Literacy skills relate to our ability to communicate effectively, in a variety of ways, to a range of audiences. Literacy encompasses the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Students need to have good literacy skills in order to engage with the written word in everyday life.
Being able to read and write means being able to keep up with current events, communicate effectively, and understand the issues that shape the world around our students.
Here at Trinity Catholic College we believe that it is vital that we provide our students with the essential literacy skills that will enable them to achieve both academic success and allow them to succeed within their chosen career. Opportunities for reading, the acquisition of vocabulary and developing good written and oral communication are given daily across all curriculum areas.
Reading
‘When we teach students to read with precision, rigour and insight, we are truly handing over the key to the kingdom. Of all the subjects we teach reading is the first among all equals.’ Doug Lemov, Reading Reconsidered (2016)
Developing the habit of reading is crucial. This is why it sits at the heart of our
Literacy provision. Our provision draws upon the 4 core NPCAT values linked to
reading:
- Reading is a habit. Like all habits, it needs repetition, practice and regularity to establish itself.
- Children are given the opportunity to read frequently and aloud.
- Teachers are advocates of reading and read beautifully to children.
- Stories are the beating heart of our curriculum.
We are passionate about our children developing a lifelong love of reading. No child should be too shy to read aloud, no child should fear or dislike reading – all children should read, every day.
At Trinity pupils receive daily opportunities to read aloud together in all
curriculum areas. Teachers plan opportunities for shared and “close” reading of
difficult texts to allow pupils to practise and understand more complex
vocabulary. Teachers use a range of effective reading strategies including Turn
on the subtitles, FASE, Choral and Echo reading. These strategies mean our pupils
are exposed to carefully planned daily reading which systematically builds their
fluency, text comprehension and love of reading during their time with us.
Support for struggling readers
For those pupils who have fallen behind with reading we provide additional
support and extra practice.
Pupils who have difficulty with decoding and/or language comprehension will
complete an intervention based on their specific reading need; “reading for
fluency” or a Systematic Synthetic Phonics intervention (Lexonik Leap). Pupils
receive regular reading practice delivered by a team of trained teaching
assistants.
Reading for Pleasure
Research indicates that reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a
child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’
educational background or their income; this is why we are so passionate about
instilling in all our pupils a love of reading for pleasure.
Throughout the academic year there are multiple opportunities for pupils to
immerse themselves in reading; whether it’s reading our weekly news articles
which are in the Dining room, participating in World Book Day, enjoying a new
book at the Ravenous Readers enrichment club or an old favourite in the
Reading Cafe or reading with their form group there is something for everyone.
Trinity Catholic College Learning Resource Centre
We want all students and staff to be passionate about and love reading. Our
friendly LRC manager oversees and organises our wonderfully stocked library
and offers enrichment clubs every night to encourage students to get involved in
reading. We have the newest titles and old favourites which pupils can take
home to read in their own time or enjoy in our daily break and lunchtime
Reading Clubs.
Turn on the Subtitles
The Turn on the Subtitles campaign has collected evidence from world leading
researchers to demonstrate the benefits of Same Language Subtitles (SLS) for
increasing literacy rates as well as reading, media access and language
acquisition.
Same Language Subtitling is the idea of using subtitles or captions when playing
videos or listening to audio in the same language as the video/audio. There is
strong and growing evidence that SLS improves reading skills. More than 100
studies show that captioning improves the following areas of learning;
● Comprehension
● Memory
● Attention
● Recalling facts
● Drawing inferences
● Defining words
● Identifying Emotions
● Vocabulary
● Decoding skills
At Trinity Catholic College, all teachers use SLS in their lessons across all subject
areas. Our teachers ensure that available captions are presented when they are
showing clips or using audio in lessons.
Vocabulary Instruction
We know that ultimately, all learning in schools comes back to vocabulary
knowledge. We believe that the explicit teaching of vocabulary can enrich
knowledge and understanding in a range of subject domains.
Research shows:
● There is a strong reciprocal relationship between word knowledge and
reading comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000; Biemiller,
2003).● Children who read more will come across a greater number of words.
As a result they get more practice at decoding words and have greater
opportunities to enhance their knowledge of morphology and spelling
than less avid readers (Cain and Oakhill, 2011).
● Learning new words is a cumulative task that takes place gradually
over time (Nagy and Scott, 2000).
Closing the Vocabulary Gap
“Children who are read to daily have a million more words than those who aren’t by
the time they get to school” ‘When Children are Not Read to at Home: The Million
Word Gap’, Logan et al 2019
At Trinity Catholic College we believe that teaching our students the meaning of
new and complex vocabulary in every lesson is essential to closing what is
termed the Vocabulary Gap.
Becker (1977) identified poor vocabulary knowledge as the primary cause of
academic underperformance of disadvantaged students. A principal cause of
this was a decline in reading comprehension from the age of 8. This meant that
pupils who experienced a decline in reading comprehension had a lack of
vocabulary knowledge which made it harder for them to access and understand
the meaning of what they were reading.
Pupils’ acquisition and command of vocabulary are key to their learning and
progress across the whole curriculum. Therefore our teachers develop
vocabulary actively in their lessons by building systematically on pupils’ current
knowledge. They do this by reading harder texts, “close reading” texts rigorously
and intentionally and teaching pupils how to read texts in their curriculum
context. These activities enable pupils to increase their store of words in general.
Tier 2 and Tier 3 Vocabulary
Explicit teaching of academic vocabulary in every subject area enhances
students’ awareness and understanding of academic language in schools. At
Trinity Catholic College we focus on teaching Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary
explicitly in all lessons – daily – in every subject area, focusing on a limited
number of words.
Pupils are challenged to know more of these words and to remember the
meaning of these words over time. Teachers check this regularly throughout the
year using quizzes, recall tasks and “demonstrate tasks” in their lessons.
