In order to foster a love of reading, we knew that we had to have engaging, exciting, relevant books being read in every classroom, every day, to every child. From this desire, our "Wild About Reading" boxes were created. These contain a selection of specially chosen books - the class novels - from which classes chose what they would like to read together - every day. Each box contains a diverse range of high quality texts.

Every member of staff agrees on the importance of this ringed fenced, class novel time during the day - it is a most treasured time. Sometimes the children are even hassling teachers to read on, read for longer or pick it up again later in the day, just to find out what happens next - the teachers often feel like this too!

The class novels have all been chosen for their high quality and high interest to a range of readers. The fact that the class teacher is reading it to the whole class, means that those children who find reading more difficult are whisked away and immersed in the stories between the pages, even if the text itself might be too tricky for them to access independently. It also means that the incredibly important fluency skills are being repeatedly modelled and demonstrated to all children. In KS2, we call them the 6P's - Pitch, Power, Pace, Puncutation, Pause and Passion.

One of the most special things about our "Wild About Reading" boxes, is that they have been purchased and added to by our school community via our "Reading Legacy" Amazon wish list. We were overwhelmed by people's generosity towards our school and the legacy it is creating is incredible - #ProudtobeaHiller

The impact has been huge – children asking parents to buy them the books or to use birthday money to buy the class novels too and racing to read ahead to find out what happens before their classmates do, as well as children finding new and different authors and seeking out other books by them too - just amazing!

Have you seen our Hillers EYFS YouTube channel yet?

Our Early Years channel has stories read by our amazing staff and videos to help you support your child with developing their phonics understanding. If you Google “Hillers Early Years” on You Tube, you will find the link! Let us know your feedback and anything else you would like to see on there!

You Tube Hiller Early Years

We are excited to introduce this year’s reading reward system ‘Reading for Miles!’ where the children will literally be reading around the world!

Research shows that children who enjoy reading, do better at school in all subjects. Reading with your child can be fun and very rewarding, even if your child is a confident reader. This system is aimed at encouraging your child to read at home regularly to you or another adult, at home.

They can choose to read any books that appeal to them, for example stories or information books on hobbies or interests e.g. football.  They don’t have to just read school books; newspapers, magazines, recipes, games instructions can be read together and still be part of the process of learning to read for enjoyment.

Our expectation is that your child reads at home to an adult AT LEAST 3 TIMES A WEEK, in addition to reading that they do daily, in school.

Every child will bring home a ‘Reading for Miles!’ bookmark which will be used for every term this year. Every time you / or another adult hear your child read you must sign and date their reading record and write a short comment, if possible. Every FRIDAY – your child’s class teacher or TP, will check the record. If they have read at least 3 times that week – the next part of their journey can be ticked off onto their bookmark. Please try to ensure that your child has their reading record book in school EVERY FRIDAY, otherwise they may miss out!

Children will be awarded with a READING FOR MILES certificate each term, if they have each part of the journey between destinations. If a child receives a certificate every term, they will be awarded with a special prize at the end of the year!

This year we also want to recognise our “book worms!”; Children who read 5+ times a week, every week, will receive a very special “book worm badge! For each long term they achieve this, there is a bronze, then silver, then gold badge to gain!

As always, if you have any worries, concerns or questions about your child’s reading, please do not hesitate to come in and see your child’s class teacher.

We are keen that children continue to read, even when school is closed for the holidays! So, each holiday we run a read competition, to keep the love of reading running!

Our most recent reading challenge was called #5in5; reading 5 different times, in 5 different weird and wonderful ways! Children were sent home with a bingo style grid of ways/places they could read. Adults at home then documented these and emailed photos to school as a record which we could celebrate on our school social media and in assembly! Lots of children took part - it was our most successful challenge - resulting in those amazing readers being rewarded with a brand new book!