📚 Building a Culture of Reading at Penllergaer

Reading opens doors. It builds confidence, develops imagination and gives our children access to learning across every area of the curriculum. Most importantly, we want our children to discover that reading isn't simply something they have to learn to do, but something they can genuinely love.

At Penllergaer Primary School, developing confident, enthusiastic readers continues to be one of our key priorities. Reading and literacy also remain an important area of focus within school improvement and Estyn's work. However, for us, this isn't simply about standards or assessments. It is about giving every child the strongest possible foundation for their future.

💙 What are we already doing at PPS?

There is lots to celebrate! Across our school:

• 📖 Children are listened to reading regularly, with reading books also sent home to continue that important partnership between home and school.
• 📚 Teachers share stories and high-quality texts throughout the week, helping children experience the enjoyment of being read to.
• 🔎 Children take part in weekly Guided Reading sessions in both English and Welsh, where they are explicitly taught important reading skills such as retrieving information, scanning a text, predicting, making inferences, explaining their ideas and developing their understanding of vocabulary.
• 🛋️ Nearly all of our classrooms have a dedicated reading area, creating inviting spaces where children can choose books and read for pleasure.
• 📚 Our school library has recently received a wonderful revamp, thanks to the generosity of our fantastic PTA. We are incredibly grateful for their continued support.

🌟 But we want to do even more...

This year, we want to develop a real culture of reading across Penllergaer, where books are talked about, shared, recommended and enjoyed.

We have some exciting plans!

👫 Reading Buddies
Our older, more experienced readers will have opportunities to read with our younger pupils. This will not only support developing readers but will give our older pupils an important role as reading role models.

🐾 Meet Pimpkin, our Reading Dog!
We are very excited that Pimpkin will be starting with us next week! Reading alongside a friendly four-legged companion will provide another lovely opportunity for children to enjoy books in a relaxed and positive environment. We can't wait to welcome Pimpkin to the PPS family!

📚 Bringing our library to life
Our newly revamped library is there to be enjoyed! Classes will be encouraged to visit and use the library regularly, exploring new authors, discovering different genres and, hopefully, finding new favourite books along the way.

👨‍👩‍👧 Working with our families
Parents and carers have such an important part to play in developing children's reading, and this year we want to provide more opportunities to work together through parent workshops.

Our first opportunity is a Phonics Workshop at PPS, hosted by the Local Authority, on Monday 23rd November. We really hope that lots of you will be able to join us. It will be a great opportunity to understand more about how we teach children the early skills of reading and how you can support at home.

❤️ Let's get Penllergaer reading!

Our aim is simple: we want every child to see themselves as a reader.

Some children will devour a novel, others will love a comic, fact book, newspaper, poem or graphic novel. What matters is that we help every child find the book, author or type of reading that sparks their interest.

Schools can teach children how to read, but by working together, home and school can help children discover why reading is so wonderful.

This year, let's read more, talk about books more, share stories more and, most importantly, help our children develop a love of reading that can last a lifetime. 📚💙