Reading Tree

Reading Tree

Area of Provision:

After researching different areas of continuous provision, I decided to focus on the area which most interests me professionally in my capacity as a reading recovery learning support assistant. The reading corner in my year 2 classroom was not challenging or inspiring the children to read for pleasure. As reading for pleasure is a focus in my setting, it was decided between my class teacher, the learning support assistant, Kim, that we need to inspire the children to want to read independently.

Materials:

 Corrugated cardboard
 Paper, paint, wall stapler, sticky tape
 Guttering tube, dowling rod, flower pot, cement
 Balsa wood, nails. Hammer
 Rug, large cushions

Objectives and Rationale:

So why do we need a reading environment to be playful and stimulating?

As a school we have been developing and encouraging reading for pleasure hoping this will inspire a love of books and reading. This is what our literacy policy recommends:

We aim that our children will learn to read, will enjoy a wide variety of texts and will become independent, critical, life-long readers and learners.

Encourage the enjoyment of reading and create enthusiastic readers. Provide pupils with experience of a wide range of books and media texts. Provide pupils with the necessary strategies to read fluently, accurately and with understanding.

We aim to provide a supportive, stimulating and secure environment where children are encouraged to express themselves creatively and imaginatively and where their contributions are valued (Tubbs, 2014).

From the very early pioneers such as Frobel and theorists such as Piaget it is recognised that if you formulate young children’s learning environments and develop them using the introduction of age related resources, children will become open to learning new things if they have a familiar and interesting learning environment. The materials were designed to suit the development at each stage. Frobel’s gifts let children begin to understand pattern and to experiment and use their own ideas on how to understand the world around them. Piaget had his stages of cognitive development and pictured young children as active agents their own learning. By ensuring the educational spaces and their design are holistic and meaningful, this will encourage opportunities for shared learning, communication and cooperation as the environment becomes a third educator in the classroom (Papatheodorou, 2010). With all this theory in mind this is why we needed to develop the reading corner.

Looking for examples of excellence:

The reading for pleasure document states that “outstanding reading schools believe in both the importance of developing children’s word-reading skills and comprehension, and the need to stimulate their love of books and reading. This is done by a number of training and development schemes within schools. One of these is to spend money and time to support reading, including buying books and developing the school environment to support reading” (Clements, nd).

At Peel Park Primary in Accrington, Lancashire, with 600 pupils on the roll, space is at a premium, but the school uses every spare centimetre to encourage reading. Each classroom has an inviting themed reading corner that is updated every month. Outside in the playground, there is a ‘reading chair’ and a shelter where pupils take books at break and lunchtimes all year round (Clements, nd).

Planning and creating the Project:

After sharing various photos between Kim and I we quickly decided we would like to link the reading corner to our year 2 long term plan and use fantasy as a running theme with a reading tree as a centerpiece.  We started to think of classic children’s books, picking out some of our personal favorites.   This gave us a base for the design and helped to inspire our enhanced provision, and represent each author or story within the final design.  It was agreed that we would develop the reading tree during the spring half term. This would give us plenty of time to create all of the elements and bring them together for a big reveal after the holiday.

The tree trunk and main branches were stapled in place and painted with twisted paper on top to give texture to the main trunk. Cardboard struts were made to support the hollow under the tree and twisted paper painted brown are put in place to look like roots. Kim set to work making the lamp post using the black plastic gutter pipe, setting it in cement and adding the dowling rod to make the T structure, this was finished with a cardboard lamp top.  The signpost was then designed with arrows made of balsa wood and painted to show the way to the fantasy lands featured in the stories.  A large green rug was purchased along with comfy cushions to look like a forest floor.  Small woodland creatures and birds are displayed around and in the tree alongside the enhanced provision. I will leave you to find all the clues to the books featured from the photos posted at the end of the blog. Good luck there are quite a few and the children did very well to match most of them up!  

 Using the environment in this way helps in developing children’s language and communication as once the signpost was in place and the enhanced provision items were included we hoped the children would match up the fantasy place names with the items and the book or author they came from. Thus encouraging the children to transform the space into a place which will encourage meaningful participation in the activity to develop social and intellectual learning.

