Summer reading at Ahipara School

Introducing Ahipara School

Ahipara School is a small rural Year 1–8 school in the coastal settlement of Ahipara. It is 14 km west of Kaitaia in the Far North, at the southern end of Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe | Ninety Mile Beach.

Importance of summer reading

We have been aware of the importance of children continuing to read in the holidays for a long time. Teachers have developed various initiatives over the last few years, such as a ‘take-home pack’ with resources and readers, etc. We have also created a pamphlet about holiday reading for whānau, which is at our office front desk and available all year round.

This time, we took a whole-school approach to try to get as many children reading over the summer as we could and to let parents know why it made a difference. We really focused on making reading fun and keeping it easy, emphasising that reading is for everyone.

Staff professional development and discussion

In Term 3, all our staff attended the National Library’s ‘Sail into summer reading’ workshop in Kaitaia as a staff meeting. Together, we developed a plan for our school.

For the end of Term 3 holidays, I created a collection of books from our library for each teacher. This was so they would be aware of the literature in our library and then be able to recommend books to their students and other teachers and students.

Teachers also signed up for the National Library’s summer reading books.

Classroom practice

I adapted some resources from our National Library facilitator and the National Library’s summer reading guide and gave them to all the teachers. These gave them ideas for engaging students with summer reading. We also went over them at a staff meeting and talked about what different teachers were doing to prepare students for the holidays, including making sure they all have access to books and a list of books they are keen to read.

National Library’s summer reading guide

Children made a list of their 10 favourite books. They shared this with their buddies and then created a ‘top 10’ list of class favourites that were displayed in the library. The teachers would read snippets from a range of books to their classes to expose children to new books that might interest them.

Informing the parents and liaising with the public library

We put notices in our school newsletters to let whānau know the importance of summer reading and how they could help and encourage their child to read.

We reminded them that the public library is free for children to join. In December, we took 4 junior classes to the public library and many whānau came along and joined up on this day. For some of them, it was the first time they’d been in Te Ahu Library.

Getting the children on board

• We put up a display in the library for children to promote summer reading. We gave ideas of what to read, including books, magazines, emails, comics, etc.

• We saved up the Duffy books from the term and gave them out to students just before the end of the school year so they had some new books to read over the summer.

• Children had a simple reading log to record some reading time each day.

• Children who read 20 nights or more in the holidays got a reward of a free swim while others were in class. They also got a juicy to eat and a balloon.

• We had a summer reading photo competition: ‘Take a photo of someone reading in an interesting place’. This helps the children to realise that they can read anywhere! This was successful, with many entertaining entries, and it is something we will continue with.

• We also opened our school library during the holidays so children could come in and change their books. The school library is close to the swimming pool so visitors to the pool would often also come into the library.

• We now do similar things over each of the school holidays to encourage children to maintain their reading mileage.

Results and photos

Over the years, we have had a steady increase in children reading during the holidays.

Before we started a whole-school approach, approximately 10 children read during the holidays and recorded it.

After the first summer holidays with our whole-school approach, 26 children read over 20 days during the holidays.

We continued to promote holiday reading even during the shorter breaks. After the holidays, when they returned for Term 2, we had 51 children who read for at least 10 days in the holidays. This was a huge improvement and hopefully, as children and whānau become more aware of the importance of holiday reading, this trend will continue.

Our display board and competition photos

Report author

Petrina Yuretich — deputy principal and teacher with library responsibility.