Reading at Trinity Academy

At Trinity, reading is the heart of our curriculum: it underpins what we do in our classrooms and out of them. Our aim is to develop confident, fluent readers; to build comprehension and to foster a life-long love of books and reading. We understand it is vital to close any gaps so that students can access the curriculum in all subjects.

We believe that a love of reading for pleasure is the most important thing which we can encourage in children and young people. After all, reading for pleasure has been proven to be the single biggest indicator of future success. This means that developing a love of reading is more important in determining your success than your background, your family income or any other advantages or disadvantages which you may believe you have. By promoting the simple and irrefutable fact that we enjoy reading at Trinity, we are encouraging our students to be successful. More than that, reading is good for our hearts and souls, and teaches us so much about the world around us which we may never have experienced. We intend to broaden our students’ understanding of the world and their place within it, using novels to engage with contemporary issues such as: the changing environment and climate, gender equality, marginalisation, discrimination, protest and empowerment. Every student at Trinity has the opportunity to get lost in a story: from daily reading with their tutor group to accessing our wonderful library, students at Trinity can enjoy reading a range of books which will open up the world around them. 

If students are struggling with their confidence or ability in reading, staff at Trinity have a range of strategies to help them improve. All of our teachers have an awareness of each individual student's reading need so that they can use their expertise to support those who are struggling to make gains, and to push further those who are ready for more challenge. In addition to this, we have timetabled literacy intervention which uses a phonics-based approach to corrective reading, allowing students to work on their skills which they can then apply to any reading they do in school. 

Reading is our way of life at Trinity Academy. We aim to build a culture where all of our students read for pleasure and read to succeed every single day.  

 Silent Reading

Through daily Silent Reading sessions with their form tutor students are exposed to high-quality, fluent reading and are engaged with a variety of stories. Not only does this foster a love of reading itself, but it exposes students to a wider variety of vocabulary which will develop their own fluency and understanding.

 The books for Silent Reading are chosen to engage students with he world around them and expose them to a variety of background and experiences to broaden their horizons. 

How to Support your Child's Reading 

You can encourage your child to read by… 

• Discussing their favourite books with them and what genres or types of books they might like. 
• Asking them about what they are reading individually or in school. 
• Listening to them read: encouraging them to sound out unfamiliar words as they read. Don’t worry if you are also unfamiliar with any vocabulary – you can always look up new words together. 
• Encouraging them to use the school library or a local library to check out books. 
• Setting a fixed amount of reading time to try to stick to, such as half an hour before bed. 

More information can be found here: 10 top tips for parents to support children to read - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)