Corinna School — a summer reading story

Introducing Corinna School

Corinna School is a full primary school in Porirua East near Wellington City, with a culturally diverse community. The library is highly valued and plays an important role in the life of the school.

Porirua City has a vibrant central public library and several branch libraries. But Corinna School is not well-sited for easy access to local public libraries. This is especially true for families who don't have a car.

Summer reading

In November, the teacher librarian (TL) at Corinna School attended the summer reading workshop run by the National Library.

Afterwards, the TL and principal invited students and their families to come along to school on the first Saturday morning of the summer school holidays to borrow books for the holidays. About 12 families took up the offer. They could borrow up to 20 books issued to a family borrower ID, which the library assistant created on Accessit. The children and their families enjoyed reading the books over the summer. They returned the books at the beginning of the new school year.

Sharing the story

In November of the following year, the principal of Corinna School was invited to talk about Corinna’s summer reading experience at the National Library summer reading workshop. The recently appointed teacher with library responsibilities (TLR) also attended this workshop.

Corinna School admitted before the workshop that, after a very busy year, they weren’t sure if they’d have the energy to continue to run a summer reading initiative. During the workshop, the school listened to others and received a positive response to their own story. So they decided to make the library available for another family-borrowing morning.

A targeted approach

This time, the TLR decided to identify students who she thought would particularly benefit from taking part in a summer reading programme. Using end-of-year reading data and her own knowledge, she identified students achieving below their potential in reading. She then extended a special invitation to those students and their families to attend the summer reading morning.

Summer reading the second year

Approximately 15 students and their families were invited to a Saturday morning book-sharing and family borrowing at the Corinna School library. The importance of children being read to and being able to read over the holidays was also explained to the families.

Student reading data Term 1

The TLR noted that all students who had taken part in the summer reading initiative had retained or made gains in their reading achievement over the summer holidays. She decided that this group of students would become her target group for that year. The aim would be to:

• build positive attitudes to reading

• provide books and other reading formats that appeal to the students

• increase ‘reading mileage’, and

• continue to build the students’ enjoyment, confidence and reading achievement.