Year 6 Reading Page
In Year 6 we love to Read!
As we prepare for transition to secondary school and the next stage of our learning journey, we value the importance of reading. We know that reading is a life skill which we will need, to enable us to succeed at every stage of our lives in the future.
In Year 6 we read for many reasons and in many different ways. All our English objectives are covered by reading a good quality text. Below, you will find the texts we have looked at so far this year. We know that reading develops our own vocabulary, improves our understanding of grammar and enables us to write at a much higher level, using a wide variety of sentence structures. We cannot write good sentences if we have not read them first. Therefore, our reading wall has always got good examples of vocabulary and sentences from our current book.
Sometimes, we read a text individually or in small groups. We discuss the book and complete activities independently, or with support, in our reading journals. We also enjoy listening to an adult reading to us. This can be Mrs Williams, Mrs Chatterton or sometimes Mrs Annis reads to us as a cool down after P.E.
Mr Lister often links his music lessons to the book we are reading and when Mrs Breakwell is planning our artwork, she looks at our class text first and then she links it to our art objectives. As you can see, reading is very much a cross curricula activity in our classroom. We read in every lesson.e read every day in school and every night at home. We really enjoy listening to our teacher when she reads to us!
One of our favourite times of the day is when Mrs Williams asks us to get our own reading book and we enjoy quiet time, escaping into a world of our imagination. We each have a vocabulary book and if we come across a new word, we have time to look it up and add it to our own vocabulary list or to the class list on the working wall.
Mrs Williams loves to read
From the time I learned to read, I cannot remember a day when I did not have a book in my hand. As a child growing up, I was a daily visitor to our local library. I have always loved a wide variety of books. Enid Blyton was one of my favourite authors and I spent many hours imagining myself attending Malory Towers or St Clare’s boarding schools and enjoying a midnight feast, climbing the Faraway Tree or going on an adventure with the Famous Five. I also enjoyed the Chalet School series by Elinor Brent-Dyer. One of my favourite books was Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell and the Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett were books I read over and over again
As I got older I became an avid Dickens fans. My all-time favourite was A Christmas Carol but I would find it difficult to choose as I enjoyed all his books.
As my class know very well, I am a big fan of J.K Rowling, to such an extent that I have read all the Harry Potter series at least five times. I love using her books to teach my writing and grammar objectives because of how enthusiastic the pupils get. I enjoy the lessons as much as they do.
If I had to choose my favourite book of all time, though, it would have to be The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. I get something different from this simple story every time I read it.
Reading is important to Mrs Clay.
I loved reading books as a child. My earliest memory is of reading books at bedtime and waking up in the morning having spent the night lying on books – I had gone to sleep reading…again.
As a child, I enjoyed reading books by Lorna Hill and Roald Dahl (Danny, the Champion of the World, George’s Marvellous Medicine), but my favourite author was Judith M Berrisford. I was enthralled by the adventures of her heroine, Jackie, and would totally immerse myself in the world created on the pages of that series of books. It was wonderful.
It is very hard to choose, but I would probably say that my favourite book was ‘Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame. I find the awe, nostalgia and camaraderie captivating and the beautiful use of language to describe the countryside and its inhabitants makes me want to read lines over again:
“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.”
“The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”
Street Child by Berlie Doherty
We linked this book to our Victorian topic. It is a fictional account of the experiences of Jim Jarvis, a young orphan, who escapes the workhouse in 1860’s London and survives brutal treatment and desperate circumstances until he is taken in by Dr. Barnardo, founder of a school for the city’s “ragged” children. It is based on the true story of an orphan who inspired Dr Barnardo to start his charity.
The Minpins and The Explorers
We read both these books together. In our English lessons, we covered our writing and grammar activities using The Minpins. Alongside this, we read The Explorer as our class text and used it to cover our reading objectives.
When Little Billy sneaks into the Forest of Sin he meets thousands of tiny surprises: The Minpins. His new friends live in miniature houses inside hollow trees. But everyone is terrified of a Fearsome Beast – and if Billy wants to go home he must defeat it once and for all!
The Explorers is an exciting new novel about a group of kids 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.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling’s debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school, and with the help of his friends, Harry faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry’s parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
The Stone Lion
Compassion is mightier than Stone
Sometimes statues are granted a chance to become warm, breathing creatures. The stone lion has only one dream: to run, pounce and leap in the park across from where he sits. But one snowy night, when a baby is abandoned at his paws, he is compelled to think differently.
