Some parents have been in touch asking about ways to encourage their children to read. Reading for pleasure is such a joy and there is good evidence to show that children who read for pleasure experience better emotional and mental health, along with the more obvious benefits of knowing lots of stuff and doing well at reading comprehension tasks! If you are interested to find out more about this click here.

There are a great range of magazines and newspapers for primary school age children. These can be a great way to engage a child who is less than enthusiastic about reading novels or to extend the breadth of reading materials for a keen reader. Below are a selection of magazines, comics and newspapers that I have enjoyed

Aquila is a magazine that takes a different theme each issue and explores that through all sorts of different perspectives (stories, experiments, information etc). My favourite issue was the Detectives one! I don’t think you ever find this in the shops – it is one you order online. There are lots of back issues in Room 8 if anyone is interested.

Another great magazine is Whizz Pop Bang: this is particularly focused on science and is full of experiments to try at home as well as fascinating facts!

The Week Junior is a really good news round up magazine which comes out weekly. 

First News is also a great newspaper aimed at young people.

The Phoenix is a magazine full of cartoons, stories and jokes. A really good choice for children who have enjoyed traditional comics.

…and it would be terrible to forget The Beano!