Reading and Literacy Programme

At City Academy Norwich, we know that creating a culture of reading is the one thing that will help ensure that our students have the ability to achieve their potential in school and beyond. 
We work together to foster a love of reading which will stay with our students into their adult life; cultivating readers with a passion for a wide range of materials will ensure that children’s love of reading will extend beyond the classroom. 

A culture of reading is also crucial to the academic progression of our students. Our students’ success in their final exams at the end of YR11 depends on their ability to read with confidence. Every year we witness the students who read for pleasure, and work hard in interventions to improve their reading ages, achieve the highest grades. Most GCSE specifications are expecting more independent reading from students; their own research and revision rely heavily on their ability to read and interpret texts; their exam responses require an ability to read and understand that the examiner requires; their own responses need to be carefully checked. We focus on reading in KS3, ensuring students have the foundations needed for their GCSE studies 

Form tutors take time to read to their form most days, pausing to check for understanding and deliberately teaching pupils new vocabular Students are expected to follow along and engage in the reading strategies we have developed. Students are provided with a wide range of reading materials with the aim of both helping them improve their reading and increasing their wider knowledge and, what is sometimes referred to as “cultural capital”. 
 

Intervention at CAN

Depending on a pupils' reading age, we may need to intervene. We have three main waves of intervention depending on how far pupils are away from their reading ages:

Wave 1: Pupils who are on or above their reading age are encouraged to stretch and challenge their reading habits through the CANon, their library lessons, and reading in form. 

Wave 2: Pupils who are up to one year below their reading age will receive a reading intervention such as Reading Solutions to accelerate their progress by focussing on their comprehension, inference and vocabulary skills. 

Wave 3: Pupils who are over a year below their reading age may receive an intervention during their form slot. These interventions are designed to improve pupils' fluency - their ability to read texts with confidence.
 On top of this, staff at CAN are aware of pupils reading ages and adapt their resources accordingly. We passionately believe that a pupils' reading age should not be allowed to remain a barrier to pupils' success.  All City Academy Norwich teachers take every opportunity to explicitly model reading strategies and fluency, demonstrating their own thinking aloud (meta-cognition of learning).