At Willington Primary School we have a reading programme called Bug Club.
What is Bug Club?
Bug Club is a finely-levelled reading scheme, which ensures that all children can find books at exactly the right level for them. What’s more, there are online versions for every printed title and a personalised website for each child.
Using the online reading world
If you have access to an internet connection, your child can enjoy reading Bug Club books online as well as in print. Each child has a unique homepage and can log into it by following these steps:
Please note: We strongly recommend using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browsers with Active Learn. If you prefer to use Internet Explorer, please check you have at least IE9 in order for everything to work as it should.
2 .Enter the login details (as provided on your child’s Bug Club mark)
3. Your child’s homepage will appear.
Reading a book online
We allocate books to your child according to their reading levels. These books will appear in the ‘My Stuff’ area of their personal homepages.
Throughout the books there are quiz questions for your child to complete. To answer a question, just click on the bug icon. Your child does not need to finish all the quiz questions in one sitting and can come back to the book later.
When your child has finished all the quiz questions in a book, your child will earn ‘ActiveLearn Coins’. By reading more books, your child will earn enough coins to ‘buy’ a reward in one of the many reward schemes.
The answers to the quiz questions will be sent back to our teacher site so that we can see how your child is progressing. We will also be able to assign more books for your child to read if the virtual book bag is running low.
When your child has finished a book, it will move to ‘My Library’. Children can read these books again if they want to, or they can choose new books from ‘My Stuff’.
Getting Involved
Sharing reading
Until they are fluent readers, younger children will benefit from reading aloud to you as often as possible. When sharing a book with your child, try to take opportunities to talk about the book – before, during and after reading.
Before reading: look at the book cover and talk about your child’s expectations. Is the book likely to be fiction or non-fiction? Have you read other books together about these characters or by this author? What does your child think the book is going to be about?
While reading: support your child when unknown words need tackling: you can sound them out, split them into syllables, or identify suffixes and prefixes. Remind your child to listen to the words while reading them, to make sure that they make sense. Have a ‘meaning check’ every now and again to ensure your child understands the text.
After reading: talk about the book. What was it about? Did it match your child’s expectations? Ask questions beginning with the words how and why to check that your child has been able to read between the lines. Ask whether anything seemed puzzling. Then ask your child to explain what the best and worst bits of the book were, and why.
Need help?
If your child is having trouble using the pupil world, help can be found in the Help Section of ActiveLearn Primary (in the top right-hand corner of the website).
