Reading

Who is your favourite author? At Squirrels Heath Juniors, we have so many we can’t even choose! We are passionate about reading, and we read as much as we can both to learn and for our own enjoyment. Here are just a few of the ways we celebrate all things book-based.

Library

Not only do we have brilliant libraries in every class that you can take a book from and bring home to read in your own time, we also have an amazing school library that is a forest! Your teacher will bring you here every fortnight, but if you are such a super reader you can’t wait that long, then you can go every day at lunch time!

Not sure what to read? Don’t worry, you can look through our collections of recommendations made by other children across the school to get some ideas!

Treasure Book Challenge – Be a Book Buccaneer!

We have an amazing challenge that runs across the entire year, so you can all enjoy reading by yourself or with an adult! For us, all books are treasure, so if you read a treasure book or a library book, leave a review and your teacher will tick it off in your book. If you get enough ticks, you can earn a bronze certificate, then a silver certificate and finally…if you read 21 treasure books, you can become a book buccaneer and have your photo put aboard the boat for the whole school to see what an amazing reader you are!

Online Book Club

We know you love to read, so each half term we have books for each year to read and review online in a vlog! Look at our Book Club display on the corridor to see what the latest book is, grab a copy from your class and get reading…we love to give a shout out to our book club vloggers each Friday in assembly too. You can even share them with other children so they can tell you what they think – you might even persuade them to read it after you!

Reading Buddies

We love reading together, so every day our reading buddies collect children from each class and read together in the hall – it is lots of fun! Would you like to be a reading buddy? Ask your teacher about going on the waiting list…

If you are a reading buddy and you forget your day, just check the board in the hall – it has the days and classes you help, pens for you to sign your buddy’s diary and your questions to ask as well!

Reading in Class

We love reading, so we read in class every day. In shared reading, your teacher reads your special books of the term with you (one fiction and one non-fiction) and you can all talk about it together.

As well as this, you will also have comprehension lessons, where your teacher reads a text with you and you answer questions about it. Sometimes you will just read it all by yourself. Other times, you will go on LearningbyQuestions and improve your reading skills online! We try to make you a better reader in lots of fun and different ways.

The books we use in class also link to your topic, so all your reading helps make you a better learner for all of your subjects.

Reading at Home & our Vending Machine

The best way to be the best reader is…READ! The more you read, the better you get, so at Squirrels Heath Juniors you need to read at least 3 times a week, but you can read much more than that if you like. Once you read a banded book to your grown up and they sign it 3 or more times in a week, your teacher will check your diary on Friday and put you in the weekly raffle to win a book from our amazing vending machine! This means that EVERY week, 12 children win a new book to bring home and keep!

Virtual Author Visits

Have you ever met an author? We meet them online on live lessons! Whenever we can, we have live lessons with authors, and have their books in our Treasure Boxes afterwards. Who have you met virtually this year?

Got Some Ideas? We’d Love to Hear them!

We love to hear what you think about reading, and about any books you would like us to get…so tell us! In the corridor, just outside the hall, there is a Book Suggestion Box for you to write your ideas for new books. We then use your ideas to buy new books, and if you write your name we will even bring some to your class! But you can always just tell any adult in the school about your ideas, we are always happy to listen.