Reading

Reading at NOA

The Tutor Time Reading Curriculum is an integral part of the United Learning and NOA Literacy Framework which advocates a 3- pronged approach of improving standard of literacy:  

1. Catch-up support for students working significantly below expected standard 

2. Literacy in every classroom and every subject 

3. Whole-school love of reading, words and grammar 

The Tutor Time Reading Programme (TTRP) is designed to expose students regularly to good quality modern and classic texts.  

The aim of the programme is to assist with catchup, but also to ensure students at every level are developing a love of reading and accessing texts, vocabulary and language that are a higher level than they could read by themselves.  

This programme is run via Tutor periods at the beginning of each day for students in years 7-10. Tutors read to students who track reading with bookmarks and tutors ensure that students are engaged with what is being read. Bookmark tracking develops visual tracking which is important not only in the classroom where children are developing reading and writing skills, but also for other activities such as sports and playing. Reading in tutor is a social experience that builds our sense of community and belonging. Students benefit from regular modelling of fluent, passionate reading , exposure to countless words and phrases not found in every day dialogue , coverage of a wealth of themes and concepts, people and cultures, ideas and debates will help us to build our own cultural awareness and character as well as the ongoing improvement in independent reading habits. 

The NOA Canon of Literature reflects our culture and ethos of The Best in Everyone and supports the delivery of the United Learning Diverse and Inclusive Secondary Curriculum. Books that make up the NOA Canon for Tutor Reading are carefully chosen – with student and staff input to ensure that students are exposed to diverse voices and to ensure that they can see themselves reflected in literature. All the books chosen are appropriate to student age but with built in complexity of language and subject matter. The texts are hard and challenging- they either have a quantitative Lexile (the specific words in the text) that require a higher level of physical decoding or/and they have been selected for the qualitive challenge of theme and ideas. The NOA Canon aims to interest, reflect and challenge the different demographics of our academy. The Canon includes classic, modern classic, award winning fiction and non-fiction from a range of genre, author, narrator and setting.  

The success of the Tutor Reading Curriculum is because it is part of our culture of reading. It is built on a collective trust, a robust programme of impact evaluation and progress, commitment, consistency, passion and pride.