Reading Lessons with Serial Mash

Looking for a flexible way to teach reading, or a budget-friendly way of enhancing your school library provision without signing up to a whole reading scheme of work? Take a look inside Serial Mash and see how it can support reading lessons in your school.

Make teaching reading even easier while giving your students access to books at home with Serial Mash.

Serial Mash - the online eBook library for Primary Schools

Serial Mash is an online library for reading and comprehension, perfect for use in reading lessons or as an enhancement to your school's current library provision.

There are over 250 engaging and exciting books - written especially for children by professional authors, and all age and school appropriate with lots of popular topics covered.

Features of Serial Mash

📚 Three libraries organised by age group

📚 Library for reluctant readers

📚 Library with longer novels

📚 Poetry library

📚 DK Learning non-fiction library

📝 Activities on comprehension, sequencing, SPaG, and writing

🖼️ Engaging illustrations

🔊 Audio narration on many books

⏱️Chapter and work setting tool

📖 Online reading journal with automatic logging

📈 Data dashboard

🧑‍🦱 Author bios

Reading Lessons with Serial Mash

Whether you teach reading as a whole class or in guided reading groups, Serial Mash will work for you. With Serial Mash, teachers have the flexibility of not being tied to a reading scheme of work, while still having all of the resources and support they need to teach reading effectively.

There is no need to spend hours searching for age-appropriate or topic-related books as the books in Serial Mash are all organised and ready for use in the classroom. Easily find books linked to your teaching topic using the Curriculum Linking document.

Schools can get an annual subscription from 53p per pupil (+VAT) - request a free trial to explore the platform today.

Serial Mash Guided Reading

Teaching reading through group Guided Reading sessions with Serial Mash is simple:

1. Set up your Guided Reading groups in Serial Mash
2. Choose the book you would like to use - you can even choose different books for different groups
3. Set one chapter per week for the groups, as well as some of the activities
4. Use the Weekly Plan document to organise your Guided Reading lessons

When working with a group, the books and resources can be accessed on a device or printed out as needed. Groups that are still learning to sight read can use the audio narration and follow along, allowing them to absorb the story and focus on comprehension.

Serial Mash Whole-Class Reading Lessons

1. Read your Serial Mash book as a whole class with it showing on the board, on individual devices or printed out
2. Sequence the story together - can they all remember what happened?
3. Use whiteboards with the multiple-choice online quiz to assess understanding as a whole class and model finding the answers in the text
4. Separate into groups for answering the open-ended questions, with adults working to support and stretch students
5. Develop deeper understanding with the writing activities

Pre and Post-Teaching of Reading

Easily support developing readers with pre and post teaching:

• Pre-read or reread the book using audio narration, reducing working memory load and increasing recognition of tricky words
• Use the sequencing activities to ensure children have understood the story before the whole-class or group lesson
• Use the game activities to engage reluctant learners and scaffold discussion about the book - some activities include character pairs games, jigsaw puzzles of the setting and MashCams to role play as characters.
• Practise quizzes to build confidence before reading the text with their classmates

Encouraging Reading at Home

In 2024, almost 1 in 10 children reported that they do not have a book of their own at home (Literacy Trust). With four times as many children who have a book at home saying they enjoy reading than those that do not (Literacy Trust), ensuring that children have access to books at home is key to encourage Reading for Pleasure.

Schools with a Serial Mash subscription also get home access for every single pupil at no extra cost. This means that every student will automatically have access to over 250 high quality, professionally written, children's books over a range of genres and ages.