Reading
Reading is a very important part of a child’s education at Heathmere. We encourage children to read at home every day to develop the reading skills they learn in school – every Friday, the class that has read the most at home that week are crowned our ‘Reading Race’ champions and receive a class certificate and trophy. Parents can help to support their child’s reading by reading with the regularly at home.
The teaching of reading is embedded throughout our curriculum. Our Literacy lessons are based on our ‘Core Texts’ which change each term and are carefully mapped out to expose our children to a range of reading genres. In EYFS/KS1, we teach whole class phonics lessons; in these lessons, we follow the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonics programme and use Phonics Bug books to support the children’s learning. In KS2, we continue to teach reading fluency in our whole class spelling lessons, which follow the ‘No Nonsense Spelling’ programme. In Year 1 – Year 6 we also teach whole class reading lessons; in these lessons, we teach reading comprehension using a range of strategies to develop our children as readers.
Heathmere has received a ‘Reading for Pleasure Award’ from the Society of Authors, in recognition of our work to promote reading. In addition to this, we host a large number of author visits; Anthony Horowitz, Peter Bunzl and SF Said have all visited Heathmere to talk to our children.
Further details of our reading provision is below:
Heathmere Libraries
|
Heathmere has two school libraries – one in EYFS/KS1 and one in KS2. Our EYFS/KS1 Library was opened by poet Joseph Coelho and our KS2 Library was opened by author Jaqueline Wilson. We have over 4,000 books for our children to borrow, including fiction books, graphic novels, picture books, poetry books, non-fiction books and more. We regularly update the stock in our libraries to ensure our children have access to the latest releases in children’s literature. Every class in Heathmere visits the school library once a week.
|
Storyteller in Residence
|
Storyteller(s) in Residence
We are lucky to have two fantastic storytellers at Heathmere. Sarah Cantrill of Story Storks visits our Nursery and Reception classes every half term to teach the children a range of stories. Craig Jenkins of Craig Jenkins Storyteller visits two of our Year 1 – Year 6 classes every half term to perform and explore the art of story performance with the children. Our children (and teachers) are left buzzing with excitement after their storytelling sessions with Sarah and Craig! |
Roehampton Library
Heathmere is situated just a short walk from Roehampton Library which means regular library visits are part of school life. Our children visit the local library every 3 weeks with their class. This provides children with an opportunity to gain real life experience of using a library to ‘check-out’ and ‘return’ books. Each visit also includes a story telling session with a librarian.
Beanstalk & Learn 2 Love 2 Read
We work in partnership with Beanstalk – a national reading charity who provide volunteer readers to read 1:1 with children in school – and Learn 2 Love 2 Read – a local Wandsworth charity who engage with children and parents to support reading at home. This provides our children with additional daily reading time with an adult to further develop their love of reading.
’50 Books’ Recommended Reading Lists
If your child is unsure what to read next, click on the links below for our recommended reading lists for each year group.
| EYFS |
| Year 1 |
| Year 2 |
| Year 3 |
| Year 4 |
| Year 5 |
| Year 6 |
Books for all!
Every child in Nursery, Reception and Year 1 at Heathmere receives a copy of the book they are reading in Literacy every half term - it is theirs to take home and keep. Every child in Year 2 – Year 6 receives a copy of one of the books they are reading in Literacy every full term – it is theirs to take home and keep. This means that our children will leave Heathmere with their very own book collection of 33 books, which they can keep forever. Support for this exciting project has come from a charitable foundation. |
|
