King James's School
Literacy at King James's School
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Our vision for literacy |
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We do not under estimate the power of literacy and communication skills, and how vital these are for everybody in society. The ability to read fluently and articulate your ideas through speech and written forms, can provide individuals to a voice to shape their future. Margaret Fuller captures this well, "Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." Our vision here at King James's is to create a vibrant, literacy- rich environment where every student is empowered to reach their full potential through strong reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Literacy is the foundation of all learning, and we believe that fostering these skills is crucial for our students’ academic success, personal growth, and future opportunities. It is essential for students to be able to read proficiently, so they can access their daily learning within the classroom to confidently gain a secure set of skills and knowledge to progress towards their GCSEs. |
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Our aim is to ensure that we teach all our students at King James's to become an expert reader. This means that we aim to have all students reading and to read well, with confidence and fluency. Providing our students with these fundamental foundations of reading also provides them with other essentials such as decoding text, accuracy and fluency together with language comprehension
This secure grounding in reading will help our students in post-16 education and support them to participate fully in society.
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Literacy Approaches
As a school, our literacy approaches acknowledges not only the importance of reading, but also writing and oracy.
Click on the links to read more about our literacy at King James's School
Literacy approaches strategy document
Reading Tests
Assessing students twice a year allows us to identify those who may require additional support with reading. Further diagnostic testing allows us to create personalised intervention to help bridge these gaps in learning.
Intervention is grouped by three priority areas to help us create an effective intervention program.
Priority 1 intervention are our lowest readers. They receive one hour of intervention per week, plus tailored support from our SEND provision.
Priority 2 intervention receive one hour of intervention per week.
Priority 3 intervention take part in our reading buddies, where they have one 15 minute intervention slot per week.
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Why is reading so important at King James's School?
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Children’s Author, Kate DiCamillo describes how the pleasure of reading should be within us all, ‘Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, or a duty. It should be offered as a gift.’
It is this gift we are positively promoting at King James’s threaded throughout our curriculum, that we as a school are passionately striving towards achieving. Effective literacy across the curriculum will develop students’ ability to:
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Supporting my child at home with literacy
There are many things that you can do at home to support your child with reading. Here are some tips which we hope you will find useful.
- Make reading a routine at home - Find a regular time for reading in your child’s day, so that they can begin to expect it as part of their routine. This can be any time of day. You can encourage your child to track their reading using a weekly reading chart. This will help them celebrate their progress.
- Encourage your child to follow their interests - Do not worry about what they are reading. Let them read the same book, or same genre of reading material (such as football magazines!), over and over again. Repetition will help younger children learn words and understand how language is structured. Following their interests is also the best way to keep them engaged and make reading fun, which will make them more likely to want to read more widely going forward.
- Use technology together - National Literacy Trust research has found that, when used appropriately and with an adult, technology can provide an important route into reading for many children, including those in the early years, and boys. Feel free, at times, to use your mobile phones, tablets, computers, laptops and other devices to engage your child in reading and activities that can help them build their vocabulary.
- Talk about the book your child is reading - Research shows that children who engage regularly in conversational turn-taking with an adult learn faster when they’re older. Taking every opportunity to chat with your child will help them build the language and vocabulary skills they need for school.
What should my child be reading?
The answer is anything! Any form of reading to comics, magazines, fiction and non-fiction will support your child in reading.
We have picked out some selections of interesting reads that can be found in our ILC. We have categorised them into year group but we do recognise that reading ranges can vary.
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