Reading for Pleasure
In Scoil Fionntáin Naofa, we actively encourage a love of reading in a variety of ways. In our opinion, children reading for pleasure plays a vital role in their overall development, offering benefits that extend far beyond academic success. When children choose to read because they enjoy it, they naturally build stronger language skills, expand their vocabulary, and improve comprehension without the pressure of formal instruction. Reading for pleasure also nurtures imagination and creativity, allowing children to explore new worlds, ideas, and perspectives, which in turn fosters empathy and emotional intelligence. Moreover, it helps develop concentration, critical thinking, and a lifelong love of learning, laying a strong foundation for confidence and curiosity both inside the classroom and in the wider world.
As a result, we in Scoil Fionntáin Naofa have a variety of initiatives in place to help foster a love of reading in our pupils.
As a result, we in Scoil Fionntáin Naofa have a variety of initiatives in place to help foster a love of reading in our pupils.
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Roald Dahl Day |
World Book Day |
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Roald Dahl Day celebrates the work of one of the world’s most beloved children’s authors and encourages reading for pleasure through fun, imaginative activities. By focusing on Roald Dahl’s engaging stories and memorable characters, our pupils are motivated to read purely for enjoyment. Dressing up, storytelling, and creative tasks linked to Roald Dahl's books help make reading exciting and accessible, particularly for reluctant readers, while also reinforcing the idea that books can be entertaining and joyful.
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World Book Day promotes reading for pleasure by creating a shared, celebratory experience around books. Through activities such as costume days, book discussions, and free book vouchers, children are encouraged to explore new genres and authors in a relaxed and enjoyable way. This initiative helps foster positive attitudes towards reading, supports agency and choice and independence, and highlights that reading is not just a school task but a valuable and enjoyable part of everyday life.
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The Great Reading Race |
DEAR Time: Drop Everything and Read |
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The Great Reading Race motivates children to read more by introducing an element of friendly competition and goal-setting. By tracking progress individually or as part of a team, children feel a sense of achievement as they complete books and reach targets. This initiative encourages regular reading habits, builds stamina, and helps children develop confidence, while still keeping the focus on enjoyment rather on assessment. The pupils have to read different genres/text types i.e. novels, short stories, poems, newspapers, non-fiction books etc. which broadens their reading repertoire to a great extent.
'My Little Library Bag' Book Initiative
All pupils and parents of our incoming Junior Infants and Sonas class pupils, where relevant, are signposted to the fabulous 'My Little Library Bag' book initiative with Laois local libraries on their induction day in the school at end of May/in early June each year.
Each book bag is filled with exciting resources designed to whet our youngest pupils' appetite for reading, and in turn hopefully foster a lifelong interest in reading for pleasure. Each book bag contains
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DEAR Time (Drop Everything and Read) provides dedicated time during the school day for uninterrupted reading for pleasure. By allowing our children to choose their own reading material, DEAR time promotes autonomy, agency and choice by allowing our pupils to draw on personal interests and preferences which is a key element of fostering a life long interest in reading for pleasure. This calm, shared reading experience helps improve focus and general wellbeing and demonstrates that reading is valued and prioritised within our school environment. Time is set aside in all classrooms in the school on a daily basis for DEAR time.
DEAR Time in the Senior Room
The MS Readathon
5th & 6th Class 2025-2026 participating in the MS Readathon
Our 5th & 6th Class pupils participate in the MS Readathon each November/December. In addition to raising finds for a very worthy cause namely MS Ireland, the reading initiative fosters and promotes a great interest in reading for pleasure in our senior room.
Our fundraising target for 2025 was €100 and due to the voracious reading practices in 5th & 6th Class, we exceeded our target by €415.
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Reading Buddies
Reading Buddies/Paired Reading pairs younger pupils with older pupils to read together, creating a supportive and enjoyable reading experience. This initiative benefits younger readers by building confidence, fluency, and enjoyment, while older pupils develop leadership skills and responsibility. Reading buddies also foster positive relationships and a sense of community, reinforcing reading as a social and enjoyable activity rather than a solitary or pressurised task. Older children also experience reading for an audience through this cross-age peer tutoring initiative, thus building confidence in fluency development (accuracy, automaticity, rate and prosody). We facilitate blocks of Reading Buddies/Paired Reading at different intervals across each school year.
