Reading

Reading 

At New Mills School, we see reading as the key to empowering our students not only in the classroom but as a fundamental skill for life. Time and time again, evidence shows that students with poor reading skills struggle to access the curriculum. It is therefore essential that we work relentlessly to support our students at all levels in becoming the best readers they can be. 

In Class

In each lesson, subject specific vocabulary is identified and explicitly taught at the start. It is then reinforced throughout. Teachers use a range of strategies to ensure that this vocabulary is encountered in a range of settings and is securely understood by all.

Reading aloud fluently is a highly complex skill. Students benefit from hearing expert readers read. When teachers read to students, they hear a text read fluently, with appropriate pace, expression and intonation. Because of this, teachers read the overwhelming majority of texts in class. Where students are asked to read aloud, it will in small groups or for a clearly stated purpose.

Reading Lessons

In order to become empowered readers, young people need to read widely and often. By doing so, they encounter a wider range of vocabulary and develop strategies that support their understanding of different types of texts. To support our students, all classes in Years 7-9 have one dedicated lesson per fortnight in the library.

The aims of this lesson are to

• ensure that students have an opportunity to read
• ensure all students have a reading book that is appropriate to them
• ensure students have access in school to the Sparx Reader platform 
• ensure that all students are supported and encouraged in reading for pleasure.

Tutor Group Reading

At New Mills School, we read together as a form every week. All form groups read a range of fiction and non-fiction texts throughout the year. All students have a copy of the text in front of them and follow along with the text as it is being read. This allows students to engage with challenging vocabulary and themes in a structured and supportive setting. We use The Day news platform to read and discuss topical articles that help students broaden their knowledge of world events. We also read a selection of fiction texts that increase in challenge each year. These texts range from ‘The Boy in the Tower’ in Year 7 and classics including ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ in Year 9 to a selection of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and ‘Oliver Twist’ at Key Stage 4. 

Extra support

Effective intervention is impossible without effective assessment. We use the NGRT (New Group Reading Test) which assesses recognition of sounds, word recognition, reading comprehension and reading speed to assess our students twice a year.

The students are assigned a Reading Pathway based on the strengths and areas for development as assessed by the NGRT. The students are then assigned interventions and/ or further assessment to identify the specific support required. 

Reading Pathway (RP) Intervention Programme

The intervention programmes we use aim to support our students at all levels. We use the Lexonik programme to support those students who have gaps in their phonics knowledge. This programme is specifically designed to target secondary students and helps them make rapid progress to catch up with their peers. This intervention is delivered in groups and as  one to one sessions depending on the needs of our students.

We also use interventions to help improve students’ comprehension skills. The Reading Box programme is a one to one programme that gradually builds students’ understanding of increasingly complex texts.

Fluent reading is a skill that requires practice. As such, we have developed a fluency and oracy workshop programme based on studies by noted fluency specialists such as Rasinski. These workshops use techniques such as choral and echo reading to help students improve the fluency of their reading and build their confidence as public orators. These sessions are run by our English specialist Higher Level Teaching Assistant.

The Sparx Reader programme is used to help all our students practise skilled reading at speed. This online platform is used by the majority of our students as a practice tool for weekly homework. Students who are identified by the NGRT as requiring time for sustained and thoughtful reading as their next step on their Reading Pathway also have additional time to use Sparx Reader during form time.

We believe these interventions support our students in making the best possible progress towards their reading goals.

World Book Day

Each year we celebrate World Book Day as a school. Last March, teachers and support staff dressed up to personify a word. Students were then challenged to collect as many words as they could.

Clubs

We celebrate reading and the written word in many of our extra-curricular clubs. These range from our weekly reading group who meet to read together in the library during social time to our debate club who, this year, have researched and debated topics including the use of capital punishment, the merits of different political systems and restrictions around the use of fire-arms.

Our Ukrainian club have also focused on reading this year and we are particularly proud of the dual-language Christmas storybook that the students wrote and illustrated to send to Ukrainian students in our local primary schools.