Reading

Reading is one of the strongest indicators of future earnings.  Reading enjoyment has been reported as more important for children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status

OECD, 2002 - Research evidence on reading for pleasure - Education standards research team

Research from the OECD suggests that children who come from more challenging, deprived backgrounds, but engage with reading well, perform better than children from more affluent backgrounds, who do not engage with reading. Reading is the lever to success for our pupils, across a range of subjects (OECD, 2002,. ‘Reading for change. Performance and engagement across countries. Results from PISA 2000’) 

Reading at Hartshill Academy

Investing time and effort in my reading will mean:

  • I will be able to understand more in all of my subjects;
  • I will be used to reading texts, meaning I can access my assessments;
  • I will, based on research, be more likely to succeed in my exams;
  • I will, based on research, be more likely to be successful in the world of work;
  • I can access and understand other points of view and parts of the world;
  • I can become a more well-rounded person, who can form opinions;
  • I can become a compassionate person who thinks of others;
  • I can become a more creative person, as I see what the world can offer;
  • I become more intelligent; 

Our Strategies

At Hartshill Academy we have three main strategies to support pupils to develop and extend their reading and reading comprehension. 

Reading and the School Library

Our School Librarian supports our pupils to engage in reading through the library. Pupils can access a large range of books in the library, with the School Librarian working with groups on more focused areas, with a focus on engagement, enrichment and widening range of texts. 

Sparx Reading

Sparx Reading improves fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, stamina, and motivation. All pupils have a Sparx Reading login.  

https://sparxreader.com/  

The Reading Canon

Stories, Daniel Willingham tells us, are cognitively privileged. We pay special attention to them. This you could argue has an evolutionary basis.  For hundreds of thousands of years before there was written language we communicated our knowledge, our cumulative culture and our norms for community & belonging via stories, told sitting around fires. People who listened and learned thrived. People who did not were less likely to. We learned and probably evolved to pay attention when a story was told. And we also probably learned that sharing stories was how we built an ‘us’. Shared stories are critical to belonging. 

Reading aloud to pupils is a strategy for reading that works in two ways. 

Firstly, through exposure to texts that they would not necessarily have chosen before, pupils can be exposed to new vocabulary, syntactic structures and cultural knowledge that they may not have been exposed to without this reading programme. 

Secondly, reading aloud as opposed to silent reading significantly helps those pupils who struggle to decode words on their own and do not have the fluency required to be able to make sense and comprehend what they are reading. 

In Years 7-9 (Year 10 in 2024), pupils have a designated lesson for reading, with Year 7 pupils having an additional lesson for Reading Plus work. In this time, pupils read, with their teacher, a book, together, from the Reading Canon. Books have been carefully chosen to match need, broaden horizons and develop reading ability. 

As teachers, this will mean reading a book aloud to pupils whilst they follow along with their own copies of the books. All of the books are suitable for the pupils’ age groups and have been specifically chosen for the reason of exposing pupils to ideas that they might not have encountered before, thus widening their cultural capital. 

Year 7

Shadows of the Silver Screen by Christopher Edge 

Boy in the Tower by Polly Ho-Yen 

Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton 

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan 

Medusa – Graphic Novel by Jessie Burton 

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman 

Melissa by Alex Gino 

Year 8

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis 

Animal Farm by George Orwell 

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck 

How to be Autistic by Charlotte Amelia Poe 

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness 

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien 

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta 

Year 9

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 

1984 by George Orwell 

Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder 

Windrush Child by Benjamin Zephaniah 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 

Witch Child by Celia Rees 

A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen 

Any questions?

If you have any questions about reading please contact our Reading Leader Laura Jones

Laura.Jones@hartshillacademy.org.uk
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