COLA Highbury Grove is a school that absolutely recognises the vital importance of reading. Our WE READ programme accurately describes just that. We are a school that reads.
All of the research suggests that reading is probably the single most important skill that a young person learns. Those who have stronger reading abilities as a young person achieve better exam outcomes in all subjects – especially maths New study highlights the importance of reading to the whole school curriculum – GL Assessment, whilst reading skill in adolescence has long been considered the most accurate predictors of academic success. However, we also know that there is a lot of competition for the attention of young people, and that most simply do not take the time to read outside of school.
That is why we guarantee that all students at Highbury grove read significant amounts, whilst also taking steps to build good reading habits in lessons.
Tutor reading
For three 30 minute tutor sessions per week, all students in Y7-10 read a high quality, age appropriate fiction or non fiction book together as a class. The book is read aloud with reading led by an expert reader. Sessions end with a short, sharp discussion of the day’s reading.
- Every single student is exposed to significant amounts of high quality reading each week
- Over the course of Y7-10 students will read between 20-25 whole texts!
- With reading being led by an expert reader, students are able to deal with texts that may be slightly beyond their reading age
- Communal experience of reading the same book fosters a love of reading
- Regular reading develops the reading skills of all students
Reading across the curriculum
The curriculum is demanding in the language and vocabulary it requires students to know across all subjects – the average reading age required to effectively understand a Maths GCSE question is 15 years and 6 months. In order to ensure that students build good reading habits in all subjects, all significant reading in any subject is conducted as a class, with students following the texts with a ruler. As a matter of course, new and challenging vocabulary is explicitly taught, including students becoming comfortable with accurately pronouncing tier two and three vocabulary that arises in lessons.
Homework – Sparx Reader
All students in Y7-11 complete weekly homework on Sparx Reader. Students read genuine books of an appropriate difficulty level, being tested on their comprehension. Through this, students develop their comprehension and vocabulary skills while significantly increasing their volume of reading.
Reading interventions
Some students find reading more difficult than others; this is inevitable. We have a range of reading interventions to address students whose reading age is behind where we would hope it to be. This ranges from phonics training for those still struggling with decoding, to more independent reading support on online platforms.
Reading for pleasure
Despite the importance of reading for pleasure, we know that it is something that many young people do not take advantage of. Recent research from tens of thousands of young people surveyed by the National Literacy Trust found that:
- Only 1 in 3 (32.7%) children and young people aged 8 to 18 say they enjoy reading in their free time
- Only 1 in 5 (18.7%) say they read something daily in their free time
To encourage our students to read independently we ensure students borrow a book of their choice from our amazing library at least once per half term. Students also get a chance to read this in some tutor sessions to support building the habit of independent reading.
To support students choosing a book that is both interesting and appropriate for their reading ability we developed our own bespoke ‘Reading Wheels’ – please view this in one of the links below. Specially designed for students at our school, there are separate reading wheels for KS3 and KS4 students. Books on the outer layer are more accessible – for those that are early in their reading journey, while those in the central layer are for those looking to push their reading with highly ambitious texts. In addition to this, there is a cross-curricular reading wheel containing high quality texts related to different subjects.
To support your child with reading, you may want to use our ‘reading chart’ – in the links below. You can also view our WE READ postcards which have gone out to parents over the last few years with tips for supporting a young person to become a brilliant independent reader.