Reading Fridays

At St. Patrick's, we take reading very seriously. We aim to encourage our children to enjoy reading and also help them to recognise how important it is to read.

All pupils in years 7, 8, 9 & 10 have one form time Reading Session per week, either Reading Tuesday or Reading Friday. Each week they will actively explore a text from a different area of the curriculum, accompanied by a Word of the Week. The texts are produced in a half termly booklet, so students have their own copy to follow and annotate. A prompt sheet encourages pupils to become more active in their understanding of the text.

They will be asked to:

• Predict what the text might be about
• Question ideas/themes/meanings within the text
• Clarify meanings of unfamiliar vocabulary
• Summarise what the text is about

This method is known as Active Reading or Reciprocal Reading.

The Form Tutor reads the text to the students and leads the sessions. There is also a weekly PowerPoint, highlighting the Word of the Week and the curriculum area of the text, helping the students to make cross curricular connections.

The Reading Booklets are differentiated for Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.

What is Reciprocal Reading?

Reciprocal Reading is a discussion-based approach to building students’ reading comprehension skills. It focuses on developing students’ effective comprehension skills across a range of texts they meet across different subject areas. The aim being that pupils will be able to use these strategies when reading independently.

This approach works by:

• Devoting more time to reading and allowing all pupils to become actively involved
• Exposing students to “good reading” modelled by the Form Tutor
• Helping develop pupils’ interest and engagement in reading
• Sharing cross-curricular texts throughout the academic year
• Encouraging and developing oracy

How can you help?

As well as encouraging reading for pleasure within school, the evidence is that support for this from within the home plays a huge part in improving your child's reading.

• Please ask your child/children what they are reading and show an interest.
• Ask them about the article /passage they have read in form time
• Ask them about the Word of the Week
• Encourage/remind them to have a book "on the go".
• Encourage them to join one of our book clubs.
• Encourage them to loan books from our well stocked library.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Lane, Literacy Coordinator at school.