Author Visits
Author visits play a powerful role in promoting reading for pleasure by bringing books and stories to life. Meeting a real author helps children see that books are created by ordinary people with extraordinary ideas, making reading and writing feel more accessible and inspiring. Through talks, readings, and interactive workshops, authors can spark curiosity, motivate reluctant readers, and encourage children to explore new books and genres. Author visits also help our children to develop a deeper appreciation for stories, creativity, and the writing process, reinforcing the idea that reading is enjoyable, meaningful, and worth pursuing beyond the classroom. We at Scoil Fionntáin Naofa have had the pleasure of welcoming a variety of authors to our school over the past number of years and since the beginning of the school year 2024-2025, we endeavour to have at least one author visit per term.
Donna Mills – Donna visited the pupils of the Junior room and the Sonas class for a reading of her book entitled “What Can I do?” in March 2023. The pupils had great fun playing games related to the circus, which is the central theme of the book.
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Peter Grogan – Peter visited our school in December 2023. His book “Seamróg – The Irish reindeer, tells the story of an Irish couple’s reindeer stepping in to save Christmas when Santa’s team falls ill. Peter is a former teacher who read extracts from his book and held a Q&A session with the children. His daughter created the illustrations for the book.
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Olive Mooney – Olive visited our school in September 2024. Olive has always enjoyed writing and telling ghost stories. The "Chronicles of Cadaver College" series includes the following titles: "The Book of Ornis" (2013), "The Curse of Halbizia" (2016) and "The Pirate Queen’s Treasure" (2019). Olive attended boarding school herself in Villiers School in Limerick and her experience in this regard was the stimulus for the boarding school setting of Cadaver College. During her visit, Olive read extracts from her books, discussed the writing process, engaged in a Q&A session with the children and discussed her general love of reading and writing.
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Brendan McDonald – Brendan held a very engaging session with our Junior and Middle rooms in October 2024. His books include “The Cow who Lost her Moo”, “Elephant on the Farm”, “The Sheep who Couldn’t Sleep” and “Giraffe in the Trees”. Rhyming plays a very important part in Brendan’s writing, as he feels it helps the reader to engage with the story. Brendan grew up on a farm in Co. Laois and although he mightn't have seen elephants and giraffes there, his rural upbringing inspired the setting for his engaging and entertaining series of books.
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Alma Jordan - Alma Jordan lives on a farm in County Meath with her husband Mark and son Eamon. After a successful career in marketing and communications, she founded the award-winning social enterprise AgriKids in 2015 to spread a message of farm safety to children in a fun and engaging way. Alma grew up on a farm in County Kildare, and the "Hazel Tree Farm" series features lots of real-life stories from her childhood, as well as moments shared by the children she meets through her work today. Alma visited us in April 2025. Her session was very engaging and interactive, with a very strong farm safety message. She brought with her an array of posters, safety signs and samples of farm equipment which she integrated into her reading and presentation.
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Alan Nolan – Alan is the author of the "Molly Malone and Bram Stoker" series of books. He is also the author and illustrator of "Fintan’s Fifteen", "Conor’s Caveman" and the "Sam Hannigan" series. In addition he is the illustrator of "Animal Crackers: Fantastic Facts About Your Favourite Animals", written by Sarah Webb. He has a keen interest in the history of Dublin, which is evident in the characterisation and the settings of his books. He held a very energetic, engaging and enjoyable session in our school in October 2025, where he read extracts from his books and taught the children how to illustrate characters.
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Vonnie Bolton: We were delighted to welcome children's author and former primary school teacher, Vonnie Bolton to the school on World Book Day 2026. Vonnie visited the Junior, Middle and Sonas classes and gave a very energetic, engaing and animated reading of her fabulous fairyland series of books to our pupils. It was a real pleasure having Vonnie to visit, particularly given the day that was in it!
