With the new academic year underway, there are several ways that 2Simple can help you promote a love of reading within your school.

Purple Mash

Reading Journals

We have created brand new online reading journals for you to use in school, this is a perfect way for pupils, teachers and parents to record any reading that they have engaged with without taking physical reading journals home.  The flexibility of Purple Mash allows teachers, parents, and pupils to keep track of reading within and beyond the classroom. There are two main versions of the reading journals, ages 5-7 and ages 7-11, the journals have been split into Autumn, Spring and Summer terms and can be adapted by teachers to suit the needs of their pupils. The 2Dos functionality on Purple Mash makes the reading journals a very powerful resource. It is possible to set a reading journal for a class, individuals or groups and maintain an ongoing dialogue between teacher and pupil(s). You can find the reading journals and guide here.

Developing Tray

If you have not yet used Developing Tray in school, then this term is the perfect term to start. Developing Tray encourages work not just on a work level but on a sentence and whole-text level. It works well as a whole class activity but can also be used by groups or individuals with or without a teacher.

The app removes some letters or words from a piece of text so that pupils have to ‘develop’ the text by using the limited clues on the screen.  The aim of the app is to predict the hidden text based on the clues that are already there.  By playing the game the children develop a range of skills that help to build the strategies needed to improve their reading ability. There are over 50 example developing tray texts ready to develop with your class as well as having the ability to produce your own. Why not get the children to develop the first page of the next chapter of a class reader.

Reading blogs

Why not set up a class or even whole school reading blog using 2Blog, the blog could be used in a variety of ways:

• Setting up a class/year or even teacher book club where members of the school community can comment on the same book
• Class/Whole School reading blog, this could be used for the children to share their own image or review of what they are currently reading.

The blogs can be set to private so can only be viewed by the school community or can be set to public to share your love of reading with a wider audience.

Book reviews

There are a wide range of book reviews within Purple mash, designed to make the process of children reviewing their reading both more interesting and beneficial educationally. The aims of the book reviews include:

• Helping children to get more out of their reading. 
• To focus children’s attention on different aspects of a book, moving away from the same book summary each time.
• Helping children to think about how to appraise a book.
• Supporting children in drawing out salient details, summarising and understanding inference.
• Using tools such as mind mapping and quizzes to connect with stories more personally and provide an alternative format for the reluctant writer.
• Using stories to create ideas and connect with others.

Using the Purple Mash sharing functionality, these reviews can then either be shared onto a blog or children could print QR codes for their reviews that can be incorporated into class reading areas, in the library or around the school.

Serial Mash: Your online library for Years 1-6

With a library of over 100 books that cater for ages 5-11, many featuring popular curriculum topics and poignant themes. Serial Mash is the best place to support reading when back in school. It comes with free access making it a brilliant way to make more books available at home. Read on tablets, on laptops, with print out copies, or together via an interactive whiteboard, highlighting important words, phrases or linguistic features as you read. Each book chapter is complemented by a host of printable resources for the whole class, group or individual use. Comprehension quizzes, grammar worksheets, sequencing activities, and open-ended questions - they're all in one place.

If you use any of the resources to support reading in school we would love you to share these with us on either our Twitter or Facebook page.