Reading
Norwood's Reading aim
Above all else, we want our pupils to grow up to be happy and kind people, to understand the world they live in and to learn what it is to be human. Instilling our children with a love of and confidence with reading is central to this. It is one of the most important things we do at Norwood. Everyone of us understands how reading can change children's and adult's lives, and open up opportunities that may have seemed impossible.
We believe that 'Team work makes the dream work' and in our reading team not only are there the staff members, but parents and children too. We are fully committed to sharing our love of reading with our pupils and this committment needs to continue at home for reading to simply become second nature. We want parents to read to their children, to listen to their children read, to model reading themselves and to enjoy the shared experience of books.
We encourage parents to follow our four reading rules:
- Listen to your child read every day
- Read to your child every day
- Talk to them about what they are reading everday
- Let them see you read frequently
We use some fabulous high quality texts from all around the world to support our English lessons. Have a look at our map of books.
Travel the world with Norwood's quality texts
Oxford Reading Buddy
We are delighted to tell you that after October half term, Norwood will be launching Oxford Reading Buddy throughout the school. This is a digital reading service to support children’s reading development at home as well as at school.
Oxford Reading Buddy contains hundreds of digital books and book-quizzes all matched to each child’s reading ability. Children can earn badges for good reading behaviours, be coached in their understanding by their personal ‘Reading Buddy’, take quizzes and record all the reading they do. Everything is captured so that your child’s teacher can see how they’re getting on.
Please log in to Oxford Reading Buddy when your child brings home their sign-in card and have a look around. Do encourage your child to use it regularly and discuss what they are reading with them. You might be interested in watching them reading one or two of the Coaching eBooks because Reading Buddy is a good model of how to support and encourage children’s comprehension skills as they read.
When your child is taking a quiz, please try to provide a quiet workspace for them, but resist the temptation to help them because their answers will help your child’s teacher understand their needs.
If you don’t have a tablet or PC at home, the service works on smartphones as well.
It’s important to be aware that Oxford Reading Buddy is a new service and the programme is still working out ways that they can improve their service. Therefore please be patient as there may be some glitches that you come across when accessing the website and let your child’s class teacher know so that they can pass this information on to the Oxford Reading Buddy support team.
For more detailed information, go to this address and choose Parent Support: https://support.oxfordreadingbuddy.com/ or look at the introductory video at https://www.oxfordreadingbuddy.com/uk .
Reading Nooks
This year, we have created three fabulous library nooks, where the children visit each week and pick a book of their choice. The Library nooks are called:
Year R, 1 and 2 – Nick’s Nook (named after the author Nick Sharratt)
Year 3 and 4 – Kessler’s Corner (named after the author Liz Kessler)
Year 5 and 6 – Rosen’s Retreat (named after the author Michael Rosen)
Norwood Reading Ambassadors
Recently, we sent out an advert asking for the children to apply for the role of Reading Ambassador. This role would involve overseeing the library nooks at playtimes and lunchtimes, as well as advising children about books that they can read. In total we have 18 Reading Ambassadors (Years 4- 6) and we are so excited to see how this role pans out this year. If you would like to know more about the role, please look at the application form attached.
Norwood Parent workshop
On the 7.12.22, our Reading Team hosted a Reading workshop. We loved sharing our passion of reading with the parents and we they enjoyed it to.