Reading and Books

We are committed at Swaffield School to inspiring our children to love books and reading. All children will be part of a guided reading carousel every day, which encourages interactive reading and ensures your child/children will be read with by a teacher at least once a week. Swaffield's KS2 Reading Ambassadors promote reading across the school.  

Children are expected to be reading every day in every year group and this should be recorded in their reading diary. Feel free to speak to your child’s teacher if you have any questions or concerns.     
                                                                                                             Swaffield School Library is a magical place from which to borrow books.     

News

As part of our World Book Day 2024 celebrations, we ran a bookmark competition which invited children to design a bookmark which would be given to all children taking part in the day's Book Swap. It was a huge success with some fabulously creative entries which made the Reading Ambassadors job of selecting two winners hugely tricky! These are the winning designs:

Reading At Home

You can read our guide to supporting your child with reading at home on our Homework page.

Reading Lists

• HERE is the suggested Reading List for Nursery and Reception
• HERE is the suggested Reading Lists for Year 1
• HERE is the suggested Reading List for Year 2
• HERE is the suggested Reading List for Year 3 
• HERE is the suggested Reading List for Year 4
• HEREis the suggested Reading List for Year 5
• HERE is the suggested Reading List for Year 6

Reading For Pleasure At Swaffield

We are passionate about books at Swaffield and encourage the children to enjoy reading for pleasure.

Our classrooms have lovely reading corners where children can choose from a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books which they can enjoy reading in an interesting and relaxing environment. 

Book Bands

We assign children to a book band based on their word reading skills and their ability to understand and explain what they are reading.

Earlier book bands, up to gold, are linked to phonics phases.

Book band colours

Children will be assigned a book band when they enter the school and will then progress through the stages at their own pace until they leave us.

It is important to note that the book bands are designed to be different lengths so while some book bands may be completed over a half term, most are designed to last a few months and some up to a year or more, particularly in the higher bands.

Book bands pink to gold  

For book bands from pink to gold, children should be encouraged to reread their book in order to help them gain a firm understanding of the text.

The first time the book is read, children should focus on deciphering the text using word reading strategies.

•    Using phonics strategies to sound out words
•    Recognising common words by sight
•    Identifying known words with similar spelling/rhyming patterns
•    Reading around the word in a sentence then using the context to work out the word.

 The second time the book is read, children should be focusing on:

• Being able to read the text fluently and accurately
• Responding accurately to punctuation
• Ensuring grammar is correctly used
• Developing their understanding of what is happening in the text; being able to retell the story, sequencing events and describing characters and settings.

The third time the book is read, children should be focusing on deepening their understanding, including:

• Talking about their opinions of the book as a whole and of specific events, characters and settings, giving reasons for their ideas
• Discussing the feelings and actions of characters, giving reasons using evidence from the text if possible
• Thinking about why a specific word or phrase has been used by the writer and what effect it creates for the reader
• Making links between the text and other similar texts

When the children are confident reading books at gold level, they will move to be a ‘free reader’, meaning they can choose any book they like at an appropriate level of challenge.

Swaffield Library

We have a brand new school library, thanks to support from The Literacy Trust's school libraries programme. It is filled with wonderful books for children to borrow as you can see in this short video. 

All children have regular opportunities to borrow books from the school library and take them home. We have a team of Reading Ambassadors from our older year groups who, after applying for the role and a successful interview, now play an important role in looking after our books and library as well as keeping track of books that are loaned and returned. 

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Past Events:

Book Trust Visit

The Book Trust's Read for My School Competition was launched here at Swaffield with award-winning children's author Robin Stevens, whose Murder Most Unladylike Mysteries series has been a big hit.

Read all about it here and watch the ITV coverage here.