Page 20 - The East Sussex Way

Beyond school, there are links between poor literacy levels and
higher rates of unemployment, low incomes and poor health
behaviours, which in turn can be linked to lower life expectancy
(Gilbert, Teravainen, Clark, & Shaw, 2018). A proper focus on reading
at the point of transition can help to address this pattern, and give

pupils the positive start to their secondary reading career that they
need.

Shared responsibility

If a pupil cannot read in one subject, they are not going to be able
to read in others: every teacher, primary and secondary, must share

the responsibility of teaching pupils to read. Training is needed to
allow all teachers to play their part, while school leaders focus on
building a whole-school reading ethos, monitoring progress and
recommending good practice.

Unfamiliar texts

To deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words from context, pupils
need to be able to read and comprehend 95-98% of the other words
in a passage (Gross, 2021). But pupils also need to be exposed to
a range of texts over time – texts which challenge them, represent
them and open their eyes. The ‘Five Plagues of Reading’ (Lemov,
Driggs, & Woolway, 2016) explains Þ ve text types that pupils should

be exposed to in order to become expert readers. Their reading
diet should be broad, progressive, diverse and representative; pupils
need to see themselves in the books they encounter.

Yet many pupils’ reading is dominated by books that have been
neither mindfully curated nor explicitly planned for. Teachers need
the skills and experience to analyse the reading level of the texts
across the curriculum, and adapt choice of text and teaching so

that pupils can enjoy and learn from them.

Pupil reluctance

Some pupils are reluctant to read, and others display negative

behaviours when asked to. By the time they arrive in secondary
school, some insecure readers have developed skills that mask their
inability to decode and comprehend text, often relying heavily on
teachers or other pupils reading aloud in the classroom. Giving pupils
choice in their reading, showing them how to enjoy reading and
building reading ß uency to develop conÞ dence – there should be

15 room in every school improvement plan for these priorities.