Reading

At Bradford Academy, we are keen for children to read from an early age to enable them to be confident readers throughout their lives. We aim to help children have a positive attitude towards reading and enjoy it as part of their love of learning. Reading benefits children in many ways and a child who reads every day will develop writing skills essential to all subjects across school.

Our Learning Resource Centre has a variety of books, fiction and non-fiction, from different genres in order to encourage reading and every week we have an Author of the Week display to showcase authors and books of interest. Our LRC Manager, Julie, works with learners to compile books recommendations that foster a community of readers.

How parents and carers can help encourage reading for enjoyment

We would like you to encourage your child to read every night for at least 20 minutes. Numerous studies have proven that daily reading positively impacts academic achievement and performance.

Things you can do to help your child enjoy reading:

  • Encourage your child to choose a book that interests them
  • Ask them questions to make sure they have understood what has happened
  • Get them to make predictions about the book
  • Use positive encouragement
  • Encourage them to use the library regularly

Research by the Institute of Education has illustrated young people who read for pleasure are likely to do significantly better at school. As a community (home and school), our aim is to broaden our children’s reading horizon whilst bolstering their reading ability on a steady, measurable scale.

BA Bookworms Programme

To encourage learners to celebrate a love of reading, we will be running the BA Bookworms Programme throughout the year. Learners are encouraged to read at least 6 of the 10 books in the programme and participate in events across the year. These events will allow learners the opportunity to meet to discuss their opinions on the books, ask questions and share their love of reading with one another.

Any learner who completes the 6 book challenge will receive a certificate for their participation in the programme, as well as being involved in the End of Year celebration in which we choose our favourite book. For more information, speak with Julie in the library.

Reading Intervention Sessions

At the secondary level, we offer two different specialist-led sessions to support pupils with their reading. These sessions run 2 to 4 times a week and have no more than 4 students at a time, allowing for a nurturing environment.

Fresh Start Phonics

In Phonics sessions, we use the Fresh Start Programme to offer an individualised programme to students whose reading age is below their chronological age. Sessions focus on improving students’ reading accuracy, fluency and stamina by improving their ability to decode. The goal of Fresh Start is to maximise students’ reading potentials, regardless of starting point, enabling these learners to access the wider curriculum across school.

For more information on the Fresh Start programme, please visit their website: About Fresh Start – Ruth Miskin Literacy

Inference Intervention

Inference Intervention teaches KS3 pupils who decode adequately but are unable to fully comprehend what they are reading; this can include children who are learning English as an additional language or who have limited vocabulary. According to research by Andersen and Pearson (1984), those who are proficient in reading use their prior knowledge as well as textual information to draw conclusions, make critical judgements and form interpretations from the text read. Inference training demonstrates a wide range of strategies through “instructional conversations” to help boost reading comprehension and develop the ability to critically engage with a variety of texts.