Each of the books in our collection have been selected for its potential for supporting the teaching of particular National Curriculum objectives, and the downloadable unit plan provides planning for a unit teaching those objectives through the book. 

These plans will support you with developing a curriculum based on high quality texts, or incorporating high quality texts within your school’s existing curriculum.

However, we recognise that there are many different ways in which books can be used to enhance learning in the foundation subjects, and that every school’s context is unique. 

In this guide, we will suggest some alternative strategies for using our suggested books. Where appropriate, we have included specific suggestions within the downloadable unit plan, so do take a look at these to see whether any of them could work for you.

Strategies for class teachers:

• Pre-reading

To prime the children for new learning, select one or two fairly simple and short books to read as a class before you teach the topic. These could be read to the whole class during story time, or could be used for one or two reading lessons so you have the opportunity to explore the text in depth. 

For example, a good way of preparing children for a new history topic would be to read a couple of books about a linked country beforehand, or for science topics, reading a book that recaps prior knowledge from a previous year group.

Example: Ancient Egypt

Prior to teaching the history unit on Ancient Egypt, read The Hundredth Name to build children’s knowledge of Egypt, and selected pages from Amazing Rivers, including the section on the Nile. Talking and thinking about these books will ensure that all children have a basic level of knowledge on which to base their learning when you start the topic. 

• Reading to revisit knowledge

Fairly soon after the topic, plan a sequence of reading lessons based around a text which covers the main learning you covered within that topic. This is a great way to both revisit learning to secure it in long term memory, and give all children the opportunity to access a more challenging text, since they already have good knowledge of the subject.

Example: After teaching the Year 3 science unit on plant lifecycles, use the book Little, Brown Nut for a reading unit (ideally the following term). This explores the lifecycle of the Brazil nut tree in the Amazon rainforest, allowing children to apply their knowledge of lifecycles of flowering plants in an unfamiliar context. Even better if you can also use this as pre-reading in the lead up to learning about rainforests in geography!

• Reading to deepen knowledge

This can be done in one of two ways – either reading a fairly short book as a whole class in story time, or using a more challenging book as a focus for a sequence of reading lessons.

Example 1: Whole class book

After teaching the Year 2 science units on Living things and their habitats and Animals, including humans, read the book Small, Speckled Egg. This story of the lifecycle of the arctic tern is a challenging read for Year 2, and draws together many of the objectives relating to animal habitats, lifecycles and food chains, as well as building on knowledge of polar regions from geography. Read the book with the whole class, drawing out their prior knowledge which will help them understand the text.

Example 2: Reading lessons

Include a series of reading lessons on The Incredible Ecosystems of Planet Earth in Year 6. This book will secure knowledge of climate zones and biomes in geography, habitats and adaptation in science. It also builds on this knowledge to explore more challenging concepts such as biodiversity and climate change. 

Strategies for subject/curriculum leads: 

• Regular short input

Some objectives are better suited to being taught little and often than spending one or two lessons learning about them in more depth.

For example, developing children’s locational knowledge in geography is an ongoing process throughout the whole of each key stage. Allocating books for each year group to read during story time or reading lessons can provide multiple exposures to the same ideas, but in different countries. For example, one class could read a different page from This Is Our World every half term, carrying out some quick atlas/map activities relating to each country. 

In history, regular activities to develop children’s understanding of chronology help to fully embed this concept. There are many excellent books that include timelines to help children integrate the content of a new book with their prior learning. These could be history books like A Street Through Time, or relate to other subjects, such as learning about the lives of scientists through reading the Little People, Big Dreams biographies.

• Pre-reading

As a subject or curriculum lead, you could support teachers to deliver pre-reading activities with their classes by identifying suggested texts for them to use. You could also build pre-reading into prior year groups’ reading curriculum. For example, if Year 2 learn about The Great Fire of London in your school, you could select a few books about London for Year 1 to read. This would be particularly useful for topics taught in the autumn term as opportunities for pre-reading within the same academic year will be limited for those topics.

• Reading to revisit and deepen knowledge

As with pre-reading, selecting texts that recap the key knowledge from the topic or build on it in a different context would support teachers with planning these opportunities for their class. Again, this could be within the same academic year, or you could suggest texts to be used in subsequent year groups in order to build on certain topics. This would be particularly helpful for topics that have fewer cross-curricular links, to ensure they are remembered, or where knowledge is particularly important to remember in depth. For example, if children have learnt about rivers in Year 3 geography, and the water cycle in Year 4 science, reading The Rhythm of the Rain in Year 5 would be a good opportunity to revisit and link those concepts.