Reading Support

Reading Support

We believe it is every child’s right to be able to read and write confidently and fluently. We have a large range of supportive initiatives in place to develop student’s skills in comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and decoding. We also believe that students in our school community have a vital role to play in developing the reading skills of their peers.

We test students in Year 7 with NGRT and re-test students who participate in any of the intervention programmes to measure impact and ensure the most suitable reading support package is provided.

Interventions

Accelerated Reader

This software enables us to test the reading ages of our students and identify their reading age and ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development). This information will help us to put in place suitable support and interventions for students and recommend the most able readers for additional reading responsibilities across the school community. The system also allows teachers to track the books students are reading, how many words they are reading, and how close they are to their reading target.

Reading Leaders

Aligning with our ethos of service, we follow Coram’s Reading Leader programme to train our Year 9 students to support reluctant readers in Year 7. The programme covers 12 weeks of guided reading, where specific skills of comprehension are developed with the help of the Reading Leader. Coram Beanstalk

Tutor Reads

One of the most impactful methods of supporting fluency in oracy and reading is through modelling. Using the well-researched model of Reciprocal Reading, our Year 7 and 8 students all read a set novel with their form tutor. The novels are chosen to align with our Catholic ethos of justice, respect and service. Each week, students are read to by their tutor and answer questions that develop the skills of comprehension, and in particular the ability to predict, clarify and summarise. Our two books are the 2022 Carnegie award winning ‘October, October’ by Katya Balen and winner of the CILIP Amnesty Honour 2017 ‘The Bone Sparrow’ by Zana Fraillon.

ToebyToe

This programme is utilised by our SEND team. Toe by Toe is for anyone who finds reading difficult. This includes weak readers who struggle to decode or those with dyslexia, dyslexic difficulties or ADHD.

Toe By Toe - A highly structured phonics-based reading manual

Ruth Miskin

We have a dedicated Year 7 and year 8 class who are taught in English by a Ruth Miskin trained teacher. This supports the development of reading and writing for students needing to boost their phonics, decoding and comprehension. Students enjoy focused support and guidance to build their confidence and accuracy.

Reading Scholars

We support our most able readers by encouraging them to lead and participate in a range of literacy related events including writing articles, participating in the Carnegie Shadowing Group and contributing to our Library Newsletters.

Rapid Plus

We use the full range of Rapid Plus resources from stage 3 to 9 to support struggling readers across Years 7-10. Students work in small groups of similar reading levels to be guided in their reading of specially designed books that feature fiction and non-fiction texts and are accompanied by a range of comprehension prompts. Students work their way through the stages and are supported to successfully reach their chronological reading age.