We place a high priority on reading at Crawshaw Academy. Our vision is for every student to be a reader.

Students’ enjoyment of reading has been developed through the “Crawshaw Book Club” initiative. Form time has been reconfigured to ensure students have more time to listen to some key texts which develop their cultural capital, expose them to new ideas and experiences and which align to the personal development programme.  

The aims of the Crawshaw Book Club are to:

• Create a reading culture
• Model fluency
• Broaden vocabulary
• Complement our ‘Curriculum for Life’ curriculum
• Increase cultural capital
• Develop the skills of prediction, recall and retrieval.

The books for each year group are shown here:

 

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Sparx Reader:

This year we have also launched Sparx Reader (www.sparxreader.com) to our KS3 cohorts. This is an online independent homework platform to develop personalised learning, reading and comprehension.

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Reading Lessons

We have planned a reading programme which uses 30 minutes a week of English curriculum time and is delivered in the LRC.

The intention of the LRC lesson is to foster in our students a wider interest in reading. Reading then empowers students to become more articulate, confident speakers and writers.    

Our LRC lessons are multi-faceted –

• Students are given half an hour per week to read for pleasure a range of books of their choice.
• Students can choose to borrow and take home a book from a wide range of fiction and non-fiction (covering all genres and forms). This is particularly important as some of our students may not have access to books, at home.
• The librarian reads at the same time, thus acting as an inspirational role model who shares her passion for Literature. 
• During the LRC lesson, teaching staff provide intervention for less engaged readers. Teachers take out 5/6 students and use reciprocal reading strategies to approach a range of fiction and non-fiction that students will find interesting. The intention of this session is to engage all students in reading and to use the texts as a starting point for discussion.

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Intervention for struggling readers

Alongside our curriculum and literacy toolkit, we provide appropriate interventions to strengthen our student’s learning and ensuring extra support is given where required. 

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Academic Vocabulary (Tier 3 terminology)

We ensure that academic words and phrases are explicitly taught so that students are equipped with the skill to use them confidently in a variety of contexts. As part of the process, the learners listen to the teacher modelling the correct use of a word before using the words in their own work.