“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

At Kingswinford Academy, we prioritise literacy; our library is physically at the heart of our school and we understand the importance that reading can have on the future success of our students. Research demonstrates 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. We have a shared vision that all students leave Kingswinford Academy as fluent readers, confident writers and articulate orators. We are deeply committed to ensuring that no student leaves Kingswinford Academy with a reading age below their chronological age, and literacy is never a barrier to achievement.

Support for struggling and reluctant readers:

Alongside our curriculum offer, we provide targeted interventions to strengthen our students’ learning, ensuring extra support is given where required. 

• Upon entering the school in Year 7, all students that have not met the expected standard of 100 at KS2 are screened for phonics and fluency.
• Year 7 students also undertake a nationally recognised standardised reading test: ‘Access Reading Test’, by Hodder. This allows us to accurately assess and diagnose students’ reading comprehension at the word, sentence, and text levels.
• The collaboration between English, SEND and our library allows us to work closely in order to meet students’ needs which are addressed through the following:

-Fresh Start Phonics Programme: this systematic synthetic phonics programme is designed to accelerate students’ reading accuracy, fluency and stamina. It focuses on developing students’ knowledge of the sounds individual letters make (such as c, k and ck all making the /k/ sound) and the different sounds that combinations of letters can make (such as ‘ow’ making different sounds in elbow and cow). Through this intervention, students are taught to decode, segment and blend words, improving reading at a word-based level.

-Peer and paired reading programme that is designed to improve students’ fluency. Our Year 10 Reading Ambassadors are trained up to work closely with KS3 students to improve their confidence in reading and provide opportunities to practise their fluency and prosody (reading with expression).

-Small group reading: led by our English and SEND team, students are encouraged to enjoy a book from our ‘Super-Readable’ Rollercoaster reads collection. Specific schemes of learning have been written by our English team and our primary reading specialist that focuses on improving students’ knowledge, understanding and comprehension skills. Opportunities to read aloud are built into this, too. 

-We monitor our all readers in library lessons, where teachers will listen to students read on a 1:1 basis. 

Reading for pleasure: 

With thousands of titles available, both in our physical library and from our digital, online library, Sora,  students can browse and read fiction and non-fiction books covering a wide range of topics, featuring diverse characters and exploring a variety of issues that interest young people.

The library is open before school, every lunchtime and after school. Students can loan and return books or use the space to immerse themselves in a quiet reading experience. Students are rewarded for their reading and reading is celebrated regularly through assemblies and through our rewards system.  

Reading for pleasure lessons: students enjoy one 50 minute reading lesson a week, where they are encouraged to enjoy a reading book from the library, whether that’s a physical copy or an electronic e-book via our Sora platform. For the second half of these lessons, students enjoy a collective reading experience, enjoying a text related to our English curriculum. 

SORA - Digital Online Library

SORA is a Free Digital Online Library, which you can access 24/7. 

It has an extensive collection of eBooks, audiobooks, comics and magazines! It is completely free to use, and accessible through your browser or through the SORA app on your iPads or mobile devices. 

If you are logging in for the first time you will need to select ‘Kingswinford Academy’;  students’ emails are already synced so they can access their individual reading platforms. The Sora app is already downloaded onto Ipads or you can access via your browser.