Reading Curriculum

 The importance of reading

• 'Reading is the master skill of secondary school' - Alex Quigley
• Students that read fluently have more cognitive resources to comprehend text
• Students that comprehend text have a better chance of doing well in exams and in life

 Reading intervention

• We test all students early in year 7 using the NGRT reading test
• We also test students in years 8 to 11
• Teacher marksheets have the following reading data - RA, SAS, SC, PC
• We use our intervention flowchart to identify students for phonics and reading fluency interventions
• We use YARC diagnostic to select students for phonics intervention
• We keep a spreadsheet of students that require phonics and reading fluency interventions from year 7 to 11

 Reading in the classroom

• We have a whole school schedule showing when subjects explicitly teach reading fluency to students
• Our target is for all students to have reading fluency lessons of 4.5 hours every fortnight
• We use only strategies that have a large evidence base behind them, some include repeated oral reading, choral reading and echo reading
• Students in years 7 to 10 have a pocket book used to write new vocabulary from Bedrock and their meanings to support speaking and writing in lessons

 Reading outside the classroom

• All students in years 7 to 10 have a 20 minute expert reading session every week in registration.  Teachers read to students for at least 20 minutes
• We have a reading curriculum showing the books that are read by each year group
• All students complete one Bedrock Learning lesson per week in registration.  Bedrock Learning is an online adaptive vocabulary and reading platform
• All students in year 7 to 10 have a pocket book to record new words and their meanings

 Reading beyond school

• All students in years 7 to 10 are expected to complete a Bedrock lesson at home
• Parents have access codes to enable them to monitor progress
• Students are able to borrow books from the library to read for pleasure