Reading Ambassador Scheme

READING AMBASSADOR SCHEME

We wanted to engage and excite all our readers and decided to use our Year 6 children to deliver our Reading Ambassador scheme. This was achieved by carefully pairing Year 6 children up with a younger reader, aiming for them to forge a relationship based on mutual trust. A contract was signed by the Ambassadors to ensure that the program would occur daily and the ambassadors understood the value of their role and the confidentiality aspect.
 

All of our Ambassadors take their roles very seriously and wear their Ambassador badges with pride. Reading skills, alongside speaking and listening skills, are strengthened daily through their lovely meetings in a book corner of their choice.

Year 6 children who wanted to become an ambassador were interviewed and then trained at lunchtimes in synthetic phonics and how to support a younger child and boost their confidence. Before the scheme begins the partners meet up for talking sessions; to get to know each other and find out about their interests and their thoughts on books and reading. The scheme is a huge success as the children selected books together and shared books together.

There is something special about this scheme being run by children, and as the Ambassadors became more involved in their partners reading, they really wanted them to succeed. They have a genuine desire for their partner to succeed and wanted to help them do so. It is evident that this scheme is a huge success as staff members were constantly praising the Ambassadors and noticing the improvements in reading in their classrooms.

Over the years and since 2919 we have noticed a MASSIVE improvement in the interest levels in reading. The younger children began to see themselves as readers and had made a friend in their year 6 partner too who they trusted and felt secure with. Every single child moves up at least one reading book band and the pride on their faces is priceless.