Setting Up a Classroom Reading Corner

In a world of gadgets, it can be a struggle to get children engaged in something so ordinary-looking as a book. Reading is fun but building the reading habit from an early age can be an uphill battle. One way to make reading more attractive is to develop a culture in school that celebrates the humble reading corner — or as I call it my classroom, the Reading Lounge. Call it what you like, but gentle hype like this and a strong school-wide focus on reading corners can make all the difference to the culture of reading.

In this blog, we’ll explore how you and your school can put reading corners at the heart of the classroom. From experience, this can have a positive impact on how children feel about reading and help take away that hard edge reading has for some.

Planning a reading corner

When planning a space for a reading corner, it can be tricky to know how much you need to be on hand for pupils who are going to be given some freedom to explore books and reading materials. This space needs to be not too near and yet, not too far away.

A reading space needs to be quiet, comfortable, well-lit and have some very beautiful (and probably expensive) books in it. It’s an investment and before you can set one up, you need some cash to splash. When my school set about revamping every single class library there was a budget for furnishings and books. But what was chosen had to suit the class — and every class is different. You know your class, you know how much they can rise to high expectations, but equally, you can use the opportunity of a new reading space as a means to teach about respect for books.

The best way to get pupils to respect a space is to put them at the heart of its creation. Ask them what kinds of books they would like. Not just books, either, what else would they like to read? Are you able to provide e-books, or are you going to steer clear of tech? What would they like to sit on? Can you find and repurpose things?

My class wanted the reading corner to have a fireplace, so we made one from boxes, painted it and added some battery candles. This went viral round the school and set off healthy competition for the most fabulous reading corner. Eventually, the whole space became a wallpapered zone with cushions, a candelabra and reading lamp! We found most of the things in cupboards or they were donated to us.

If you are the reading lead, you might want to make the development of a classroom reading space one of your priorities, which is what my school did after seeing how tired and unused our class libraries were. We set it as a requirement in classrooms that children had access to quality books in a comfortable space.

The effect on reading was not just positive in terms of enthusiasm, but it helped us improve our outcomes, too. We became what we called a ‘reading school’. Every part of our English learning had a text, a whole book, an author or author visit as a stimulus. We often took this across curriculum areas and found that linking History or Geography to English and a core text resulted in great reading and writing.

Getting pupils involved

Once established, the hard graft is keeping the book corner alive (and tidy!). It needs to become an intrinsic part of the classroom, used and looked after every single day.

In my class, the pupils took charge, being fastidious library monitors. They passed ideas to the School Council and this helped release some funding. Pupils also surveyed the classes to find out favourite authors and secured a subscription to a child-friendly newspaper. We did community shout-outs for unwanted chairs, cushions, rugs and ended up getting all sorts of great stuff: a candelabra, some wallpaper and a great pile of cushions! Even if the stuff came to us damaged, pupils loved fixing things. If they own it, they look after it better.

To help whet appetites, assemblies focused on new books that were arriving in classrooms and teachers made a fuss of books, as well as reminding pupils that these were borrowed, expensive and deserved respect. Many books can be procured from local authorities who run library services. Themed book boxes are ideal too and can be targeted to match the curriculum.

What to do in a reading corner

A reading corner is not just for reading (or snoozing!). Here are a few ways you could use your book corner regularly:

• One group a day has their reading lesson in there, whether guided reading or independent activities.
• When you have quiet reading, allow a group to use the space on a fair rota basis.
• At the end of the day, two pupils could be in charge of setting everything back to how it was. Take a picture of your perfect book corner and laminate it — this is what it always needs to look like.
• Have special days when pupils can do a presentation of a favourite book or author to a small group in the book corner.
• Have a book of the week on show. This could be a fantastic big book with amazing pictures and interactive elements. Ideally, it would be linked to one of the topics you are working on.

Reading and beyond

There’s more to a reading corner’s potential than a cosy read beside a fake fire by battery candlelight. This is the chance to engage more deeply with a book. There are so many reading activities that you could provide, and you will find all of these on the CGP+ website, of course! Children can delve into character studies or displays of reading evidence (such as book reviews and recommendations). You could even have pupils make book review videos, if you can spare a tablet for this.

Pupils can also encourage each other to read. For example, they can put sticky note questions into pages for new readers to discover. They could design a bookmark based on the text and that could stay with that book, giving the new reader a bookmark blurb. They might also create a vocabulary-helper for a book with tricky words.

Ideally, there will be a display where pupils can put up their reading exercises to show you how much they are enjoying learning about something they have read. You could have a reading journal where each group writes at least one thing they did in the book corner when they visited. It would be like a visitors’ book, with a posh pen obviously, and it may well comment on the lovely accommodation, but it should also include some wise reading advice or commentary.
 

Happy reading

By creating a cosy book corner, you can help to rejuvenate reading, disguising commonplace reading comprehension activities with an extra level of excitement. And at the end of the day, you can go and have a sit down and a read next to a rusty candelabra which might actually be worth a few thousand when you take it to the Antiques Roadshow. Well, that sort of thing comes true in books at least.
 

I have been a teacher for 28 years, deputy head for about twenty-four of those, and taught from Reception all the way up to Year 6. In this time, I did a two-year stint with my local authority as an adviser for ICT, working in a wide range of schools with teachers and children. I have always been a class teacher at heart, inspired by the wonderful minds of pupils, which makes teaching such an intense but creative and satisfying career.

Take a look at CGP+ resources by Simon.