LITERACY & READING FOR PLEASURE

Literacy and reading for pleasure

At The Elms Academy we understand the importance of reading in order to enhance overall literacy. Reading is the academic key that unlocks the curriculum, influencing knowledge, skills and vocabulary in every subject discipline. Reading can also be a source of joy and pleasure, and we want all of our students to develop a love and appreciation of reading. We dedicate time within the school day for reading and ensure that our students have access to a rich, diverse and challenging range of texts.

Parental involvement is key to success

Parent involvement in their child’s literacy is reported to be a more powerful force than other family background variables – including social class, parent education and family size.

Our rationale:

We can transform outcomes by improving literacy and fostering a love of reading amongst our students

Our aims:

Increase reading and improve attainment across the curriculum
Enrich every students’ life through reading

We’ll achieve these aims through four key programmes: Accelerated Reader, Direct Instruction, Whole School Reading and Thinking Reading.

Accelerated Reader

One book per week with comprehension questions
In built monitoring and measurement
Combined with Library lesson for Year 7 and Year 8 students

Direct Instruction

McGraw Hill in English

Whole School Reading

Students in their year groups, vote on a text to read (1 classic, 1 contemporary)
Students read to aloud by their tutor (modelling effective reading skills)
Student led and independent reading gradually increases as students’ skills improve

Thinking Reading

Externally led
Targets the weakest 10% of readers

In class we will:

Model and develop effective reading skills
Provide targeted support to our weakest readers so all students can access the curriculum at every level
Increase students’ confidence with new texts
Improve students’ core vocabulary
Improve the quality of students’ writing through reading and academic talk

We seek to enrich every students’ life through reading and have created a culture of reading for pleasure. Students will be exposed to rich and varied vocabulary and become aware of ‘big ideas’ through reading a range of texts.

Reading is important because:

It helps us develop empathy - the ability to stand in someone else's shoes and understand their thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Reading helps us manage stress - regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels and higher self-esteem than non-readers.
Reading improves our relationships and friendships. Social situations are complex and sometimes difficult to navigate, but reading fiction can help us develop skills and understanding in this area.
Reading expands and improves our vocabulary and the better our vocabulary, the more able we are to access the curriculum and the better we do at school.
Reading expands our life experience. Our brains react to stories as if we are actually living the events we are reading about. This means that from your desk in the classroom, you can travel to anywhere in the world and experience almost anything!
And most importantly, reading makes us happier! Many studies have shown that people who read regularly, report feeling happier in general than those who don't.

Reading for pleasure at home is important because:

Parent involvement in their child’s literacy is reported to be a more powerful force than other family background variables – including social class, parent education and family size.
Research has shown that talking to children about what they are reading, and having books and magazines at home make a difference to children’s progress even if parents have problems with reading themselves.
A recent study has found that children who were reading to their parents hugely improved their reading skills, even if the parents could not read in English or any other language.

Supporting your child with reading at home

Before

Activate prior knowledge by asking a question (choose one)

What happened last time we were reading this?
What do you know about this topic?
What happened in the last chapter?
What have you learned about... at school?
Do you remember when we watched... and found out about...?

During

Encourage your child to develop fluency by:

Reading with expression – say it like you mean it. For example, read this sentence aloud but with emphasis on different words: ‘I never said she walked home.’
Making the punctuation audible – let me hear the full stop. For example, use the commas to pause for effect: ‘I looked, I turned, and I ran.’
Re-reading difficult passages or parts they stumbled on – read it again.
Working out what an unfamiliar word means by reading the rest of the sentence and looking for clues.

After

Summarise and make predictions by asking a question (choose one)

What is the main thing that happened or changed?
What do you want/expect to happen next?
Is there anything that we are still waiting to find out?
Was there anything that particularly surprised or interested you?

Useful websites

Achuka is an independent children’s book site that has something for everyone
Barrington Stoke is an award-winning publisher that makes books for struggling readers
Booktrust promotes children’s reading and produces a wide range of information for young readers including booklists. They have a useful ‘book finder’ tool to help you find your child’s next book