Reading across the curriculum
Reading plays a significant part in your child’s academic success and personal development. The ability to read well is essential for developing knowledge and understanding across all subjects. Reading requires an individual to think and process information. By reading, young people encounter new words and this extends their vocabulary that enables them to communicate with confidence, both in their speech and in their writing.
Reading is, of course, central to our English curriculum, however, all of our teachers, whatever their subject, consider themselves ‘teachers of reading’. Teachers model reading during lessons and encourage students to decode, comprehend and interpret information using a range of strategies. There is an emphasis on subject specific vocabulary and disciplinary literacy.
Assessment, support and intervention
Renaissance Star Reader is an online assessment programme used to track our students’ reading progress. It identifies the skills that they have mastered and the skills each student needs to focus on to meet, or exceed, expected standards. Reading assessments take place across the academic year, to ensure that students are developing their vocabulary and comprehension skills. Assessment data is shared with all teachers so that they understand which students may need reading support in their lessons.
If assessments show that some students need more support, a time-limited reading intervention is provided. The scheme that we use is Fresh Start and students learn to read accurately and fluently; they also develop their comprehension, spelling and punctuation skills by working through the Fresh Start modules.
Assessment also helps to identify the ZPD (zone of proximal development), which then matches the challenge of reading material with a student’s reading ability to encourage reading and accelerate progress.
Reading for pleasure and knowledge
At Tuxford, we encourage, advise and guide students to ‘read for pleasure and knowledge’ using the knowledge of our inspirational teachers, and the expertise and helpfulness of our library managers. Our academy prioritises and celebrates reading.
Our academy’s library is an excellent learning resource centre. In recent times, the library has become mobile and books are taken out to different subject areas around the academy to provide ease of access to books. There is ongoing significant investment in providing quality texts and our library team run promotions, such as book fairs and competitions, to further develop the ‘love of reading’.
Reading at home
We encourage our families to support their child by reading to them, reading with them and listening to them read. You can support your child in their reading in several ways:
- create a reading-friendly environment at home by providing access to a variety of reading materials, such as books, newspapers, and magazines. Our super-curricular booklets identify books or other materials students could read to support their learning in each subject. The YA book prize also offers fantastic books recommendations, many of which can be borrowed from our LRC.
- encourage your child to read for pleasure by setting aside a specific time each day for reading and by modelling reading yourself.
- support your child’s reading by quizzing them on subject specific key words they are learning, these can usually be found in subject workbooks.
- discussing what you child is reading with them, asking questions about the plot and characters, and encouraging them to share their opinions and ideas about the text.
- promote a love for reading by celebrating your child’s reading achievements, such as finishing a book or reaching a reading goal, and by recognising the value and importance of reading in their daily lives.
Ultimately, reading is an essential skill which will provide a platform for our young people to go on to achieve academic success, recreational well-being and confidence in their future pursuits.