Tudor Grange Academy Kingshurst recognises the importance of reading as an essential skill that allows pupils to access both the curriculum and the world around them. We are dedicated to becoming a reading RICH school to ensure we offer all of our pupils the opportunity to read rich texts across the curriculum and increase in their reading proficiency, as they become fluent and confident readers.

Our priority is to fully embed the reading RICH agenda across the curriculum to raise outcomes for all pupils and create a positive reading culture across the Academy. We are committed to prioritising reading as a whole academy approach. We aim to embed rich reading opportunities, challenging and diverse texts, and vocabulary instruction in to all lessons across the curriculum and to ensure that all learners have access to authentic reading opportunities across the curriculum.

What does it mean to be a Reading RICH school?

R – Right to read. Our children understand that enjoying being able to read fluently is their entitlement.

I – Interaction with the challenges of reading. Our children are resilient readers. They appreciate that reading is complex cognitive process that can be challenging because people process information differently.

C – Connect with ideas, voices and views with compassion and empathy. Our children read with an intent to understand rather than judge through genuine exposure to diverse thoughts and experiences.

H – Healthy understanding of the world is achieved. Our children are offered a broad and balanced view of the world, which counteracts the ‘echo chamber’ phenomenon. This healthy, open mind enables the capacity to authentically listen to alternative ideas.

How do we embed this whole-Academy Reading approach?

  • An ‘authentic’ and informed whole school reading culture is established.
  • Children access the specialist reading conventions of different subjects developing relevant disciplinary language.
  • There is a shared appreciation that building a child’s vocabulary bank is critical to reading fluency as it supports capacity to recognise and understand key language, but also decode and comprehend unfamiliar words within topics. This is evident through the whole school’s commitment to providing targeted vocabulary instruction in every subject to support understanding of more challenging academic texts.
  • There is clarity regarding the reading progress of all students and high-quality interventions for children who require additional support in securing reading skills.
  • Development of reading knowledge and skill is underpinned by a carefully constructed, ambitious English curriculum.

What is Reciprocal Reading on my child’s timetable?

Whole school reciprocal reading: a timetabled session every day for all students from Y7 – 13 between 8:50am – 9:15am using this approach as the basis for reading a text a term to and with our students.

Reciprocal reading (Palinscar and Brown, 1984) is a collaborative approach to reading comprehension. Pupils are trained, with expert modelling by the teacher, to take on the role of predictor, questioner, clarifier and summariser. These roles allow us pupils to infer and activate their prior knowledge and they can repeatedly check their comprehension. This allows us to model the act of reading and for them to practise it (‘Closing the Reading Gap’, Alex Quigley, 2020)

Texts are chosen carefully to reflect our intentions of:

  • To foster a love of reading through engagement and interest.
  • To expand pupils’ cultural capital by providing stories that explore different worlds, cultures, voices and experiences.
  • To develop core reading skills that pupils can transfer to every classroom.
  • To establish TGAK as a reading school in which all staff support that vision.
  • To develop our pupils’ oracy skills through guided and focussed discussing.
  • To encourage pupils to develop their own thoughts and opinions on challenging, yet relatable topics.

Term 1 texts:

  • Y7: ‘Windrush Child’ by Benjamin Zephaniah
  • Y8: ‘I am Legend’ by Richard Matheson
  • Y9: ‘Lionheart Girl’ by Yaba Bedoe
  • Y10: ‘Never Let me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Y11: ‘How to Stop Time’ by Matt Haig
  • Y12: ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ by Mya Angelou
  • Y13: ‘Song of Achilles’ by Madeline Miller

What other reading opportunities are there?

Reading in registration. Once a week, all students will complete a reading activity with their tutor by reading a piece of fiction or non-fiction together and discussing the key themes and main ideas approached in the reading. The extracts are specifically chosen to link to the ‘Knowledge is Power’ topics also discussed with tutors and focusses on culturally topical themes.

Extra-Curricular clubs. There are a series of reading clubs running at lunchtime and after school for pupils of different Key Stages that foster a love of reading and reading for pleasure. Please see the extra-curricular schedule for more information.

The Information Centre: An invaluable resource to support reading across the curriculum. A bookable space for lessons/interventions for immersion in a positive reading climate. Pupils are welcome to come in and read before school and at break and lunch times.

Reading interventions. A series of reading interventions to which pupils are invited are held at registration where a tutor will guide them through a reading programme designed to help them increase their reading proficiency.

World Book Day. Each year we celebrate this day through a series of activities both in class and at break and lunch time. This includes a book fair and a visiting author.