Reading at Swindon Academy

At Swindon Academy, we believe that being fluent in reading and having access to a rich range of reading opportunities across the curriculum is the entitlement of all students. Through reading, students deepen their knowledge of the world, and it is vital for character development:

Reading Interventions

All students are tested to diagnose reading levels on entry to secondary school; a range of supportive reading interventions are in place to develop phonological awareness, decoding and fluency as required. 

In addition to this, all students in years 7 – 10 take part in Reading Intervention sessions twice a week. Reading data ensures that students are placed in the most appropriate group for their ability: Fluency, Comprehension or Inference.  These sessions aim to promote a love for literature as well as increasing students’ reading ages and abilities. Students in the comprehension and inference groups will study a full text as well as reading contextual information allowing them to complete written tasks to deepen their knowledge. The following texts have been chosen for the intervention curriculum:

 

Year 7    When a pilot crash-lands in the Sahara Desert, he meets a stranded, mysterious young boy from a tiny asteroid. As the pilot struggles to repair his plane, the boy shares stories of his interstellar travels and his deep love for a vain, capricious rose.	Year 8     Night by Elie Wiesel recounts the author's teenage years when he and his family were deported from their Hungarian hometown to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The book captures the systematic stripping of his humanity, the loss of his family, and his struggle to maintain faith in the face of absolute evil.
Year 9     In Agatha Christie's classic, The Body in the Library, the respectable Bantrys wake to find a murdered young woman strangled in their library at Gossington Hall. With no idea who she is, Dolly Bantry calls in her friend Miss Jane Marple to investigate the scandalous mystery before tongues start to wag.	Year 10     Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set against a backdrop of racial injustice in South Africa. It is a classic work of love, hope, and courage that explores themes of forgiveness and the dignity of man.

 

Reading across the curriculum

Students gain access to subject specific reading through well-sequenced reading opportunities across our curriculum. Reading strategies are used so that students gain skills in comprehension and, through exposure to a wide range of different writing styles, students can become expert readers. 

Every term, all students participate in ‘Disciplinary DEAR’ (Drop Everything and Read) across all their subjects. Teachers have carefully chosen a broad variety of texts that complement the curriculum and have prepared resources to help students comprehend the information. This is an opportunity for students to read together, complete written responses to the texts and for teachers to choose articles they are passionate about. 

Vocabulary is explicitly taught in all subjects and further supported using ‘Bedrock’ for prep. This platform teaches students new vocabulary through interactive games and quizzes whilst also encouraging reading. 

Reading for pleasure

We are passionate about promoting reading for pleasure; our library is a warm and welcoming space packed with exciting books for students to choose from. All key stage 3 classes have fortnightly opportunities to exchange books when they visit the library during English lessons. 

 

We celebrate reading and encourage students to use physical and online resources to access a wide range of reading materials in their spare time. Students in every year group are recognised and rewarded for their reading and can choose a prize from a selection of popular titles as well as an exciting variety of reading accessories. 

We have carefully selected the books for our reading Canon that students can borrow from the library. They are age-appropriate and expose students to a wide genre of texts including both fiction and non-fiction. These exciting books explore challenging themes and expose students to a wide variety of cultures, settings and characters.