Whole School Reading Strategy

Aim: to develop confident readers who enjoy reading a diverse range of texts and are challenged to develop their reading skills, whilst engaged to promote a love of reading.  

We understand that reading covers decoding, comprehension and fluency.

To improve decoding skills for our weakest readers, who are reading below their chronological age, we employ a phonics curriculum led by trained staff within our learning support department. Further to this we have a programme of Lexia and Reciprocal Reading to target pupils whose reading age is below their actual age.

To ensure pupils develop their comprehension skills (their knowledge and understanding of what texts mean) a variety of strategies are used, which include Reciprocal Reading and reading programmes like Accelerated Reader including over an hour a week of dedicated AR time.

Teachers model fluency when they read to the class through their intonation of pitch, stress and rhythm; awareness of punctuation and pauses, pace of reading, and use of tone, to enhance meaning.

We have a fantastic provision in the library with a huge range of non-fiction and fiction texts, from a diverse range of authors including a range of themes. The library is very well attended by a wide range of pupils and book loans are high.

Our strategy for reading is underpinned by three areas:

Reading Strategy

Love of Reading

Reading across the curriculum

Progressional Reading

Recommended Reading Y7-11

Book prizes across school

LGBTQ+ Recommended Reads

Accelerated Reader Y7-9

Interform awards/prizes

World Book Day

Library Events

Staff modelling reading

Author visits

Library Reading Groups

Student Librarians

Reading tab on school website

Reciprocal Reading as a whole school strategy

AR hour weekly

English Accelerated Reading time

Posters in classrooms

Reading tab on school website

Departmental Recommendations

Recommended Reading embedded into MTPs

Reciprocal Reading of Seminal World Literature during Literacy lesson

Accelerated Reading

English teacher support with AR

Lexia

Phonics

Reciprocal Reading Intervention Groups

Behaviour Intervention Groups

Reading Age data on Class Charts