Posted on 19 March, 2019 in Reading Around Bakewell

Reading Around Bakewell

Bakewell School has launched a new initiative, 'Reading Around Bakewell' that focusses on building strong positive relationships with our school community and improving student literacy.

What is 'Reading Around Bakewell'?

'Reading Around Bakewell' is a new Bakewell Community initiative to engage students, parents/carers and families in reading at home to improve students’ skills in reading and writing.

The aim of the initiative is to: Develop students’ love of reading and develop a community of readers.
Encourage families to engage in reading every day/night.
Developing a community of readers.
Generate discussions between parents and students.
Encourage parents and students involved to share their reading experience and what material they are reading.
Strengthen and continue to develop the Bakewell Home Reading program.

Why Focus on Reading

Reading and writing are intrinsically tied, students who are competent readers are better writers. Helping our students to develop their reading will assist them with their writing, which is a strategic priority for Bakewell and the NT Department of Education.
Reading develops vocabulary.
Reading supports spelling and understanding of grammar.
Reading improves concentration and increases a student’s attention span.
Reading improves comprehension and students who are good readers tend to achieve better across all areas of the curriculum.
A key finding in the recently published literature review ‘The impact of reading for pleasure and empowerment’ is that reading for enjoyment not only boosts educational outcomes for children but also enhances their emotional understanding. The study found that reading for pleasure increases empathy, enriches social relationships, reduces symptoms of depression and instils an overall sense of wellbeing.

Launching ‘Reading Around Bakewell’

Reading around Bakewell was launched on Wednesday 13 February with our students and we are encouraging parents and carers to participate by taking pictures reading to your children and of your children reading independently and to post these to Facebook with the hashtag #readingaroundbakewell or to email them to community.bakewell@ntschools.net. The Bakewell Facebook page will then share these photos to further spread and amplify the message of Bakewell’s love of reading.

On Wednesday afternoons our leadership team will take it in turns to read a book with the whole community to show students that all educators engage in reading and share their love of reading.

Tucked in Tuesday

On Tuesday evenings at 7pm a member of our leadership team will be reading a bedtime story live on Facebook. ‘Tucked In Tuesday’ allows students to enjoy a bedtime story together, research shows that continuing to read aloud to children increases empathy, enriches social relationships and instils an overall sense of wellbeing. Make sure you have post notifications turned on for theBakewell Primary School Facebook page to receive an alert.