The Reading Buddies work with Mrs McKnight to support our school’s aim to develop a love of reading within every child. Responsibilities include leading story time in classes, running the reading pop up tents during some playtimes and lunch times, sharing stories and bringing them to life with younger children, maintaining the school library and supporting on World Book Day. 

The Reading Buddy System

The reading buddy programme takes place at the end of the day on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. The reading buddies have been spilt into two groups. One group supports with reading in Year 1 and the other supports in Year 3. In Year 1, the buddies listen to the children read, supporting them and encouraging them to use their phonetic knowledge to decode the words. Each session ends with the reading buddies reading a story to the younger pupils.

In Year 3, the reading buddies listen to the younger children read their own home reading books, supporting them with decoding and reading any unfamiliar words.

"Reading buddies is a great chance to spend time with the younger pupils in our school.  I am happy to spend my time helping the children in year 1 to learn and make progress with their reading.  It is a pleasure to read stories to the younger children.  I love seeing how much they enjoy the stories that we read to them." Amelia H (Reading Buddy). 

Updates

The reading buddy system continues to be successful, running on a weekly basis.  Both Y6 and younger pupils are enjoying this time reading together.

The Library

The school library is run by the reading buddies with Mrs McKnight supporting.  The buddies worked hard in the Spring term to tidy the library and organise the books into relevant sections.  They then created a timetable, sharing the responsibility of running the library between them on a rota basis.  

The library is open after school one day each week, with the day being shared in advance on Class Dojo.  The reading buddies work well as librarians, collecting in returned books, checking the condition of them and returning them to the relevant section in the library.

There is a certificate system in place to encourage children to make use of the school library and to foster a love of reading.  The library is well attended and positive reviews have been received from both pupils and parents.

Update

The library continues to open weekly, run by Mrs McKnight and her reading buddy/librarian helpers.  Many children from all year groups enjoy visiting the library on a regular basis.  Well done to all involved in running the library.