School Reading Canon | St James Catholic Primary School

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School Reading Canon

St James' Reading Canon Intent

Our core reading content at St James’ was collated based on research into what constitutes a ‘best’ modern day reading canon. The St James’ Reading Canon ensures children have opportunities to read harder text, ‘close’ read texts, unlocking the challenge of the text and use high quality reading experiences as a gateway into quality writing.

Our St James’ Canon was built with reference to Lemov’s Five Reading Plagues. We have ensured that it includes archaic texts so that children learn to navigate different syntactical structures. It includes books with non-linear time sequences as complex treatment of time can be a hidden challenge to readers. It includes books like ‘Wonder’ which uses 6 narrators to tell the story. Such texts act as a kick start for understanding books whose narration is complex and potentially confusing. The St James’ Cannon exposes children to texts with diverse and complex plot structures and resistant texts/poetry that frequently do not ascribe to the 'expectation of logic'.

The St James’ Canon forms the foundation of the children’s knowledge of how literature works and how it interacts with society. Each book they read is not only ‘a good read’. The book’s attributes contribute to the totality of texts that make up the Canon and a broader education. The St James Cannon forms only a part of the reading curriculum at St James’ but its power lies in the fact that all children and teachers share a daily quality read.

	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Rec	*Ruby’s Worry* *Oh No, George!*	*Blue Penguin* *Gruffalo*	*Augustus and his smile* *What the ladybird heard*	*Jack and the beanstalk* *Gigantic Turnip*	*Cinderella* *Stanley’s Stick*	*Bog Baby* *Yucky Worms*
Y1	*The Emperor’s Egg* *The Lonely Beast*	*Out and About* *Pattan’s Pumpkin*	*The Snail and the Whale* *Something Fishy*	*The puffin book of fantastic first poems* *The Story Tree*	*10 things I can do to save my world* *The secret of rain*	*One day on our blue planet*
Y2	*Claude in the City* *The Owl and the Pussycat*	*Moth* *Traction Man is Here*	*The Storm Whale*	*Rapunzel*	*Poems to Perform* *The Last Wolf*	*Anna Hibiscus*
Y3	*The BFG*	*Where the Forest Meets the Sea* *The Vanishing Rainforest*	*Tales Told in Tents* *The Sun is Laughing*	*Charlotte’s Web* *The Pebble In My Pocket*	*Iron Man*	*Tom’s Sausage Lion* *Revolting Rhymes*
Y4	*I was a Rat*	*One Plastic Bag*	*Lob*	*Lob* *continued*	*Fly Eagle Fly* *Leon and the Place Between* *The Frog Prince Continued*	*Tales of Wisdom and Wonder* *The Green Ship*
Y5	*Wonder*	*The Wizard of Oz*	*Tuesday* *Dark Sky Poetry*	*Floodland*	*Tom’s Midnight Garden.*	*Cosmic* *Cosmic Disco*
Y6	*The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas*	*Skellig*	*Macbeth* *Just So Stories*	*Holes* *Jabberwocky/The Tyger*	*Shackleton’s Journey*	*Who Let the Gods Out*