We firmly believe in the importance of reading at Wolfreton, and over recent years we have made a real commitment to further develop reading opportunities and skills.  Our reading strategy is designed around three strands: Reading for Pleasure, providing targeted support for our weakest readers (Reading Recovery) and finally Reading for Purpose.   

Reading for Pleasure 

Intent: To promote an ethos and culture of reading across the school. 

• Love Reading is our lower school Tutor Reading Programme.  One morning each week, students across Years 7 – 9 read a selected text to their tutor group.  This text is selected from the Wolfreton Canon, providing a taster that can ignite interest whilst developing reading skills in the morning session.    

• Wolfreton’s Library occupies a commanding position in the heart of the school, clearly communicating that ‘reading matters’.  The library is home to an excellent range of books to ensure that our students really can develop a love of reading either in a particular genre or a range of genres.  Our dedicated librarian promotes reading through competitions and activities including a Book Club, a Writing Club, a Student Author Shelf and the Library Committee.  The half-termly Reading Newsletter keeps everyone up to date.   

• The Wolfreton Canon is a collection of 100 books to read during your journey through school.  The books have been carefully selected to build cultural capital and provide a challenge to all. Categories include contemporary fiction, non-fiction, well-being and self-help, LGBTQ+ / relationship themed, literary heritage and race, diversity and modern challenges. Students can engage with our ‘Canon Challenge’ which rewards students for reading from the collection. 

Targeted Support for Reading (Reading Recovery) 

Intent: To assess and implement the recovery strategies required for catch up  

• Access Reading Tests (ART) - At the start of Year 7, all students complete an online ART test.  The results from ART tests allow us to confirm baseline reading ages, diagnose specific areas of need and target support programmes. Our readers in need of further support are identified and highlighted to their teachers so that wave 1 interventions can be in place, meaning that our learners are able to access the curriculum. 

• Targeted support – Across Key Stage 3, our weakest readers are supported to accelerate their progress in reading.  In Year 7, this includes 12-week blocks of either Read Write Inc Fresh Start (for those with a score below 85) or Reading Plus (for those with a score of 85 – 95).  Follow-up testing confirms progress after each block, with further support provided through our Reading Focus programme in the second half of Year 7, and into Year 8 and 9 as required. 

At Key Stage 4, students who would benefit from ongoing support will have a literacy booster and a further intervention programme. Intervention is guided by robust data analysis from our learning support team. 

Reading for Purpose 

Intent: To embed effective pedagogy across all staff in the teaching of reading with a focus on reading comprehension across curriculum 

• School Reading Strategy – Across the school, teachers use the Wolfreton High 5 approach to help students in all subjects to deconstruct texts and to teach reading.  This has 3 main steps: pre-teaching, modelling and following up.  To ensure understanding and maximise learning, subject specific comprehension is vitally important.   Leaders and teachers have explicitly built Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary teaching into their curriculum delivery to help students to widen their lexicon. 

• Disciplinary Reading - A school-wide disciplinary reading approach to enable students to ‘Read to learn’. Students understand how to ‘Read like a [historian]’ by providing them with the key skills to access subject specific texts. 

• Mastery Reading Lesson - All Key Stage 3 students follow reading curriculum during a literacy mastery hour once a fortnight.  The curriculum develops reading strategies including reciprocal reading and the pre-teaching of Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary.  During these lessons, a reading rubric is utilised to assess fluency when students read to their teacher or to our librarian.  Progress is recorded after each reading opportunity.