Sunrise Readers Bookmarks
The Sunrise Readers are story books, with each book containing twelve or more short stories. Most early reading books contain one story, and consist of between eight and sixteen pages. Sunrise Readers Books One, Two and Three consist of 48 pages. Books Four – Ten have 64 pages and Books Eleven – Fifteen consist of 80 pages.
Most children have been exposed to “chapter” books if their parents or care givers have read to them from an early age. They might have seen their older siblings reading “chapter” books. When we introduce their first Sunrise Readers, we are enthusiastic and excited about the fact that they are going to be reading story books containing a number of short stories.
To keep their places in their Sunrise Reader, learners should use a bookmark. They could be encouraged to create and decorate their own bookmark, using a durable piece of card. We supply some “I am a Sunrise Super Reader” bookmarks in the downloadable PDF below. The child’s name should be on the front, along with the number of whichever Sunrise Reader they are currently reading.
The task-satisfaction of finishing a 16 page book in one or two sessions is rewarding. However, we’ve found that children very quickly become very familiar and comfortable with reading “chapter books” the way older children and people do, and the physical act of moving their reading marker to the end of the story becomes equally motivating.
To keep track of the stories or pages that have been read, write the relevant pages on the back of the bookmark. When the pages have been read, the child could place a tick next to those pages as “job done”, or – if this is a homework task given by the teacher – parents may be asked to sign that the reading has been done. See the diagram below.
Tips for Teachers:
Prepare a marker for each child – approximately 20cm x 7.5cm (or a piece of A4 card folded into 4!).
The child’s name is written on one side, perhaps with a picture or sticker as decoration. On
the other side there should be a partition for the pages set daily and a space for a parent/
caregiver’s initials, signifying that the reading was practised at home. New pages are read
to the teacher first and then practised at home. This is revision of work done in class and
teachers can set a story each day, guided by the “chapter headings” in the books.
From Sunrise Readers Book 4 – Story Time – each Sunrise Readers has a Contents Page which can referred to when allocating reading.