Reading and Literacy at SUA

SUA understands the importance that strong literacy skills have in supporting student progress and in their ability to engage successfully with the wider world. As such, we have a number of key strategies that we employ to support student literacy across the academy and within our curriculum:

• Accelerated Reader. Years 7 and 8 use this reading-based scheme to support both their reading progress and to encourage reading for pleasure. Students are quizzed on their reading and in turn, the online program provides them with book recommendations most suitable to their needs. Progress is tracked carefully within lessons, through online quizzes and via the STAR Reading Assessment tool.
• Staff are trained in Disciplinary Literacy. This facilitates specific and purposeful approaches to literacy within each discrete subject area. Staff plan regular reading opportunities into their lessons and encourage resilience and confidence within our students’ responses to them. We believe that reading is not limited to the printed word but also incorporates images, symbols, media and sound.
• Lexia and Lexonik Advance. This phonics-based scheme supports students who need an ‘extra hand’ with their reading development and is delivered by trained SSOs during after-school intervention sessions. Students are carefully selected to take part to ensure that interventions are purposeful and appropriate.
• GL Assessments are used to carefully monitor and track reading progress (specifically Reading Ages) and to support the ever-evolving reading provision across the academy.