Giving children a familiar activity such as reading a book but enhancing and updating it with continuous provision gives children new learning opportunities. These are built on previous experiences therefore bridging the gap between the new and old learning of information encouraging the children to be successful and confident in their love of books (Macintyre, 2001). 

So how will this help?

The Reading Tree book corner can be used and differentiated throughout primary education. As I have shown you need to inspire children of all ages to want to go to the book corner and I have found the most powerful intervention is for the adults to know their children.  If the adults in a setting know each child’s interests and the resources in the book box, being able to match up the child to a book you have recommended can just spark an interest to read and keep reading because they want to for pleasure.  The links to the Prime and Specific Areas for Learning within early years are endless.  We have thought carefully about the enhanced provision we have set up in the reading tree to cover all areas of development in reading and all levels.  

The Sign Post

This was introduced to act as a prop for the theme of the reading tree. Each sign has been chosen to represent a fantasy setting. Link to EYFS Developmental Matters (BAECE, 2012) in the area of Literacy: Reading, states that 22-36 months, create an attractive book area where children and adults can enjoy book together. 

The Lamppost

Here we have added a subtle reference to the Nania stories. The children were able to recall the part of the story where Lucy steps into Nania for the first time. The lamp can light up by using a set of LED fairy lights. Link to EYFS Developmental Matters (BAECE, 2012) in the area of Literacy: Reading, states to encourage children to add first-hand experience of the world through books, information and technology (ICT).

Reading Chart

We have included the original reading chart in our design to ensure the children realise we are still encouraging them to read 5 times a week at home. This target is set throughout the school and a book raffle prize is awarded to the winner pulled from the hat in assembly. 

The Book Hollow

This area has a number of references from Peter Pan and Hundred Acre Wood to Whoville! Link to EYFS Developmental Matters (BAECE, 2012) in the area of Literacy: Reading, states 22-36 months, find opportunities to tell and read stories to children using puppets, soft toys, or real objects as props. We also have a story sack, cd player with head phones for audio books and we are just about to introduce Reading Buddies! 

 So what happened? Did year two like our reading tree?

Well here are a few quotes for the children and what they think….

“We have a tree and it has all leaves on it and I like to read with a friend.  I don’t like it as we can only have 6 people in there at a time I would like it to be bigger and make the tree have more mysteries!”

“That it’s all nice and it has a tree where we can sit in, it looks like a real tree in the classroom, I would choose to read in the book corner because the carpet is really soft. I would like some more Roald Dahl books and make it a bit bigger to fit more people”.

“It’s actually quite good, I like it when all my friends are in there, I like the leaves and stuff as they are what we did, and all the things that are on the wall there”.

With thanks to the children of 2RJ Thundersley Primary School.

Reflection

As you can see this provision has enhanced the classroom and our overall reading as a class. All of the adults in the class have become more focused on when the children are choosing to read.  We have all recommended books to individuals and we have been making available class story time within our day.  Maybe next time we could extend the tree theme to cover more of the ceiling space thus making the book corner seem bigger, and the provision that is around the rest of the classroom could be more obvious to the children. I have introduced and pile of cooking magazines and recipe books in the math’s area of the class, and I have brought in some comic style books to include in the book box.  I have some lavender bags to add to the tree for the summer term to spark new interest, and as I have mentioned the reading buddy basket will be added (I hope that will help with the reading to friend’s issue). Lastly I am recording a video, in the style of Jackanory, of a Roald Dahl short story set in the Reading Tree and this is going to go on the class VLE page in a hope to inspire the children to keep using the corner just because it’s a nice place not just a class space……  

References

Clements, J., nd. Building an Outstanding Reading School - Six strategies to make reading for pleasure work in your school. [Online]
Available at: https://global.oup.com/education/content/primary/key-issues/reading-pleasure/?region=uk# 
[Accessed 29th March 2016].

Macintyre, C., 2001. Enhancing Learning Through Play. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd.

Papatheodorou, T., 2010. The Pedagogy ofplay (ful) learning environments. In: J. Moyles, ed.

Thinking about Play - Developing A Reflective Approach. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education, pp. 145 - 163.

Tubbs, L., 2014. Thundersley Primary School - Literacy Policy. [Online]
Available at: http://www.thundersleyprimary.co.uk/misc/download/GaxDgIXy0f7NLdyW
[Accessed 03 March 2016].