Why we read
Research shows that there are clear links between independent readers and academic outcomes. Our Whole School Reading Programme is designed to engage students in a love of reading, building their independent reading skills over time to advance their academic and pastoral success.
Alex Quigley (Closing the Reading Gap) highlights the benefits:
- ‘Pupils who read well better access the curriculum
- Pupils experience more rare academic vocabulary, language structures and cultural insights when they read widely
- Reading influences knowledge, skills and vocabulary in every subject, in every discipline
- We ‘read’ exam questions and unpack entire complex processes from exam command words and complex vocabulary
- Reading gives us access to knowledge that gives us choices in life
- Reading can help us become the best version of ourselves’
When we read
Form tutors read aloud with their reading group twice a week for an hour with students engaging in discussion and learning new vocabulary as they read a text as a class. Our texts are appropriate for students' reading ages and they are diverse in culture, era and genre.
Comparing the engaged reading time of 2.2 million students, Kirsh found that reading for 15+ minutes a day provided accelerated reading gains. Results showed that students reading for 20 minutes a day were likely to score better than 90% of their peers in standardised tests. (National Center for Education Statistics).
How we read
Form Tutors read aloud, at pace and with fluency, novels that their tutees would not easily access independently. Thus, we are equipping students with the skills and confidence to become fluent, independent life-long readers.
‘Read-Aloud is a unique opportunity to breathe life into texts that students are unable to read independently, so as to make those texts accessible … When you read a complex text aloud, you pave the way for students to read it themselves’ Doug Lemov (Reading Reconsidered).
Research shows that ‘simply reading challenging, complex novels aloud and at a fast pace … repositioned ‘poor’ readers as ‘good’ readers, giving them a more engaged, uninterrupted reading experience over a sustained period. In 12 weeks students made 8.5 months progress, but poorer readers made 16 months progress’. Westbrook (Just Reading, 2019)
What we read
Texts chosen are suitably challenging and reflect our school community. They are an important part of all students’ cultural capital, broadening minds and expanding horizons. Our Tutor Time Reading Programme texts are read on a rota system with students in each year group reading 6 texts across the academic year, alongside texts studied through the curriculum.