1. How to help your child succeed at school
The Key to Success
How to help your child succeed at school

2. Session aims
To share with you the urgent need to improve our students’ literacy
To explore book, barriers, and benefits
To share with you what we are doing in school
To share what you can do as parents/carers to help

3. Why does it matter?
To access the new (mostly un-tiered) GCSE examinations, our students will need a reading age of 15+ (used to be 13+)
Therefore all students need their reading age to keep pace with their chronological age because if the gap persists and/or widens, they will not be able to access the exams or the curriculum to prepare for the exams

4. The vision
To ensure every child can access the GCSE curriculum in every subject
To ensure that every child can read and understand the questions/texts in their GCSE exams
To increase opportunities for reading and access to texts of different styles and genres
To create life long readers and learners

5. The bar has been raised
Let’s have a look at the new style GCSE in English
Four papers!
Language paper 1 and 2
Literature paper 1 and 2

6. Language Paper 2 – an example
Writers’ viewpoints and perspectives
Source A newspaper article 2013
Source B two letters from the 1820s

7. Books barriers & benefits
Over to you!

8. The Power of ‘YET’!

9. Here are 10 Reasons Why Students Should Read More Books:

10. 1. To Develop Their Verbal Abilities
Although it doesn’t always make you a better communicator, those who read tend to have a more varied range of words to express how they feel and to get their point across. This increases exponentially with the more volumes you consume, giving you a higher level of vocabulary to use in everyday life.

11. 2. To improve Focus and Concentration
Unlike blog posts and news articles, sitting down with a book takes long periods of focus and concentration, which at first is hard to do. Being fully engaged in a book involves closing off the outside world and immersing yourself into the text, which over time will strengthen your attention span.

12. 3. Readers Enjoy The Arts and Improve The World
A study done by the NEA (National Education Association) explains that people who read for pleasure are many times more likely than those who do not to visit museums and attend concerts, and almost three times as likely to perform volunteer and charity work. Readers are active participants in the world around them, and that engagement is critical to individual and social well-being.

13. 4. It Improves Your Imagination
You are only limited by what you can imagine, and the worlds described in books, as well as other people’s views and opinions, will help you expand your understanding of what is possible. By reading a written description of an event or a place, your mind is responsible for creating that image in your head, instead of having the image placed in front of you when you watch television.

14. 5. Reading Makes You Smarter
Books offer an outstanding wealth of learning and at a much cheaper price than taking a course. Reading gives you a chance to consume huge amount of research in a relatively short amount of time. Anne E. Cunningham and Keith E. Stanovich’s ’What Reading does for the Mind’ also noted that heavy readers tend to display greater knowledge of how things work and who or what people were. Books at home have been strongly linked to academic achievement.

15. 6. It Makes You More Interesting
This goes hand in hand with reading to become smarter. Having a library of information that you have picked up from non-fiction reading will come in handy in any academic or scholarly conversation. You will be able to hold your own and add to the conversation instead of having to make your excuses and leave.  You will be able to engage a wider variety of people in conversation and in turn improve your knowledge and conversation skills.

16. 7. It Reduces Stress
A study by consultancy firm Mindlab International at the University of Sussex showed that reading reduces stress. Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started.

17. 8. It Improves Your Memory
In their book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf explains that “Typically, when you read, you have more time to think. Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight. By and large, with oral language “when you watch a film or listen to a CD, you don’t press pause.” The benefits of this increased activity keeps your memory sharp and your learning capacity nimble.

18. 9. To Discover and Create Yourself
In his book How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom says that we should read slowly, with love, openness, and with our inner ear cocked. He explains we should read to increase our wit and imagination, our sense of intimacy–in short, our entire consciousness–and also to heal our pain. “Until you become yourself, what benefit can you be to others.” With the endless amount of perspectives and lives we can read about, books can give us an opportunity to have experiences that we haven’t had the opportunity to, and still allow us to learn the life skills they entail. Books are a fast track to creating yourself.

19. 10. For Entertainment
All the benefits of reading mentioned so far are a bonus result of the most important benefit of reading; Its entertainment value. If it were not for the entertainment value, reading would be a chore but it needn’t be. Reading is not only fun, but it has all the added benefits that we have discussed so far. Much more enthralling than watching a movie or a TV show (although they have their many benefits as well), a good book can keep us amused while developing our life skills.

