At the moment in Senior Infants it’s all about reading!! The boys are now at a stage where they realise reading is useful.  We now start to see the boys looking around the classroom and reading or trying to read everything in sight.... we hope you are witnessing the same thing at home.  It is very important, particularly at this stage to make sure the boys enjoy reading so that it becomes not only useful but a healthy habit/life skill they can enjoy throughout their lives.  There are a few things going on at the moment to help this....

This week sees the return of our annual book fair where the boys get ample opportunity to visit the hall and have a look at the books that are on offer, this proves useful for the teachers too as we get the opportunity to see what’s popular with the boys at home.  The boys will not buy books when they visit the book fair with their teacher... we leave that up to the parents and the book fair will be open before and after school this week and also on Thursday evening to accommodate.  The book fair gives the teachers the opportunity to stock up on books for the class library too; it’s always nice to see brand new covers and titles on the shelves.

As well as the book fair we plan on taking a trip to the Deansgrange library with the sixth class boys during the week coming up to the Easter break.  We will walk down then pair the boys up to read to eachother... we’re looking forward to this trip very much!

In the Senior Infant classrooms, the boys are being given a bit of extra D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read) time which gives the teachers the opportunity to hear the boys reading books other than the class reader.  We are also going to begin introducing simple book reviews which will help the boys focus on all aspects of the book they are reading.

We would be very grateful if you could continue encouraging your son to read as much as possible without being forceful... it’s so important to get the balance right so we don’t turn the boys off reading altogether.