At  Swanwick Hall School, we take the development of students’ literacy extremely seriously. All of our staff are trained, and supported, to be teachers of literacy. We know from research that students who leave school without good literacy skills are held back at every stage of their life. Developing students’ literacy is a priority to meet our mission of enhancing students’ life choices and enabling them to make a positive contribution to the world we share.

All The Two Counties Trust schools are working on embedding five key strategies to embed literacy across the curriculum, these are:

  • Implementing a Trust-wide word of the week strategy.
  • Resourcing, tracking and monitoring teacher (fiction) recommendations to students.
  • Resourcing, tracking and monitoring fiction reading lists for each year group.
  • Structuring talk/oracy expectations , e.g. speaking in full sentences.
  • Embedding Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary across all subjects.

How can Families support literacy at home?

The most valuable thing that families can do is to encoruage their child to read for pleasure. It is important to encourage children to read regularly for a minimum of 20 minutes every night.

Reading regularly is proven to develop imagination as well as increase vocabulary and improve spelling, writing, and speaking skills. Reading frequently also helps to create empathy towards others, develop critical thinking skills, and increase confidence and improve mental health. Regular reading boosts the chances of gaining better grades in all subject areas across secondary school, which will result in improving career prospects in later life. Reading can also be fun and enjoyable for children.

It is important that your child is reading a suitable book. If your child needs support selecting a book, they can speak to their tutor who will arrange a library visit with Mrs Gonsai, our school librarian, who will be happy to help.

Reading with your child is another fantastic way to support literacy. Just because your children are older, it doesn’t mean you need to stop sharing stories. Whilst reading together, talk about word meanings, discuss new or interesting words. Ask questions before, during and after reading together to help develop ‘infectious enthusiasm’ about the book you are reading together.

Other fantastic ways to support literacy at home:

  • Play word games e.g. Taboo, Scrabble, Articulate
  • Watch quiz shows together e.g. the Chase
  • Engage in conversations about the news and world events
  • Model reading behaviour at home
  • Talk about school
  • Review homework together
  • Have a family bookshelf with a mixture of your famalies favourite books, newspapers and magazines
  • Subcribe to magazines that your child might be interested in
  • Spend time to take a trip to a library or book store together to select a new book to read
  • Listen to audio books or podcasts in the car
  • Have some technology down time where you focus as a family to engage in reading
  • Buy books as presents
  • Encourage your child to bring a book to school every day

School specific literacy strategies

Hushed reading

In all year groups students take part in hushed reading or revision daily from 8.45-9.00am.

FASE Reading

FASE (Fluent, Accountable, Social, Expressive) Reading- creating opportunities to read aloud in lessons as well as during KS3 tutor time once a week.

This is an approach to whole class shared reading. This strategy aims to:

  • encourage all students contribute
  • encourage accountability from all
  • maximise the benefits of shared reading for all students
  • leverage time spending reading with students to improve fluency, decoding and comprehension
  • make reading aloud more fun and manageable for both students and teachers

DEAL

Every month, across KS3, our students take part in ‘drop everything and listen.’ This takes the form of a rolling read for the first ten minutes of every lesson from periods one to five. Our fantastic librarian carefully selects a fiction book that is split into extracts for teachers to read throughout the day. Once again this provides students with a positive and pleasurable reading experience.

Reading Ages

Reading ages are available on Class Charts. Students are tested twice a year to allow staff to make use of this data when planning.  In addition, focused interventions are provided for students who are not yet at their chronological reading age.

Phonics Reading Intervention

Reading Intervention