Teacher Coryn Bendelow takes a look at Read & Respond: Owl Babies for us.

The innovative nature of the resource

This is a brilliant book. Extremely well written by someone who is obviously an excellent practitioner. The ideas are extremely innovative. I love the way that the first section gives details about the book and the author. The Guided and Shared reading sections are very clear and contain some lovely and thought provoking ideas. The style is informative, intelligent and inspiring.

The impact on learning and the work of the teacher in the classroom, to what extent and in which areas

As this is a book that is much loved by my Reception class I did use some of the more practical ideas with them although I feel that the majority of the activities in the book are a little more suited to a Year 1 class. (The book is aimed at Year 1) The book has had an impact on the learning of my class particularly on their thinking skills and oral language. Ideas such as ‘true or false’ , ‘ caring’ and ‘ask me’ gave a great stimulus for PSHE and drama work and all the sections are linked to language and literacy.

How the resource supports or enhances the everyday life or work of teachers, pupils or school

The resource supports and enhances the work of KS1 teachers giving lots of great ideas for literacy lessons and some excellent photocopies and grids. The assessment section is excellent and would be very useful after studying the story in Year 1.

Cost effectiveness in terms of educational aims and results – not just price

The book is extremely cost effective. All the activities are easy to plan with a few copies of the storybook and some photocopies, whiteboards and paper.

Eifron Watkinson from Addington School, Reading takes a look at Read & Respond: Elmer for us.

Children were all interested in the suggested activities and were motivated by them. Group particularly enjoyed the dressing up activities where the teacher observed lots of descriptive language being used and organisational skills coming to the fore.

Excellent idea to include Show Your True Colours which linked very well to the SEAL work going on in school at present.

Teachers found the resource included a wide range of activities to cover most abilities within the class. Having Learning Objectives clearly shown was a time saving bonus too.

Work led onto performing a drama for other classes to watch that the children had written for themselves.

All the KS1 and Foundation Stage teachers were impressed by the resource which gave them new ideas based on a familiar book.

As co-ordinator I would buy this book for school as it was easy to use, provided motivating activities for staff and pupils and saved a lot of planning time.

Large colour laminated posters of the worksheets would be useful for group work.