Reading
‘Books crowbar the world open for you. They tell you things you didn’t know you didn’t know, and show you how vast and bold and beautiful and difficult and strange the world is.’ – Katherine Rundell
The English Department works closely with the LRC to support students’ learning and promote independent reading for pleasure.
In Year 7, 8 and 9 we utilise a platform called Sparx Reader to ensure that students practise precise, careful and independent reading every week. This enables the English Team to ensure that students are reading regularly and are rewarded for careful and precise reading. Students are able to access the Sparx platform using their school email address and password via any device that connects to the internet.
At KS4, the English department are able to direct students to re-read set texts on the platform to monitor students’ understanding and to support revision. At KS4, students will still have access to the Sparx library for independent reading if they wish.
Our LRC is organised so that students are able to select books from within their Sparx Reader Level and we utilise our LRC reading lessons to encourage reading for pleasure and monitor students’ ability to read out loud.
In order to support reading at TGS, we assess students’ reading age and fluency via the Sparx Reader platform at the beginning and end of the academic year. We then share this data across the school and implement intervention as needed. We have a variety of interventions in place such as Lexonic, Lexia, Nurture groups and Buddy Reading.
To find out more about our individual intervention programmes, please visit the sites below or contact Mrs Allwood: kallwood@Thealegreen.w-berks.sch.uk