100 Books - Using lists to engage primary readers

Last year, I became aware of the lists of 100 books for Y1/2, Y3/4 and Y5/6 created by Ashley Booth.  I kept an eye on how people were using them and, having visited a local school which uses them and talking to the teachers about it, I decided it was something worth exploring this year at my school.  This post will outline what we're doing with the lists and the books and how we're using them to engage pupils in reading high-quality books. 

The Lists

We downloaded Ashley's lists from this link and spent some time looking at the books on the lists.  We removed books which children would be reading in class time, changed some books in favour of others and reformatted the lists so children could track which dates they finished a novel in a booklet.  It's important that children can read books appropriate to them so we renamed the lists to A (KS1), B (Y3/4) and C (Y5/6).  

The lists are full of great texts: classic novels, books which came out when I was at school and which I devoured, and some debuts by brilliant authors currently publishing amazing books for children each year.  Lots of the books are the first in a series so pupils can get hooked on a certain character or setting and read sequel after sequel.  There are a few books which overlap between lists and some non-fiction or poetry books included. We are still working on the KS1 list so that will follow. 

It's important pupils know that this is not a challenge - 100 books in Y5/6 would be 1 book a week.  Very few pupils (and teachers) would manage this.  Instead, we have stressed that these lists have great recommendations for books to read.  Children spent some time early in the year on the BookTrust website looking at the blurbs for these books.  They chose 5 they would like to read to start with.  

Click the image to view and download the lists.

The Books

Our English leader and SBM then proceeded to buy copies of the 100 books in the KS2 lists.  I've mentioned before that we fund a lot of the books we buy for whole-class reading lessons by doing two annual book fairs and using the commission.  We started by purchasing as many books as we could from the commission - aiming for all 100 in each KS2 year group.  This is a work in progress and will take some time.  We have found that purchasing these books has really enhanced the quality of the texts on our bookshelves as well as creating more buzz about reading.  

Each book has a number in the list so we numbered each book and wrote its list (A, B or C) on the sticker.  The 100 books have been put in one area for the 3 classes in the year group to use and are accessible during the school day to all children (within reason).  We have noticed over the last few years that books often go missing from our bookshelves so have started a signing in and out book for these 100 books to ensure we don't lose them to bedroom bookcases. 

Google Classroom

To enhance pupils' engagement with the 100 books lists, I created a Google Classroom for them to join and discuss the books they are reading.  This means we have children from across years 5 and 6  as well as their teachers communicating about books and reading.  They post selfies with their latest book, comment on each other's books and leave reviews and recommendations (with no spoilers!).  This is very easy to do with Google Classroom and Google Accounts already set up for pupils; we simply publish the class code in the booklet and children sign themselves up to join.  All posts are monitored by teachers and it's really got pupils (and teachers) engaging further with these book lists. 

The Future

Our next steps are to get the 100 books List A ready for KS1 to use and, of course, to purchase those books.  I hope we can keep the momentum going throughout the year and encourage more children to find a book they love.

Useful Links - all free
Ashley Booth's 100 Book lists can be downloaded here.
Our edited 100 Book Lists can be downloaded here.
Ben King's front covers and first pages of selected books from the Y5/6 list can be downloaded here.