Reading Initiatives
Tom Cousins, Deirdre Sinnott, Theresa Kelly, Thomas Maher and Alan Nolan launching the fantastic new library books.
Bedtime Reading Club:
This is a fantastic initiative in Junior and Senior Infants. The purpose of the programme is to develop a love of reading in a fun way!
There is a huge selection of high quality, recommended books that appeal to all interest levels. The children bring home 2/3 books per week to enjoy at home at bedtime with their parent/guardian. There are huge benefits to reading aloud to your child. A most enjoyable way to create lifelong readers!
D.E.A.R. Time
Classes really enjoy D.E.A.R time. It means Drop Everything And Read. The children and adults pick whatever reading material they want to just enjoy for 10 minutes each day. It allows children to see that reading for fun and pleasure is a valuable experience. DEAR time is an opportunity to practise a life skill.
Here we are doing it straight after yard to get back into working mode!
Class Libraries
Every class has their own “leabharlann” with a wide range of fabulous books. There is a great mix of fiction and non-fiction books from popular authors. Each library is diverse and inclusive and provides a wide variety of classic and new titles. Every pupil in each class can find a book to which they relate. Children`s author and local librarians visited Kilrane NS to promote the new library books and spoke to the children about the wonderful world of reading!
Chapter
Chapter stands for Children And Parents And Teachers Enjoying Reading. It is a home-school reading partnership designed to contribute to children’s enjoyment of books and progress at reading. It is in operation from Junior Infants to Fifth Class. Each child chooses a book in class from a selection of material chosen especially for CHAPTER. The books are short, interesting and graded to suit each child’s age and reading ability. The children read the books at home with their parents. They also bring home a record booklet for parents to comment in each day. It is used to record their reading and any problems encountered. New titles are purchased for each level every year.
Alan Nolan, Children`s Author.
Literacy Lift Off
Literacy Lift Off is an evidence based intervention that gives children lots of opportunities to read books at their own level of competency and gradually raises the complexity of what they can do in both reading and writing. The PM+ levelled reading scheme is used for Literacy Lift Off. We have recently added new titles to our levels.
Special Education Teachers in collaboration with class teachers work with the children in Junior and Senior Infants from Monday to Thursday morning inclusive, in 8 week blocks, rotating sessions on a range of literacy activities which includes Familiar Reading, Word Work, Writing, Letter work and Tricky word work.
Literacy Lift-Off helps children reach their full potential as readers.
Guided Reading
Big Cat readers and PM books are used for guided reading in the middle and senior classes of the school. Like Literacy Lift Off, guided reading provides opportunities for pupils to read at their own level in a small group setting. Our Special Education Teachers work with class teachers during guided reading sessions to ensure that pupils can gain maximum benefit from their guided reading block.
The teaching and learning focus here is on developing comprehension skills, increasing reading fluency and developing pupils’ vocabulary.
Again, parents are encouraged to read regularly with their children during the week.
Building Bridges of Understanding
Kilrane NS uses a whole school approach to teaching reading comprehension, Building Bridges of Understanding is a reading comprehension programme which aims to give children the strategies they need to become good readers. By learning about these strategies, children can become more involved in the text they are reading or hearing, and so deepen their understanding of the text. The programme is being rolled out in a structured way in Kilrane NS. to help the children become more active readers.