Literacy for Life

Literacy Strategies : Years 7 and 8

• Accelerated Reader: All Year 7 and 8 students participate in the Accelerated Reader programme. Students read books at a level that is appropriate for them according to the Accelerated Reader book levels. When students finish reading a book, they take a quiz about what they have read. As part of this we test students’ reading ages every term to ensure that progress is being made. See this guide for more information about how Accelerated Reader works. 

• Diagnostic Reading Assessments: Where students’ reading ages are not on track with their actual age we offer a Diagnostic Reading Assessment to determine where any specific issues may lie. From here, we will be able to tailor interventions to support each student. 

• Year 7 Literacy tutor times. In Year 7 we read a news article together every week with the teacher leading the majority of the reading and students joining in to read parts of it. We then discuss this as a class. 

Literacy Strategies : All Years

• All students are able to use the library and borrow books from it. Mr Ashton has lots of recommendations for students of all ages and reading abilities. 

• Each subject embeds literacy across the curriculum and teachers will help students to understand more challenging texts and the key words within these. 

What parents can/must do to ensure students are always at or above literacy levels:

• Read regularly with your child. Hear and see them read.

• Ask them about what they are reading.

• Encourage them to take books out of our library 

• Is your child a reluctant reader? What movies do they enjoy? Have you tried subtitles? What about the book of the film? Have you tried audiobooks? See Mr Ashton for recommendations!