Introducing Our New Reading Rewards Scheme

At Dorchester Primary School, we believe that one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is a love of reading.

Reading opens the door to new worlds, develops imagination, builds vocabulary and supports learning across every subject. Most importantly, reading together creates precious moments for families to enjoy.

With this in mind, we are delighted to be relaunching our Reading Rewards Scheme from September.

Following feedback from families and staff, we have made some exciting changes. Rather than expecting children to read aloud every day and feeling disappointed if they miss a day, we want to encourage a consistent and enjoyable reading habit that is realistic for busy family life.

How can you help?

We would love families to share books every day where possible. This could include:

• Listening to your child read aloud.
• Reading to your child.
• Taking turns reading a story together.
• Talking about a book you've enjoyed together.
• Visiting the local library or choosing a new book to read.

Please don't stop reading to your child just because they can read independently. Research consistently shows that children continue to benefit from being read to throughout primary school. Listening to rich vocabulary, exciting stories and more challenging books helps develop language, comprehension and imagination, while also nurturing a lifelong love of reading.

For our Reading Rewards Scheme, children will need to read aloud to an adult and have this recorded in their reading diary at least four times each week. This means that even if life gets busy, children can still work towards their reading goals while developing a regular reading routine.

Throughout the year, children will collect weekly Reading Stamps and work towards our Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum Reading Awards.

Children who achieve our Platinum Award will be invited to a special Reading Celebration on Monday 19th July 2027, where they'll enjoy fun activities with their friends and every time your child reaches one of the milestones – they will have the chance to win exciting prizes in our celebration raffle.

We hope this new approach keeps children motivated throughout the year and makes reading something they genuinely look forward to, rather than something that feels like a chore.

Thank you, as always, for your support. The time you spend sharing books with your child—whether you're reading to them, listening to them read or simply talking about stories—really does make an enormous difference. Together, we can help every child become a confident reader and, more importantly, develop a lifelong love of books.

Let's make 2026–27 our biggest and best reading year yet!

Happy reading!

Gemma Hall

Deputy Headteacher