Reading

All teachers at Ark Boulton are teachers of reading. As a school we understand that reading at chronological age and becoming a fluent reader allows success across the academic curriculum and socially. 

Universal strategies
Targeted strategies
Specialist

Universal strategies

Approaches are used across the curriculum disciplines to support students with fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Universal strategies include: 

  • Explicit teaching of vocabulary through signature strategies-inside, outside and beyond and 6 step vocabulary approach 

  • Guided annotation of texts to teach approaches on how to read and comprehend texts or differing backgrounds 

  • Reading opportunities in different disciplines across the curriculum including paired reading 

In order to further support pupils to improve their reading, all pupils sit an NGRT assessment at the start and end of the year to measure reading progress. The NGRT assessment is an adaptive assessment which responds to pupil ability. The assessment provides us with a reading age for all pupils.  

Following this, pupils are placed into targeted and specialist interventions to develop skills in their area of need. 

Targeted strategies

  1. All pupils with a reading age of 9 years and 7 months (or lower) are assessed on the Read Write Inc. Fresh Start curriculum. The Fresh Start programme supports students to progress in decoding, comprehension and fluency. Pupils are assessed every 5 weeks to ensure the intervention is adapted to their needs.  

  1. All pupils with a reading age of 13 years and 6 months (or lower) in year 9 and 10 are entered onto the PowerUp Lexia intervention. This is a personalised online programme which adapts to pupil need in vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. 

  1.  Whole School Reading programme. All students who are not in Fresh Start or Lexia intervention follow the Reading programme. Texts are carefully selected based on reading ages. Pupils develop their vocabulary, fluency and comprehension through session including explicit vocabulary teaching, paired reading and annotation of the text. 

Specialist

The NGRT assessment assessed pupils on vocabulary (via the sentence stanine) and comprehension (via the paragraph stanine).  

If there is a significant difference between vocabulary and comprehension, pupils are assessed in school against the Dyslexia Screener. Although this is not a Dyslexia assessment, it provides support in identifying areas of need such as processing, working memory and decoding. 

If both vocabulary and comprehension are low, and no or little improvement is seen in the first assessment, the pupil is assessed using the YARC reading assessment which provides a further reading age and areas of need in comprehension and fluency.  

If significant concerns are highlighted through the assessments, referrals can be made to external agencies including Pupil Support Services and Speech and Language Support.