Year 5 Reading Page
In Year 5 we love to Read!
In Year 5 we read daily, both at home and at school. We read together in guided reading and we read class texts that act as a “book as a hook”.
Reading links into all of our subjects. In RE we read the Bible or prayers to help us with our learning; in history and geography we use our reading skills for research and in maths we have to use our reading comprehension skills to work out what we need to do in word problems.
We use a “book as a hook” to support our literacy lessons. This means that our writing is inspired by, and linked to, a specific high quality text.
In class we read daily; in English lessons, in guided reading, 1-2-1 with an adult (as needed), and listening to an adult read a class novel. Daily reading at home is an integral part of home learning and is monitored and encouraged by staff. Art lessons also link to our class ‘Book as a Hook’ text, and children are fully immersed in the text.
Mr Hall loves to read
As a child books were a really important part of our daily life. I loved to share a book with my sister-often a Where’s Wally, or an Usborne Quest book, and always looked forward to bedtime, and listening to our mum read to us. For me, books were always about adventure and exploring new worlds. Early childhood favourites were ‘Owl Babies’, ‘Where’s My Teddy’ and ‘We’re all Going on a Bear Hunt’. I also loved poetry and spent many hours listening to my mum read Monster Poems, Dragon Poems and Magic Poems-compiled by John Foster and illustrated by Korky Paul.
As I got older and learnt to enjoy reading on my own, I loved fantasy books. Anything by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, the Beast Quest series and later on Tolkien, were great favourites, as were the Harry Potter books.
If I had to choose my favourite book of all time, though, it would have to be Muddle Earth by Paul Stewart. The book is very funny, and the parody element of the link to Tolkien’s Middle Earth is very clever and always makes me smile.
Mrs Andrews loves books!
Reading is important to Mrs Breakwell.
Reading is important to me because it takes you out of yourself and transports you to other worlds. One of my favourite books is ‘The Mousehole Cat”; I love animals, especially cats and as an artist I am really entranced by the illustrations. One of my other favourite authors is Roald Dahl, and I love Quentin Blake’s illustrations. Having said all of that, I think my favourite books are J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. I can spend hours immersed in her magical world-hiding with Harry under his invisibility cloak, prowling the halls of Hogwarts at night, soaring through the sky on a broomstick and battling Voldemort and his Death Eaters…
Wisp: a Story of Hope by Zana Fraillon and Grahame Baker Smith
Idris lives in a refugee camp which is full of people, but where everyone is alone. There are no rivers or seas to swim in and no trees to give shade. One day, a tiny, bright wisp appears in the dirt: an insect-size glowing light that, when it finds the right person, fills them with a memory of their life before the refugee camp: a memory that gives them just a little hope once again.
One night, when the wisp settles before Idris, he waits for it to give him a memory, but none appears: he has never lived anywhere but the refugee camp, so it can’t give him a memory. Instead, it gives him something else: a promise.
Grahame Baker Smith’s haunting and immersive illustration is perfect for this heartbreaking story of hope in the darkest of places; among the deep black and blues come splashes of sunshiny forests and jewelled seas sailed by adventurous sailors. This made it a perfect book to not only base our literacy work on, but also our art.
Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill
Illustrator William Grill weaves a detailed visual narrative of Shackleton’s epic journey to Antarctica.
Grill’s beautiful use of coloured pencils and vibrant hues effortlessly evokes the adventure and excitement that surrounded the expedition. His impeccably researched drawings, rich with detail, fastidiously reproduce the minutiae of the expedition.
This book forms the basis of our literacy, geography, history and art for the half term. The children love examining the diagrams of the peculiar provisions and the individual drawings of each sled dog and packhorse. This book takes the academic and historical information behind the expedition and reinterprets it for a young audience, making it an ideal stimulus and source of information, awe and wonder.
The Explorers, by Katherine Rundell
Award winning book, the Explorers is an exciting new novel about a group of children who must survive in the Amazon after their plane crashes. Fred, Con, Lila, and Max are on their way back to England from Manaus when the plane they are on, crashes and the pilot dies upon landing. For days they survive alone, until Fred finds a map that leads them to a ruined city, and to a secret…
The Happy Prince: a Tale by Oscar Wilde, by Maisie Paradise Shearring
More than a hundred years ago, Oscar Wilde created this moving story for his children. Now shimmering illustrations, as bejewelled and golden as the Prince himself, give glowing life to the many dimensions of his tale. His story of friendship, love, and a willingness to part with one’s own riches may be more important today than ever before…
Aesop’s Funky Fables, by Vivian French
A catchy, contemporary kick to Aesop’s moral tales. The fables vary in form, including rhymes and monologues as well as narrative; they share, however, an unbridled use of sound effects. The characters are virtually audible; the scenes seem to perform themselves and the wide variety of form and literary features make this an ideal book to inspire high quality writing.
The Princess and the Pirate-King, by Debi Gliori
Princess Podkin finds palace life a bore and wishes for something to happen. One day she gets her wish, when an ostensibly dashing Pirate-King turns up at her doorstep, and informs her, “”I want to make a MESS, I want NOISE, and I want to CRASH and SHATTER!”” At first Podkin revels in the presence of someone she believes to be her soulmate, but the Pirate-King’s thirst for action soon reveals a much darker side; then it is up to the Princess to mastermind an escape for herself and her royal parents. The illustrations add a great deal to the story, with panels bordering the central pictures, sometimes continuing the scene, sometimes spotlighting details featured within the scene (e.g., a topiary garden), sometimes adding details that amplify the plot (a succession of clocks showing the passage of time), making it once again a great book to not only inspire literacy, but also art and design.
