Reading Programmes

At Writhlington we recognise the importance of independent reading for pleasure and aim to encourage this in all of our students to support their development and success. The Accelerated Reader (AR) programme will also help develop reading and comprehension skills which will ultimately impact immensely across the whole curriculum and benefit students as they progress towards their GCSEs.

There are over 30,000 books registered on the Accelerated Reader programme giving students plenty of choice.

Once a student has completed an Accelerated Reader book, they should take a quiz on its contents. These quizzes can be accessed at school or at home, through the Accelerated Reader student homepage. There are rewards for reading, and for doing well on these quizzes. We cannot stress highly enough the importance of maintaining regular reading then completing quizzes on the books to show understanding.

Students should have an Accelerated Reader book with them every day. If a student would like to bring a book from home instead of using our school library, you can check whether it is registered on Accelerated Reader at www.arbookfind.co.uk.

Each day, students – in morning registration – will have a DEAR time session daily (Drop Everything and Read) which offers a perfect opportunity for them to read their Accelerated Reader book. However, reading at home is also a vital part of development. Ideally, students should read for at least twenty minutes a day at home and many students will still benefit from an adult listening to them read.

If you need any more information please email Jo Newland, Head of Literacy via our contact form.

We use data from the GL Suite of reading assessments to inform our reading intervention programme. This comprises of:

• First wave intervention reading takes place during reading lessons. This uses comprehension and inference reading to ensure students grasp the content of what they are reading.
• Literacy Plus: students who are up to 1 year behind their chronological age in reading are monitored by our Librarian. She checks they are regularly completing book quizzes and achieving higher than 80% on their book quizzes, providing support and guidance as and when needed.
• SEND Literacy Catch up: Students who are more than 1 year behind chronological age have an individualised programme to support them whether this be securing their phonics, developing comprehension or improving reading fluency.

Rapid Plus, caters for KS3 learners with reading ages between 6 years and 6 months and 9 years and 6 months. Students in small groups take part in a twice weekly reading intervention with a fully trained TA or HLTA. Students progress through the books improving both their reading fluency and comprehension skills. Each stage has a number of books, each book is divided into a fiction and non-fiction text.