Literacy

Literacy Vision:

At Steyning Grammar School we believe “Every teacher is a teacher of literacy and every child a reader.” Central to this are the three pillars of reading, language for learning and structured talk. Whilst students will encounter many of these activities across their subject lessons and tutor time, we strongly recommend and encourage parent and carers support at home especially with the reading elements. Please click here for an overview of our visible literacy strategies.

Reading initiatives: 

We have a broad range of reading programmes to support the visible literacy strategies in class, tutor time and at home. Please see the details of these below.

Year 7

• Reading Plus is a personalised online program that helps students develop skills to be confident, capable readers and lifelong learners. By using Reading Plus, your child will be able to read at a fluent rate with good comprehension. Students have the target to complete 30 minutes in English lessons and 30 minutes for homework per week. Please see the home learning guide for families and the loom video from our Head of School Aidan Timmons

Years 7 – 9

• Accelerated Reader is a computer program that helps teachers to manage and monitor children’s independent reading practice. Your child picks a book at his/her own level and reads it at his/her own pace. When finished, your child takes a short quiz on the computer – passing the quiz is an indication that your child has understood what has been read. Please see the parents’ guide for more information.

Tutor Reads and DEAR Time (Drop Everything and Read) are used to embed a culture of reading for pleasure and improve literacy progress. We achieve this through one morning Tutor Reads slot per week for Years 7 – 9 and 10 min DEAR Time everyday at the start of period 5 for Year 7 & 8. Please see the list of texts and student guides below: Year 7 – The Unforgotten Coat                                                                  Year 8  – Rat        Year 9 – Chinese Cinderella 

SGS digital library free online access for all students to a wide range of eBooks for reading for pleasure as well as support with researching information and super curricular reading links.

How can parents/carers support reading at home?

There are a wide variety of things you can do at home to help support reading and reading aloud more often. These include: 

• Encouraging 20 minutes of students reading at home a day (30 min of this for Year 7 students should be used for Reading Plus homework per week)
• Including a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts
• Listening to your child read aloud and discuss what they are reading
• Reading aloud to your child
• 10 reasons you should read aloud to big kids too
• Stuck for ideas? Try this recommended reading list!