Reading is one of the skills every child must possess to be successful in life. Like walking it is a skill that is learned with lots of practice. Spa N.S endeavours to foster a love of reading among its students and encourages an enthusiastic attitude towards reading from an early age. We have a number of reading programmes to help with this.
Paired Reading
Spa National School operates a Paired Reading programme from Junior Infants to 2nd Class. It encourages parents to spend time each night reading to and with their child. Parental involvement plays a significant part in the progress of this programme. The aim of Paired reading is practice and enjoyment. The time you spend creating an enjoyable experience in which children can practise skills and strategies they have learnt at school is important and appreciated.
Accelerated Reader Programme
Another newly adopted programme in Spa N.S. is the Accelerated Reading Programme from 3rd to 6th class. This programme encourages children to read independently for pleasure at their own reading level. Children can select a book from the most appropriate levels in our newly developed library. Once read, students can then take a short online quiz to guage their comprehension of the material. The A.R. programme is also developing the daily reading habit with ten minutes allocated to silent reading every morning and a further prescribed fifteen minutes for homework every evening. It is proving very successful with pupils showing a genuine excitement about books and evidence of accelerated reading achievement even amongst reluctant readers.
Spellings for Me
In Spa N.S. we wanted to challenge the outdated practice of students just learning spellings for the Friday test. Our aim was to empower students with spelling strategies and to challenge them to genuinely improve their overall spelling ability, at their own pace and level. That’s why we introduced Spellings for Me from 1st to 6th class. It is an inclusive and interactive personalised programme for each pupil to experience success and continually improve. With Spellings for Me the children have ownership of their own spellings and it enables them to master their learning words at their own pace. This individualised online programme ensures that each child is working at his/her own level.
World Book Day
Every year, staff and students look forward to celebrating World Book Day. Everyone is invited to dress up as their favourite book character and we have loads of fun doing so. The main aim of the day is also to encourage the children to explore different genres of books, share book reviews, make book recommendations and further develop a passion for reading. It is always a hugely popular day in the school calendar.
