‘It starts with reading’
At Oriel, we believe that reading is the foundation to success across all subjects. We know that when a child can read with fluency and comprehension, their ability to learn becomes simpler and quicker, making their life in education more accessible. For this reason, we prioritise reading development in several ways.
We aim to foster a culture of reading at Oriel, where students enjoy reading as well as understand the importance of its functionality. We have an excellently resourced library with an enthusiastic and highly knowledgeable librarian who is passionate about children’s fiction. Our Year 7 and 8 students attend one library lesson bi-weekly where their reading progress is tracked and encouraged by their English teacher and they are read to as a group by their teacher, allowing for group discussion and exploring inference which develops their reading skills. When students have finished reading a library book, they can take a comprehension quiz on Accelerated Reader to improve their reading progress. They can access this at home or in the library; the link is below. Additionally, we celebrate World Book Day and run many competitions around reading throughout the year, encouraging our students to read more outside of school. In Year 7, all our students participate in BookBuzz, where they choose a book from a selection to keep.
We believe that reading is a crucial part of all subjects. In each subject, reading has been identified as a key area of development to include teaching of subject specific vocabulary and providing students with wider reading around their subject.
We have a strong focus on guided reading at Oriel as we believe that it is crucial to developing our students’ reading fluency and comprehension. Each term our students are tested on Accelerated Reader so that we can monitor the progress of these skills. If you would like to hear more about what we are focusing on at Oriel in relation to reading, or how you can help your child progress at home, please email:
Esme Godden
Director of Learning – Reading
egodden@oriel.w-sussex.sch.uk