A structured approach to using books within the reading curriculum
By Sue Ellis and Myra Barrs, Illustrations by Quentin Blake
A booklist to accompany The Core Book
By Ann Lazim with contributions from Elaine Moss and Deborah Nicholson
Edited by Sue Ellis
The
new Core Book List is OUT!
 
Angela Redfern, School Librarian
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The Core Book
This publication is a major resource for primary teachers who are planning the practices and selecting the books which lie at the heart of their classroom reading programme. It includes two main elements:
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The principles behind the use of core books as an important part of a reading programme; book selection criteria; the organisation of books in the classroom and in the school; issues of implementation. |
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Key reading activities around core books: Planning reading schemes of work; assessing children's reading process in relation to core books. |
Illustrated throughout with photographs and Quentin Blake's quirky, lively illustrations, The Core Book is a delight to look at as well as an invaluable tool for schools and teachers implementing the National Literacy Strategy.
What reviewers have said about The Core Book and the Core Book List
ISBN 1-872267
Paperback £11.00 / £9.00 (lower price for CLPE Schools Network)
Order
NEW The Core Book List
2008
The Core Book List is a
comprehensive booklist for the Primary
School which has been developed with classroom teachers. Three main collections of books are detailed in the booklist: Learning to Read, a Literature Collection and an Information Book Collection.
The booklist is fully annotated throughout and is updated every two years.
Illustrated throughout with photographs and Quentin Blake's quirky, lively illustrations, The Core Book is a delight to look at as well as an invaluable tool for schools and teachers implementing the National Literacy Strategy.
What reviewers have said about The Core Book and the Core Book List
ISBN 1-872267 10 6
Paperback £14.50/ £12.50 (lower price for CLPE Schools Network)
Order
Reviews for The Core Book and The Core Book List
“The Centre for Language in Primary Education has produced this exciting and invaluable new teacher resource to create a structured framework for the development of literacy in the primary classroom. The two texts combined provide an annually updated list of children's books for primary classroom collections and the rationale for their use.
The Core Book offers a bank of trialled activities as models for the development of schemes of work which will address the links between the development of reading and writing skills and the development of key reading strategies. In addition the book rehearses, in digestible form, knowledge about the reading process and the teaching of reading that will be useful to primary and secondary teachers alike. It illustrates the use of both fiction and non-fiction core books to teach about the higher level understandings, for example of story structure, and the lower level knowledge of letters, sounds etc.
The selection of books within The Core Book List is based on their successful use in classrooms and is subdivided into age specific sections with books organised into two categories: the learning to read core collection and the literature core collection. The learning to read collection offers a set of texts for the less experienced reader to practise using important cues of reading: meaning, picture syntactic and grapho-phonics. None of the books are “simplified” texts but are chosen for their use of features such as strong narrative structure, language which can be anticipated, pictures which are part of the story, repetition, recurring events or refrains, rhyme, pattern and tune which support the development of fluency and comprehension.
Rating ***
Basic Skills, June/July 1997
“Remember all those essential features we thought were solidly in place by the end of the 70s, that were subsequently marginalised by the relentless march towards disproven methods of drilling decoding skills? Halleluja! Here's a “structured approach to using books within the reading curriculum” that puts literature back where it belongs at the heart of teaching children to read. The Core Book List, as the title suggests, provides a list of books…for use throughout the primary age range, though the authors are at pains to point out that this is by no means a definitive list. Three categories are highlighted: the learning-to-read core collection, the literature core collection and information books.
The Core Book presents a sound rationale for learning to reading, based “from the outset” on “the meaning and purpose of the whole activity.” The books covers a lot of ground, offering detailed practical guidance for using the collections effectively in the classroom…The role of teachers reading aloud is stressed both at KS1 and KS2, as are the interdependence of reading writing, the link between reading and music (choral chanting , the rhymes and rhythms of language), the crucial activities of retelling and re-enacting stories, using puppets listening to and taping stories, supported reading with adults, paired reading, shared reading group reading and bookshares.
Five exemplars of schemes for blocked units of work through the age range takes us on to details, with a different focus each time (a text, an author, a topic theme) and each spells out the learning potential, the resources needed, specific classroom activities and outcomes with accompanying samples of children's work. Assessing progress in reading is dealt with in depth; all the signs of reading progress are touched on; keeping records of formative and summative assessments is discussed fully, including class reading surveys, reading scales, reading samples from conferences and reading diaries…
All in all, heartening and stirring stuff that should spur the profession on to teach what it knows is right for children.”
Angela Redfern, School Librarian, Volume 45 No 3, August 1997
“This book outlines the way in which certain powerful texts help children from an early age to use key reading skills. It provides a rationale for selecting and organising a core collection of books for children aged 3-11. It suggests ways of planning activities around these books and demonstrates the key role of children's literature.
Reading schemes familiarise children with the way print works. However, children need to develop as readers. From the outset, children need to encounter meaningful, memorable and rewarding texts which encourage them to join in the reading, which support their efforts and which can be re-visited…
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EAL pupils would benefit particularly from the use of core collections in the development of their reading.
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EAL pupils need supportive texts (particularly narrative) and supportive pictures for both learning how to read and also for the learning of English |
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EAL pupils often extend their knowledge of the lines and patterns of an additional language through meeting it in written form, prior to speaking it |
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EAL pupils need plenty of opportunities for revisiting stories and texts so that the language can be relished and anticipated |
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EAL pupils need good language models. |
The Core Book List is a list of good quality books with strong language and pictures….Equal opportunity considerations have been made…All these help EAL pupils in reading development. As the core books contain language closer to natural language (thus containing more cueing systems), EAL pupils can also benefit orally.”
Jan Stirling, NALDIC News, March 1998
“Most of us have met the terms “real books”, “non-scheme books”, “books by significant authors and illustrators”, and even “children's classics”. Well, get used to another euphemism for the same thing: “core books”. It's a measure of the misunderstandings that surround the use of good quality fictions in schools' reading programmes that the authors of the two books under review have had to coin a new phrase; but they are probably wise to do so…
According to the criteria set out in The Core Book, the list includes: books that support the acquisition of reading; books that children want to re-read; and books that have stood the test of time and exemplify some of the best qualities to be found in children's literature. Each is described in The Core Book List with full bibliographical details.”
Richard Brown, The Primary English Magazine, Sept/Oct 1997
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