Rethinking the Reading Spine for Primary Schools – 2025 Update

In 2018, I wrote about building a primary reading spine shaped around Doug Lemov’s Five Plagues of Reading — archaic language, non-linear sequences, complex narration, symbolic/plot complexity, and resistant texts. The idea was to ensure that every child, every year, encountered books that stretched them beyond the comfortable and familiar.

That original post struck a chord with schools who wanted more from their whole-class reads than “something nice at the end of the day.” But the world — and the evidence base — has moved on.

This post rethinks the reading spine for 2025: keeping the intellectual rigour of the Five Plagues, adding choice and democracy, weaving in cultural capital through global and local mapping, and drawing on new research about text selection in primary classrooms.

Why Update Your Reading Spine?

In the years since that first post, we’ve learnt a lot more about children’s reading behaviours:

• Enjoyment is in decline. BookTrust data shows a drop in children saying they “love” reading from 33% at age 7 to just 25% by age 11. The National Literacy Trust reports that only 32.7% of 8–18 year-olds enjoy reading “very much” or “quite a lot,” and daily reading has halved in a decade.

• Choice matters. Research at primary level finds that even when reading complex texts, children’s motivation and comprehension increase when they have a say in what they read. Choice can spark situational interest, especially when the teacher scaffolds more demanding books.

• Representation matters. Studies on children’s book choice show that pupils often select texts that reflect aspects of themselves, but also value “windows” into other lives and worlds. Without deliberate curation, many will never encounter the breadth they need for empathy and cultural literacy.

3 + 3 Reading Spine Model

I've updated my own school's reading spine so it now works on a six-book annual cycle:

Three teacher-chosen books (one per term)

• Mapped to school values and curriculum subjects

• At least one per year covers a “plague” feature in depth

• Selected for quality, depth, and long-term impact on reading stamina

Three pupil-chosen books (one per half term)

• Voted for from a shortlist of three teacher-curated titles, which is adaptable each year

• Shortlists ensure genre breadth, DEIB representation, and a mix of mirrors, windows, and sliding doors

• Books are read aloud, discussed, and celebrated as part of reading-for-pleasure time

This way, pupils still experience the cognitive lift of challenging, deliberately sequenced texts, but they also see reading as something they own.

The Five Plagues — Still Essential

Lemov’s framework still underpins the teacher-chosen element of the spine. The “plagues” help us avoid narrowing the canon to “safe” or “easy” reads:

1. Archaic Language – builds syntactic flexibility and vocabulary depth - often better for close reading.

2. Non-Linear Time – develops inference and temporal reasoning.

3. Narratively Complex – strengthens working memory and perspective-taking.

4. Symbolic/Plot Complexity – trains abstract thinking.

5. Resistant Texts – pushes interpretation skills.

By mapping each teacher-chosen book to one or more plague features, we ensure deliberate, structured exposure — not accidental coverage.

Adding Cultural Capital: The World & UK Book Maps

The curriculum has a clear duty to build cultural capital. For reading, this means more than “classics” — it’s about giving children geographical, historical, and cultural reference points they can carry into secondary school and beyond.

• The World Book Map – shows where stories are set or where authors come from. When we place a new book on the map in assembly, pupils make instant connections and comparisons.

• The UK Book Map – celebrates stories, voices, and authors from across the UK’s regions and cultures, building local as well as global capital.

These maps turn reading into a visual, collective exploration — they make cultural capital tangible.

An Example in Action

At South Wilford, the 3+3 model has reshaped how reading feels in school:

• Teacher-chosen books link directly to values like resilience, empathy, and stewardship, as well as to history, science, or geography units.

• Pupil votes are run assembly-style, with book covers displayed, blurbs read aloud, and persuasive speeches from children.

• World and UK Book Maps are used to help identify books to help create mirrors and windows for the children to see themselves and others.

• The Five Plagues of Reading are considered for novel choices and for close reading, poetry units, extract analysis etc.

The result? Children talk about books as theirs. They are encountering texts that challenge them, but they’re also invested — because they had a say.

How This Stands Up to Ofsted

Inspectors want to see that:

• Reading is a curriculum priority, with a clear rationale and progression model

• Children are reading widely, often, and with increasing fluency and understanding

• Cultural capital is deliberately built into reading provision

• There is a culture of reading for pleasure, evidenced in pupil voice

The 3+3 spine hits all of these: it’s coherent, inclusive, challenging, and rooted in current research on reading motivation.

Downloads for Teachers, English Leads & SLT

You can use these to adapt or build your own spine:

1. Reading Reconsidered Spine – the original plague-mapped text list.

2. World Book Map – to locate books geographically and culturally.

3. UK Book Map – to showcase regional voices and settings.

4. South Wilford Primary Reading Spine – a working example of the 3+3 model in action, bearing in mind that many other elements are studied in close reading and reading fluency lessons at school.

Not a Fixed List — A Flexible Framework

These resources aren’t designed to be definitive. The book examples in each map and spine are starting points, many last updated in 2021. The real power comes when you blend the structure — sequencing, genre balance, and DEIB representation — with your own knowledge of brilliant, current titles. That way your reading spine stays alive, relevant, and inspiring for your pupils every year.

A reading spine should be a ladder and a bridge. The Five Plagues give us the ladder — carefully sequenced rungs of challenge. The new research on choice, democracy, and representation give us the bridge — connecting children to reading as a lifelong habit.

In 2025, a world-class reading spine should be one that children climb and cross!

📥 Get the four free resources that will help you build yours.

Download the Free Reading Spine Bundle