Literacy
Literacy is fundamental in every Learning Area at St Wilfrid’s. In each subject, we promote the importance of being able to:
- Communicate fluently, effectively and confidently in speech;
- Become attentive, discriminating and responsive listeners;
- Write with confidence, flair and precision; and
- Develop as discriminating and appreciative lifelong readers.
Literacy Intervention
If your child is struggling with any of the areas listed above, they may be selected for small-group literacy intervention.
Literacy intervention takes place during LRC reading lessons each week. It is taught by Mr Kirkham and coordinated by Mrs Latchford Mattinson (the reading support team). They work with small groups of students to improve their skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening.
As part of our commitment to supporting literacy development, we have recently introduced Lexonik, a specialist intervention programme designed to rapidly improve vocabulary, reading fluency, and comprehension. Lexonik provides targeted instruction in decoding and word structure, giving students powerful strategies to access and understand academic texts across the curriculum.
This programme has been particularly successful in helping students make accelerated progress in a short space of time, and it complements our existing interventions to ensure every student can thrive in all subject areas.
If you have any questions about the literacy provision at the Academy, please get in touch via: wlatchford-mattinson@saintwilfrids.com.
Accelerated Reader
We are currently focussing on reading skills with Year 7 in their Learning for Life lessons. To this end, we are now using a reading programme on iPads called Accelerated Reader – an excellent tool used in schools around the globe to improve the reading habits of young people.
Here at St Wilfrid’s, we value the power of reading and how it can transform a student’s competence in terminal exams and in future life. In order to ensure that reading is given prominence in the curriculum, we have elected to use Accelerated Reader.
We are initially using this with Year 7 and are planning to roll it out to more year groups in the future.
The scheme accurately assesses the reading level of each pupil and gives them a ZPD. This is a reading range score which informs students as to which books they should be reading. These books will be accessible and challenging—they will maximise the reading progress made by your child.
After each book is read, students are asked to log into their Accelerated Reader app on their iPad to take a quiz. This quiz assesses their comprehension. Students are required to correctly answer at least 85% of the quiz questions to progress onto a more challenging book.
Each book read accrues points for the student. These points build up, and students can receive certificates, gain a place on the leaderboard in the LRC, and even win prizes.