Evaluating an in-house programme for weak and non-readers at secondary school
9 min read
ZOE JAMES, DEPUTY HEADTEACHER, BEACON ACADEMY, UK
LIZ HAMILTON-BROWN, LITERACY AND EAL COORDINATOR, BEACON ACADEMY, UK
JENNY WHITE, LEAD READING INSTRUCTION TUTOR, BEACON ACADEMY, UK
The primacy of reading in enabling students to access the curriculum in secondary schools and its exponential impact on students’ progress is well established (Rigney, 2010). Yet there is a dearth of strong evidence for effective reading programmes for Key Stage 3 and 4 students who are non or weak readers. Over the last two years, Beacon Academy, a large, comprehensive in East Sussex, has evolved a system for teaching weak and non-readers that shows promising results.
Although the academy had strong disciplinary literacy and a whole-school reading culture, its previous provision for weak and non-readers had had limited results. In 2022, middle and senior leaders developed a new reading strategy founded on the same principles applied to the rest of the curriculum: that strong content knowledge an
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