The Hotspur Spotlight on Reading is an annual event which takes place over the first three weeks of the Spring term and is aimed at enthusing and engaging children in the joys of reading for pleasure. This period includes a variety of activities in class as well as ways to get involved at home too. Please explore this page to find out more about what we're doing this year and click here to find out what we've done in previous years.
READING FOR PLEASURE
This year our Spotlight on Reading has been combined with the introduction of our new Core Canon. The children started the the new term with a beautifully wrapped, mystery parcel being delivered to each each class from Nursery to Year 6. Inside was a brand new collection of books for each class. This body of books makes up their Core Canon: a collection of age-appropriate, carefully selected, much loved and acclaimed books for each year group to read and enjoy. Each year group has chosen one picture book from the collection to focus on during the Spotlight on Reading. Our children will be delving deep into their new books, exploring the pictures, interpreting meaning and experiencing a range of activities to ignite their imagination. We hope to inspire them to continue to read for pleasure.
The Spotlight on Reading will culminate with a celebration afternoon within family groups where children have the chance to talk with friends across school about their favourite books and book characters and share and receive reading recommendations from friends. It is real joy to see how passionate our children are about reading and a perfect way to start a new year!
POETRY
To complement our focus on Reading for Pleasure, staff are sharing their favourite poems with children during assemblies. This leads us onto our home challenge for this year. We would like to find out what our children’s favourite poems are and encourage them to share that with us in some way. Children can write out the poem and decorate it or perhaps even record themselves performing it and send it in. Children could also write their own poem to share. It will be fabulous to share these during assemblies and also on the Spotlight on Reading pages of our school website. We will continue to add to this throughout the spotlight.
