What is an educational Reading Spine?
A reading spine includes essential books that pupils are expected to read in school. These texts often include a mix of high quality fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and classics.
What are the pros of using a Reading Spine?
Using a reading spine can be beneficial for a few reasons:
The books are arranged to match the developmental stages of students, starting with picture books in early years and becoming more complex as they progress through school.
Many reading spines aim to represent diverse authors, characters, and experiences to ensure that children can see themselves in the books that they read. Or to develop empathy for the experiences of others.
The texts are sometimes cross-curricular to reinforce subject knowledge whilst improving literacy skills.
If high quality and engaging books are chosen they can help children to foster a love of reading.
It can support teachers who have a structured framework to follow.
What are the cons of using a Reading Spine?
It can also come with some drawbacks:
1. It can take some time to develop a reading spine and needs to be managed so pupils do not read the same book.
It's important to keep it flexible, depending on new books and individual class interests.
It might also be that the books don't cater to the particular interests of your class.
Pageticker and Reading-for-Pleasure
Pageticker is an online reading record, designed to support teachers and pupils with choosing books to read-for-pleasure. Find out more about Pageticker today!
