The beginning of it all
The Reading Realm is an app for iPad that aims to promote reading for pleasure, encourage children to widen their reading choices and provide a range of open-ended discussion guides and prompts to foster authentic, passionate book-talk.
The idea for the app began when I started teaching whole class reading lessons to my students about four or so years ago. I was struggling to find enough books for the children to all access. I was struggling to find books that would engage everyone in the class and I was getting fed up of all the reading worksheets on offer! Luckily around the same time, I became involved in, and led on, a whole school project to improve Reading and Writing. This eventually led to me completing my NPQSL, which focused on raising whole school standards in English.
I started by reading lots of books about reading, writing and vocabulary.1
I also signed up to the Research-Rich Pedagogies website and began exploring what else was going on in schools and searching out examples of good practice. I found Jon Biddle’s work on Reading Rivers really useful and began reflecting upon my own identity as a reader and exploring where the gaps where in my knowledge— I wanted the app to include as wide a range of stories and poems as possible.
Then, for a few years, I set up and ran an after-school parent-and-child reading group for children in my class and trialled a lot of the resources, games and ideas I was making for the app, as well as exploring how the resources might work in small groups and in whole class situations.