From Usefulwiki

Choosing good, well illustrated, interesting books is far more important than worrying about book banding. Book banding is only ever a guide and it's far more important to be flexible.

Choosing Books

It's important that most of the books are richly illustrated and ideally in excellent condition (see below).

Illustrations:

• They provide another layer of cues to help the child to work out the meaning of the text or to identify difficult words.

• They help to make the book look interesting

• Colour pictures can be reassuring to a child who is short on confidence about their reading skills.

• Learning to read diagrams and derive information from photographs is an important skill in itself.

Condition

• It is vital to some children to feel good about themselves as readers to be given books that look and feel new.

• It helps the child to feel valued and trusted and this can improve their confidence.

• A well thumbed and obviously loved book can be used if it is introduced as something precious. Explain that despite its condition this is the book you think is just right to help them move on. Ask them to take special care with it. Don't ever do this for any other reason. Children can usually smell deception.

Buying Books

Setting up a Better Reading Partners scheme can be quite expensive. Buying all the books new from a school supplier can make the costs seem prohibative. You may well be able to get funding to seed your BRP library but you are going to need lots of books. There are several ways to counter this:

• Use books that you have bought second hand. Try Amazon (add link) or your local Oxfam bookshop can often be persuaded to sell large quantities of books at a considerable discount, especially if you explain what it's for! Some second hand books on Amazon are even free, you only pay for postage.

• Send out an appeal for good quality illustrated books amongst the staff and parents. It's surprising how many people have been hanging on to books and are only to glad to see them put to good use. Make sure people know the kinds of books you are looking for.

Book banding

Books are best sorted into rough levels by all the partners working together. This gives everyone the chance to have a good look at the books, start to get to know them and make some initial groupings of books. Sorting them into marked boxes (try coloured stickers)on the box and book.Keep a key of the sorted boxes somewhere nearby.

As the programme progresses books that are too hard or too easy can be easily spotted by partners and put into a different box.

Health and Safety Warning:

Always store the boxes somewhere easily accessible. Mind your backs - books are heavy!

A useful book for helping with levelling and book banding can be: Bridging Bands for Guided Reading: Resourcing for Diversity into Key Stage 2 By Angela Hobsbaum, Shirley Bickler, Suzanne Baker - (Buy it here)