be able to read and dream about becoming app inventors.
As parents, working with the school and supporting your children to develop a love of reading is one of the most important roles to commit to as parents. Our job as a school is to build solid foundations and teach the building blocks of reading so that children can become fluent, confident readers. By working together we unlock childrens’ academic potential and help them regard reading as a source of relaxation and comfort for life, as well as being at the heart of life-long learning.
I am looking forward to speaking with parents in Pre Prep this coming Wednesday morning and sharing the recent developments in our approach to reading. Last week the first new set of reading books arrived for in-class phonics teaching and we are expecting more as soon as the publisher has them available.
I have also invested in a diverse range of phonetically decodable books for reading at home for Pre Prep children. These are being inventoried and we will be sharing the routines around sending books home at the forthcoming Phonics Meeting on Wednesday 28th, 8am Pre Prep Hall.
I am hoping that children will be excited by their new resources, and parents will be reassured by the rigour of our approach and the aspirations we have for all children to become enthusiastic, able readers.
Our School Journalists have had another busy week interviewing staff. Below we have two interviews for you. One with Miss Ketley (Reception Teacher) and one with Ms Harkin (Head of Art).
By School Journalist Zuriela O. Y6
When you think of a Reception teacher what do you think? Strict, mean, kind or caring? Do you think they’ll like reading children's books or adult ones? Well, Miss Ketley’s favourite book is Lord of the Rings, a well-renowned novel. Also, did you know her favourite place is Brisbane, Australia? Seeing that Australia is her favourite place, her favourite animals are a koala and a kangaroo. Her first rated lesson is phonics because she loves teaching infants to draw letters in different ways, like using chalk on the pavement. She also enjoys teaching Reception because she claims, “You can have more fun with the younger kids.” Miss Ketley loves teaching children to be imaginative as well as creative. This Pre Prep teacher enjoys teaching Nursery to Year 2, mentioning that she has taught for 8 years in total. In her free time, she likes meeting up with friends, and an unknown fact is that Miss Ketley used to own a pet chicken! This extraordinary fact is true, but sadly it died quite a long time ago. Furthermore, Miss Ketley, although she is not very sporty herself, she loves watching rugby. Lastly, her favourite song is SONG YOUR SONG. I am not sure which song this is? Gaga? Rita Ora? Elton John?
After interviewing Miss Ketley, we have come to the conclusion that she is an excellent Pre Prep teacher who cares for her little chicks!
By School Journalists Jannah M, Zuriela O and Amelie S Yr 6
Ms Harkin is the Head of Art in the whole school and is fitting in as an astonishing teacher. Did you know she has children at the school in Years 1 and 3? Ms Harkin loves teaching all year groups as they are equally as enjoyable: “That is genuinely true!” she said. At the moment, her favourite projects are the edible project with Year 4 and the realism project with Year 7.
Since the youthful age of 14, Ms Harkin had wanted to be an Art teacher and Interior Designer. From the young age of 14 why would she want to do these particular jobs? This is because she “had an amazing art teacher” herself and was inspired by his incredible ability to not only teach, but be an astounding artist at the same time and she wanted to change people's lives through teaching.
Ms Harkin says that other than art, games would be her favourite subject to teach as she is a fitness instructor, cricketer, boxer and advanced Salsa dancer inspired by Strictly Come Dancing (which she claims she watches many nights).
The food she enjoys the most is an Indian curry (like a chicken tikka masala) and her favourite dessert of all is a chocolate lava cake with a freezing vanilla ice cream as “it’s an excellent combination.”
Ms Harkin shared that her favourite holiday so far was to South Africa. Was it because of the many astonishing species or the delicious food we wondered?