Parents play key role in boosting their children’s reading abilities
PARENTS ARE playing a key role in improving the reading skills of their children at a Leeds school.
A ‘stay and read’ event was held at Calverley Primary School, where mums and dads spent time listening to their children reading and talking about stories.
The event is one of a number of ways parents are helping to improve reading skills at the school. They recently raised money through the Friends of Calverley CE Primary to turn a room into a library and reading space and provide new books.
Parents have also attended a workshop to help them understand how best they can help their children with reading following the launch of the school’s new Accelerated Reading Programme.
The scheme aims to challenge pupils to read more appropriate books as they progress through school. It was trialled in Years 5 and 6 last year and now includes Year 4.
The programme gives the children access to an iPad and sees them completing an online reading test and obtaining an accelerated reading score, which is linked to a range of books.
They then choose a book from that range, do comprehension tests and move on to more challenging books.
The school has also held ‘reciprocal reading’ coaching sessions, which involve a staff member teaching small groups of children to help each other with their reading skills. The timetable at Calverley has also been redesigned to allow pupils solid blocks of time to focus on reading and grammar. Reading is promoted through the school website, which includes videos of children talking about their favourite book.
Reading leader and teacher Caroline Kirk said: “The Accelerated Reading Programme has already had an impact on reading skills in school. Children are now reading more and talking about books and stories more.”
Headteacher Bob Curran added: “The Parents Stay and Read event was a big success. We were very pleased with it and will certainly do it again.”