Read, Retell, Connect

This week’s Reading Club was smaller than usual, with 10 children attending, but the quieter group gave us more time to support each reader.

The children began with some informal play downstairs before moving upstairs for the reading session. We had also recently received a donation of books, which gave us a much wider selection to work with.

We organised the books across three reading levels, but this time, instead of giving every child the same book, the children were able to choose what they wanted to read from the books available at their level.

Our emerging readers worked closely with Sreena, reading together and stopping to talk through unfamiliar words and meaning. The other groups worked more independently or alongside a buddy.

At the end, we asked each child to tell us what they had understood from their story so far. Almost everyone was able to share something, which gave us a clearer sense of comprehension than simply knowing they had read the page.

One of our main learnings was that children read at different levels, but they can still have a choice. Giving them a few books to choose from at their level helped them stay interested while still reading something suitable for them.

Attendance is still something we need to understand better. Numbers have reduced over the past few weeks, so we want to speak with children and families to understand what may be making regular attendance difficult.

For those who came, though, it was a calm and positive session — time to play, choose a book, read together and talk about what they had understood.