tips & advice

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  1. Mastering Whole Class Guided Reading with Fiction — Essential Tips for Teachers

    Mastering Whole Class Guided Reading with Fiction — Essential Tips for Teachers

    Posted on: Nov 01, 2024
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    Whole Class Guided Reading (WCGR) is a method of teaching reading strategies that involves working simultaneously with the whole class rather than teaching one-to-one or in groups. This approach to organising reading lessons is becoming increasingly popular because it promotes shared learning, allows teachers to model reading strategies for all students simultaneously, and is time-efficient and inclusive. The main purpose of WCGR is to develop comprehension rather than check decoding skills, so sessions usually involve pupils listening to the teacher read. Through WCGR, all pupils are given the opportunity to explore high-quality, challenging texts, irrespective of their reading abilities. In addition to providing exposure to fluent reading, rich vocabulary, and improved listening comprehension, WCGR nurtures a love for reading that inspires independent engagement with books.

    Ready to transform your Guided Reading sessions?

  2. Spooky Reads for Spooky Season

    Spooky Reads for Spooky Season

    Posted on: Oct 01, 2024
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    Is your library in need of some more fang-tastic reads? It's time to break out the cobwebs, fangs and capes. Halloween is almost upon us and we’re all about the treats this year, no tricks in sight! We have a bunch of fa-BOO-lous book recommendations and free downloads available to help bring the Halloween vibes to your classroom or library this spooktober.

  3. Resilience Reads: Stories to Support Mental Health in Years 7–8

    Resilience Reads: Stories to Support Mental Health in Years 7–8

    Posted on: Sep 19, 2024
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    “Tell them stories and let them tell their stories. Through stories, they begin to heal.” By Catherine Bruton

    That advice came from a Trauma Informed Schools UK training session I attended in 2021. As well as being an award-winning writer of books for children and young people, I am also a teacher. Teaching English and Drama in secondary schools for over twenty-five years, I see first-hand the power of stories to heal.

  4. Supporting Reading for Pleasure in Schools

    Supporting Reading for Pleasure in Schools

    Posted on: Feb 07, 2024
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    Developing a reading-for-pleasure culture in our school communities requires more than encouraging children to pick up a book and read right now. While this is a fantastic and worthwhile starting point, the ripple effect of nurturing avid readers who choose to read, rather than read because they are told to, goes far beyond the here and now so a whole-school approach is most likely to be successful. 

    Children who read for fun are more likely to be happy and successful in life. (The Reading Agency, 2023)

    The benefits of reading for pleasure for children (and adults!) are widely heralded and strongly supported by extensive studies, compelling statistics, and irrefutable research...

  5. Parental Engagement — Reading at Home

    Parental Engagement — Reading at Home

    Posted on: Jan 18, 2024
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    The single biggest way to support children academically and emotionally at home is to encourage them to read. The importance of fostering a positive relationship between home and school is highlighted by Ofsted in their ‘Schools and Parents’ report (2011) –

    “Parental engagement can be a powerful lever for raising achievement in schools and there is much research to show the value of schools and parents working together to support pupils’ learning.”

    This is a guide to help boost reading confidence by encouraging families to have fun sharing books at home, even after children start to read on their own.

    Reading together in a fun and relaxed way not only helps children get hooked on reading, but it is also one of the best ways for families to bond, spend quality time together and make memories that will last a lifetime. Sharing books with children and talking about the story will also help to deepen

  6. Get a flying start in reading this term with Badger Learning’s FREE Guided Reading Resources!

    Get a flying start in reading this term with Badger Learning’s FREE Guided Reading Resources!

    Posted on: Mar 14, 2023
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    Our Enjoy Guided Reading range has become a go-to resource for busy teachers. To launch the new term we’d love for you to try one in the classroom for free. We’re sure once you’ve done so, you’ll be keen to come back for more. Our aim is always to give teachers the best tools for the job, saving time and delivering lessons that provide positive learning outcomes.   

    We have one FREE resource for each year group from 1–6 available, so please share this with your colleagues and teacher friends.  Every school can download all six free resources with no catches.

    FREE RESOURCES

    Year 1: Teacher notes for I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

    Year 2: Teacher

  7. Uncover the secrets of a high-quality text

    Uncover the secrets of a high-quality text

    Posted on: Mar 06, 2023
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    After laying the foundations of reading with phonics, nothing captures the attention of a newly independent reader more than the lure of a great book. Making sure the very best books make it into your pupils’ hands will not only benefit them, it will also make your job of inspiring young readers and boosting progress in reading much easier.

    Making informed choices about the books you use in English lessons and fill your library shelves with will also help you to answer questions that might come up in your next Ofsted deep dive. Whilst the DfE Reading Framework emphasises the importance of ensuring children are given high-quality texts, there is little guidance on what a high-quality text looks like or how the calibre of a text can be recognised and measured. Being able to identify quality literature will ensure children are exposed to the very best, most current fiction, including titles that reflect modern society and represent more diverse authors, rather than relying on a stagnant

  8. Easter Holiday Reading Activities

    Easter Holiday Reading Activities

    Posted on: Feb 16, 2023
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    Is you brain scrambled trying to hatch ideas to keep your pupils reading over the Easter break? Look no further than these cracking challenges to involve families, eggcite children and encourage them to peck up a book over the school holiday.

    Download these challenges and accompanying activity sheets for FREE! Print them off and pop them into book bags or email home. 

  9. KS2 Top 10 Tips to Narrow the Reading Gap

    KS2 Top 10 Tips to Narrow the Reading Gap

    Posted on: Sep 29, 2022
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    “Over the last two decades, there has been a deepening recognition of the fundamental importance of improving reading standards on a child’s future academic achievement, wellbeing and success in life.” (The Reading Framework DfE, 2022)

    Recent government guidance highlights the importance of children ‘keeping-up’ with reading progression, rather than having to ‘catch-up’. Schools must follow a Systematic Synthetic Phonics Programme (SSP) to ensure robust plans are in place to help children quickly master the foundations of phonics and then build upon these basic mechanics of reading towards fluency.

    “Yet despite our best efforts, too many children fall behind in literacy…and the gap in literacy attainment grows substantially during Key Stage 2.”

    (Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 EEF, November 2021)

    In fact, in 2019 (the

  10. How to Support Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools

    How to Support Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools

    Posted on: Mar 11, 2022
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    Mental health and wellbeing go hand-in-hand and are not only central to promoting effective learning and future successful, independent living, they are ESSENTIAL for helping children and young people develop and thrive.

    Focusing on improving a child’s mental health and wellbeing will help them to cope with key life events such as stress, trauma and physical ill-health. Not only are children with better mental wellbeing more likely to be engaged in lessons, better behaved and make more progress but they are also more likely to deal better with stressful events and recover more quickly from illness.

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