his week at Highgate Primary School, we held our annual presentation for Reception parents to explain how we teach children to read. Since reading really is the key that unlocks everything, we were pleased with how well attended it was. Children who read regularly have access to a wealth of knowledge, can travel to different places and even move through time. They develop new ideas and acquire a rich vocabulary. It’s not a surprise that our best readers are also our most articulate children and our best writers too. What is surprising however, is that nationally, only one in three teenagers read for pleasure in their spare time.
Our approach to teaching reading at Highgate Primary has been well thought out and follows a logical progression. But underpinning the explicit teaching of phonics, reading practice sessions and a focus on teaching the skills needed for fluency and comprehension, we have a real emphasis on championing the enjoyment that comes from reading. Reading has to be fun and we need to model the enjoyment that it brings.
This week, I witnessed our nursery children squealing with delight as they listened to harvest classics ‘The Enormous Turnip’ and ‘The Hungry Hen’. And it’s not just our youngest children who are read to. All classes have a ‘class reader’ on the go, which is always a highlight of the day.
At school we are passionate about promoting a love of reading. Our bespoke reading programme, ‘Reading Adventure’, gives children in all year groups access to a wide range of fantastic texts, taking in all genres and ensuring all children can see themselves represented in the books they read. Our eldest children all take part in Haringey’s excellent reading initiative ‘Biblio-Buzz’. Here, children are challenged to read six shortlisted texts, vote for their favourite book and attend the award ceremony at Ally Pally. It a hugely exciting event which never fails to get our children reading. And alongside this, we work hard to get published authors into school to share their craft. Yesterday we were visited by Patterson Joseph, who read from his latest book, ‘10 children who changed the world’. In a full hall, you could hear a pin drop.
This week, in an announcement that the government is to be introducing a mandatory reading test for all children at age 13, Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, described reading as ‘the passport to the rest of their lives’. On this, I am in total agreement.