· Probably the most important things is that you read whole books/stories.
This is not really a problem at the picture book stage, when you will certainly read a book at a time, quite possibly more than one. It does however apply to longer (‘chapter’) books and full novels. Not all at once of course, but serialised over days/weeks, as needed.
There may be times when you want to read the beginnings of books, or extracts, to give children a ‘taster’ and encourage them to read the rest independently, but this should be only occasionally.
Story Time really needs to model the reading of whole books. It is only then that the full experience is had, and that the climax and resolution of the story are reached. And positive experience of different books is what this is about. Extracts are rarely very satisfying and don’t really cut the mustard for Story Time.
· One you have a general idea how long it takes you to read a certain number of pages, following The Golden Rule will help you work out roughly how long a book is going to take and which will be good places to break off. A cliff hanger is always best of course. Leave them wanting more whenever you can.
· This leads to the question of how long to read for in each session. Of course, this will depend on the age and concentration span of your class. Inevitably though, in the light of my previous point, it will help a great deal if you can allow yourself a bit of flexibility. Sometimes you may need a little longer than others to get to a good place to stop. However, as a rule of thumb, whatever the age of your class, anything less than 15-20 minutes a day would be cursory and unlikely to achieve all that Story Time potentially can. Anything much more than 30 minutes is likely to be too much for most primary children.
· The next issue is when. Many teachers choose the end of the day, and this can be made to work. However it can seem to downgrade Story Time to a sort of ‘filler’ and also makes it hard to go on a bit longer if you haven’t quite got to the best or most convenient point in the story to stop. My own preferred time was immediately after lunch, when Story Time provided a calm buffer before the afternoon activity. But there is no right time. Whenever suits you best. However, whatever you decide, my next most important tip would be to fix read-aloud sessions for a regular time every day - and try hard to stick to it. If you leave Story Time to fit in wherever you can, there is every likelihood you will end up with far too many days when you don’t fit it in at all.
· Finally, leaving a story hanging unfinished over a holiday is rarely satisfactory. Try to plan to get at least a full story in each half term. You may, of course, manage more, depending upon book length. If you have a bit of time left towards the end of a half term it is probably best to fill in with short stories or some other much shorter book, rather than to start something you won’t finish.
Time spent reading stories aloud to children will pay enormous dividends in terms of supporting them to grow as readers, as well as developing many other aspects of learning. Never hesitate to give it a priority slot almost every day.