21. Reading
For pleasure
For understanding

22. data

23. READING at LCA DEAR Time Every teacher in every lesson
Partnership with parents
Accelerated Reader
Lexia

24. George Sampson (writing in 1921)
‘Every teacher is a teach of English because every teacher is a teacher in English. We cannot give a lesson in any subject without helping or neglecting the English of our pupils’.

25. DEAR TIME Two or 3 20 minute sessions per week
Whole class tutor reads:
Fiction in Years 7 & 8
Biographies and autobiographies in Year 9
Current affairs – ‘THE DAY’ in Years 10 & 11
Use of ‘ Reading Tasks’ – booklets in every tutor space
Books we are reading…

26. First Step Intervention

27. Lexia programme Spelling, punctuation, and comprehension
Increased number of students on intervention
Measuring impact from end of October to end of January
Pre test – post test
Interesting trends:
All students attainment is improving
Attendance impacts hugely on progress - attendance in Lexia is regularly monitored and VIVOs are used to reward students getting to next levels of progress

28. Lexia programme Spelling, punctuation, and comprehension
Interesting trends: Year 7 10 middle attaining students increased reading age by 8 months 20 lower attaining students increased their reading age by 2 months Year 8 9 middle attaining students increased their reading age by 6 months

29. Next Step Intervention

30. ‘Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.’
Maya Angelou

31. Accelerated Reader
AR is a computer program that helps schools manage and monitor students’ independent reading practice.
A child picks a book at his/her level and reads it at his/her pace.
When finished the child takes a short quiz on the computer.
Passing the quiz is an indication that he/she has understood what has been read.
Since learners are reading at their own reading and interest levels, most children are likely to be successful and enjoy the books and quizzes

32. Accelerated Reader Performance improves with practice.
Children who read 20 minutes a day with 90% comprehension on AR quizzes, make the greatest gains
We hope to offer 20 minutes of reading 3 times a week in tutor time or PSHCE/English lessons
We need you as parents to encourage daily reading practice at home (more about how later)

33. Accelerated Reader & STAR reading test
STAR reading a computer based adaptive reading test is used to assess each child’s reading level and recommend a ZPD (the range of books that will challenge a child without causing frustration or loss of motivation)
The interest level indicates for which age group a book is appropriate based on the content and themes
All the AR books in our library are currently being labelled with a difficulty level on the spine and other AR information on the inside back cover.
The STAR reading test will be conducted at the start of the academic year and at the end of each term to measure progress.

35. Accelerated Reader & AR BOOKFINDER
AR Bookfinder can help learners find suitable books both within our library and beyond.
It can also be accessed by you as parents so that they can check the suitability of a book for their child or get recommended reads for Christmas/birthday gift ideas.

37. Looe library https://www.gov.uk/local-library-services Opening Hours
Tuesday9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Wednesday Closed
Thursday9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Friday9:30 AM - 1:30 PM
Saturday10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Sunday Closed
Monday Closed
Free parking spaces
6 Public use computers

39. How can you encourage your children to read?
1. Set an example – let them see you reading for pleasure. 2. Furnish your home with a variety of reading materials – leave books, magazines and newspapers around. Check to see what disappears for a clue as to what interests your child. 3. Give them an opportunity to choose their own books – browse in a book store or library when out together – go your separate ways and make your own selections – giving a book token is a nice way of saying ‘you choose’.

40. How can you encourage your children to read?
4. Build on their interests – look for books or articles that feature their favourite sports tem, rock stars, hobbies or TV shows – give a gift subscription to a special interest magazine. 5. View pleasure reading as a value in itself – almost everything your youngsters read – even comics- helps build reading skills. 6. Read some books written for youngsters – young adult or middle years novels can give you valuable insights into the concerns and pressures felt by teenagers. You may find these books provide a neutral ground on which to talk about sensitive subjects.

41. How can you encourage your children to read?
7. Make reading aloud a natural part of family life – share an article from the newspaper, a letter, or a random page from a reference book or magazine – without turning it into a lesson. 8. Acknowledge your child’s maturing interests – look for ways to acknowledge the emerging adult in your youngsters by suggesting some adult reading you think they can handle. 9. Keep the big picture in mind – for all sorts of reasons, some children go through periods without showing much interest in reading – don’t panic – use some of these tips to try to rekindle their interest!