Reading ambassadors recommend their top reads for Storytelling Week as they continue to champion reading at a Spondon school.
The Year 5 and 6 pupils at Asterdale Primary School, part of the Odyssey Collaborative Trust, are on a mission to make reading a pleasure for more children.
As well as introducing reception children to the school’s library and helping them select books, they keep the books in order, do audits of each classroom’s reading corner to ensure they have a good selection and listen to younger pupils read.
Reading ambassador Adam, 10, said: “We’ve helped to upgrade the library and get better books and we encourage reading and suggest things that teachers can do to make reading fun.”
Fellow ambassador Ava added: “We promote reading through things like challenges where we ask people to send in pictures of them reading in the most unusual places and we do things like book fairs as well.”
Jasmine enjoys listening to younger children read. “It is about inspiring them to read more books because reading is amazing and it’s a pleasure to share that with younger children,” she said.
Seb and James, both 11, said they enjoyed helping to ensure the library and book corners were kept in order and there was a good selection of books for each level of reading while Bella, 10, said she enjoyed judging reading competitions.
And with the National Literacy Trust celebrating all things books at the start of February through Storytelling Week, librarian Jo Partridge said the school has also invested to ensure there is a large range of books and the library is well stocked.
“Each pupil also gets a gift of a book from the school three times a year,” she said.
This has been a hit with pupils. Reading ambassador Reagan, from Year 5, said: “We’ve just been given our latest book which we can read in school or at home and it’s very exciting when they’re handed out.”
Acting head teacher John O’Leary said: “We tell children that reading is their ticket to success. Children here see reading as their priority and the importance of reading for pleasure and how reading goes beyond the classroom. I’m really proud of the profile reading has in our school and the reading ambassadors are a huge part of that.”
Ahead of Storytelling Week run by the National Literacy Trust from February 1, the Asterdale Reading Ambassadors have given their top recommendations for children’s books:
1 Dogman – Dav Pilkey
2 A Study in Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle
3 The Brilliant World of Tom Gates – Liz Pichon
4 Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Jeff Kinney
5 The Magic Faraway Tree – Enid Blyton
6 Bunny vs Monkey – Jamie Smart
7 Any Roald Dahl book!
8 The Treehouse Stories collection – Andy Griffiths
9 Dr Maggie’s Grand Tour of the Solar System – Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock
10 Iron Man – Ted Hughes
