Logo for the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club. A series of blog posts about activities based on children's books, that can help to build on and extend learning from the book.

Welcome to the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club! A collection of activities based on great children’s books.

Why a Book Club?

Fostering a love of books is an essential companion to phonics, because the goal of phonics is to help children to learn to read.

There is a lot of research and evidence that shows that reading to children is instrumental in their reading journey. A quick google search will bring up many articles. At the moment, my favorites are this PBS article and this one from EdSource.

Sharing books with children helps them to experience the pleasure of reading. It also shows them that reading is a means of learning new things.

And in general, it’s not too difficult to do, because children love stories.

It’s also really fun!

The Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club is a series of posts outlining activities that are based on great children’s books.

Activities Based on Books:

Activities are divided into different types.

These are: Reading, Questioning, Word Work, Getting Active, Number Work, Letter Sounds, Mark Making, Imaginative, Social Skills and Craft.

The first two activities are ‘standard’ activities to do when sharing a book: read it and ask questions.

An activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club, based in reading.
An activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club, based on asking questions to increase and extend comprehension.

Then, there is a selection of other activities.

A word work activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club.

Activities involving words. For example, sight words in the story, words beginning with a certain sound, or words that may be unusual and so require extra explanation.

A number activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club.

Often, children’s books are great for drawing out mathematical concepts. These activities are ones such as sorting, counting, or promoting number sense.

A letters and sounds activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club.

These ideas are phonics based, and use opportunities that the book provides to further phonics learning and understanding.

An active activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club.

These activities are to do with movement, or active learning. They help children to interact with the story as they move.

An imaginative activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club. These are imaginative activities based on the focus book for this post.

Pretend or dramatic play can often be based on or inspired by story books. These activities encourage imaginative play.

A personal and social activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club.

These activities are to do with developing social skills and understanding, often in the form of discussions.

A mark making activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club. These are mark making activities based on the focus book for this post.

Mark making activities help children to form good pencil grip, and help them to engage with emergent writing. They also help to develop correct letter formation. These ideas provide opportunities for writing, drawing or making marks.

A craft activity from the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club.

These activities use art and craft to help children extend their enjoyment of the book.

Some will appeal to you and others may not, so just feel free to choose any that seem ‘do-able’ to you!

So there you have it, the Pen and Paper Phonics Book Club!

Click here for the first post. Hope you enjoy!