What is Bug Club?

Bug Club is a finely leveled, phonically based online reading scheme with interactive activities. Each child has a personalised homepage where they'll find the e-Books they've been allocated by the teacher and motivating rewards. This ensures that each child can find a book at exactly the right level for them. The online reading world ensures children can access independent reading resources anywhere at any time. New books will be allocated regularly.

Bug Club books have a fantastic range of titles, which are graded into the same colour-coded Book Band levels that we use in school. Within each level there is a carefully planned progression of books. This fine progression gives children plenty of opportunity to develop their reading skills and master each fine step while moving through the reading programme.

How do I log in?

The website address is www.bugclub.co.uk     The school ID is: at3t

Your child's class teacher will allocate a username and password. If you lose it please ask for a reminder.  To help you use Bug Club please view the powerpoint presentation link at the foot of this page. 

What is the best way to use Bug Club?

• Read the parents’ help and watch the video.
• Find quality time to spend with your child as the electronic books are intended to be shared with an adult.
• Talk to your child about the book they have chosen. Challenge your child to be a book detective: look at the book cover and see if they can guess what the book will be about or what type of book it is
• Initially they may want to listen to the book and can do this by pressing on the speaker icon
• Now get your child to read the book (as you would do with their home reading book) getting them to use their different strategies like phonics, tricky words, and the context of the sentence.
• Re-read the book if necessary. Your child should be able to read it independently before they move onto the next book.
• Take time over each book to get the most learning from it.
• Two books a week is plenty if they are done thoroughly and the hard copy has also gone home.

What can I do to help reading comprehension?

• Understanding the book is vital
• As you read together, talk about what is happening in the book,what might happen next, and anything that has puzzled them. Get your child to re-tell the main parts of the story, using the pictures as a prompt if they need it. When your child finishes a book, ask them whether they liked it or not and encourage them to explain why.
• Now would be a good time to do the activities linked to the book.
• Click on the bug icon. If they get it wrong, talk about the activity and have another go. Try to discourage guessing.

Getting more electronic books

It is important that your child can read the books fluently and understand the information before they move on. If they race through they will not be ready for books from the next colour band and will struggle. This will really affect motivation.

If you don’t have access to a computer or prefer for your child not to use on line reading, they can still enjoy a hard copy of the books

How does the teacher know how my child is getting on?

The teacher is able to log on and see what books your child has accessed and how many attempts it has taken to get the answers of the activities correct.

If you are sure your child can read the books fluently, please write a note in your child’s reading diary. The teacher will select one of the books and get your child to read it to do a quick assessment as the next colour will be harder.