Following on from the last post I wrote about BorrowBox, I am sticking with the topic of reading and literacy for this blog! Reading is a huge passion of mine, and through the work we have done with the Literacy team in our school we have encouraged many students to share this passion too. One of the ways we do this is through creating conversations about reading through our student book club Padlet.
Padlet has been a fantastic resource for us to create a student lead space where the students of our school can collect and share recommendations for books. Over the past year and a half we have collected recommendations from both junior and senior students on their favourite books, and it has proved to be a huge hit with our student body. Using a short prompt, students are encouraged to upload a short review of the book they are recommending, and give it a star rating. Recently we have divided up the Padlet into a junior page and a senior page, meaning students can recommend books they feel their immediate peers would enjoy.
This has been a hugely popular resource throughout its time. We share it regularly on our digital boards, it is saved on each year group team for ease of access, and it is also shared via QR code on our school library shelves. Our students feel a great sense of pride and ownership over the Padlet as a resource that they have populated over time and one that will continue to grow as more and more readers in our school community get involved.
Most recently, we have also created a Padlet page for our staff book club as well, again a great resource and space for the readers on our team to share recommendations and books that they have loved to read! As a staff we feel is it important to talk to our students about books we are reading in the hope that it might encourage them. As the saying goes, if they can’t see it, they can’t be it!