Curious Minds

Whiston Willis Asks The Question

Raising Readers

Whiston Willis Community Primary School, Knowsley, Merseyside asked the question:

How can we encourage parents to become more confident and actively involved in their children’s reading?

Whiston Willis decided that if they were going to raise readers they needed to catch the children’s interest in reading at a very early age at home as well as in school. They understood that the help and support of parents was needed to encourage reading at home. As some of the parents lacked confidence in their own skills, the project focused on developing both pupils’ and parents’ confidence and enjoyment of reading. 

Creative Practitioner Sarah Pickering  worked with a small group of parents and their children in the mornings as well as the whole class (Y1) in the afternoons.  She helped the  parents to understand what was going on in the classroom, so they could support their children at home. She looked at how to approach reading with children in a more creative way, through playing and making reading games. Sarah involved parents and pupils in creating a book of personal stories. Chris Ball, a drama practitioner, then worked with the pupils to bring stories to life, igniting their imaginations about the potential of stories. The project encouraged parents to come into school to work with the practitioners as well as their children over a four month period.

One of the results of the project is that parents are now showing value in their children’s reading, regularly writing notes in the reading record. This was not happening much prior to the project, so this alone has helped children to see that their parents value the importance of reading at home. All of the children who took part in the project with their parents have gone up by at least one sub-level in reading during the half term of the project. One child has improved in reading and writing by 2 sub-levels during the 8 week project. Considering that good progress over a whole school year would be to improve by 2 sub-levels this shows the amazing progress of these children within a short timescale .The majority of the rest of the children, who were involved in the story making without parental involvement, have improved their story writing ability. Their work is clear evidence that many children are able to approach story writing in a much more creative and imaginative way now. This has led to an increase in sub-levels for writing for many of the class. 

Sarah Pickering ensured that the parents felt that they could talk freely to her and share their concerns or issues. Whiston Willis Community Primary School found out what misconceptions parents had surrounding reading and what they will need to do more of as a school to form links with parents in terms of reading at home.