| Teaching reading at Key Stage 2
Helping student teachers become familiar with a range of children’s literature
Teaching Literature at KS1 & KS2 provides an excellent theoretical background to this area.
| A rich experience of whole texts - stories, poems, plays and multi-media texts - has a central function in educational development in general and the development of literacy in particular. |
Texts and teaching and learning strategies that will help student teachers develop their knowledge and understanding of children’s literature:
Student teachers can write their reading histories, either as pre-course preparation or at the beginning of the module (Gamble, 2007). Sharing ideas about texts and adults who have influenced their reading histories, helps them to see how vital their own role can be in developing children as readers.
Share research findings which show that effective teachers of literacy have good subject knowledge including knowledge of children’s authors (Medwell et al, 1998).
Provide pre-course reading of selected titles and advice about how to keep a bibliography.
Provide accessible criteria for choosing children’s books and explore these in session. Three publications from London’s Centre for Literacy in Primary Education can be very useful here: Simply the Best Books for Children: Books for 7 to 11 years (CLPE, 2002); The Core Book (Barrs and Ellis, 1996) and The Core Book List (Ellis, 2007).
Model how to give an author presentation and provide guidance notes for groups of student teachers to do the same.
Plan for both yourself and student teachers to read a book by a prescribed author for each session, with time given for group discussion.
Ensure students discover for themselves the limitations of Reading schemes at KS2.
Ensure students understand the different challenges presented by Non fiction texts (Littlefair 1991) and English and ICT - Using the Web
 
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