In September we introduced Reading Age testing for all students in Years 7 to 11. They will be tested this half-term and then again towards the end of the school year to monitor their progress. There is a strong correlation between Reading Age, attainment and personal development (cited in Clark and Rumbold, 2006). The evidence suggests that there is a positive relationship between how often a child reads, reading enjoyment and attainment (Clark 2011; Clark and Douglas 2011).
To help our students foster a love of reading early on, we are developing our reading strategies across Key Stage 3. In addition to encouraging independent reading for pleasure, Year 7 use the online book platform Fiction Express. Year 8 will be given a free book as part of the Book Buzz scheme run by The Book Trust and a new Year 9 Reading Challenge Scheme is to be launched with rewards for regular reading. Teachers are reading novels to their Key Stage 3 classes in English and tutors will also be reading to their forms later in the year.
The national picture tells us that once students arrive in secondary school, their reading decreases. There are many other demands on students’ time but we hope that raising the profile of reading in school will encourage them to find books and authors they enjoy and get into the habit of reading regularly - for fun! To quote Frank Serafini, Professor of Literacy Education and Children’s Literature: “There is no such thing as a child who hates to read, there are only children who have not found the right book.”
We also have a number of reading resources throughout the LRC pages in the School Life section of CongletonHigh.com. Here you can find a recommended Key Stage 3 reading list, Books of the Week, student book reviews and a number of useful websites.