Reading for Progress and Pleasure
At South Wigston High School, we believe reading is the gateway to success across the curriculum and beyond. Through our whole-school programme, ‘Reading for Progress and Pleasure’, we build learners’ fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and confidence, while also fostering a lifelong love of books.
Key Stage 3
At Key Stage 3, learners take part in a daily 20-minute reading slot, where our teachers read aloud to our learners and shared texts develop strong independent reading habits over time.
Key Stage 4
At Key Stage 4, this provision becomes more targeted and purposeful to meet learners’ next-step needs: reading is delivered through carefully designed booklets to strengthen exam readiness and wider literacy. Across the week, learners develop exam reading and comprehension skills (2 sessions), take part in an explicit vocabulary and command-word focus to strengthen understanding across subjects (1 session), and engage in wellbeing reading through fiction to promote enjoyment, reflection and reading stamina (2 sessions).
The Research
In listening to and following a text read aloud by a more capable reader, who provides scaffolding, a less fluent reader can experience autonomy and fluency and bypass frustrating ‘sticking points’ at phonemic, semantic or word level to focus on comprehension. - Wood et al 1976, Kuhn et al 2010
Reading a text aloud creates a community of readers who produce their own situated reading practices in the classroom over time. - Brown et al 1989, Sutherland 2015
Intent
We aim to develop fluent, confident readers who read widely, think deeply and enjoy books as part of everyday life. Reading is not only key to academic success, but also to developing empathy, cultural understanding and curiosity.
Ambition – learners access rich, challenging texts that broaden horizons and strengthen literacy across every subject.
Determination – learners build reading stamina, fluency and confidence over time, regardless of starting point.
Respect – learners encounter diverse voices and experiences that promote inclusion, empathy and representation.
Implementation
All learners take part in daily reading as a shared whole-school routine. A range of staff (including senior leaders and tutors) read aloud for 20 minutes each day, while learners follow the same text in their own copy. This consistent modelling supports fluency and comprehension and makes ambitious texts accessible to all.
Ambition – each year group reads six carefully selected texts across the year, chosen for challenge, genre range and cultural diversity.
Determination – daily practice builds independent reading skills through consistent routines and high expectations.
Respect – reading aloud creates a calm, inclusive environment where all learners belong and can succeed.
Read-Aloud is a unique opportunity to breathe life into texts that students are unable to read independently, so as to make those texts accessible … When you read a complex text aloud, you pave the way for students to read it themselves. - Doug Lemov (Reading Reconsidered).
Impact
Learners develop stronger reading skills, wider vocabulary and increased confidence in accessing the full curriculum. They also develop a lasting habit of reading for pleasure, supporting wellbeing and life chances beyond school.
Ambition – learners read more widely and access more challenging texts with confidence.
Determination – learners show improved fluency, comprehension and resilience as readers.
Respect – learners gain greater understanding of different lives, cultures and perspectives through books.
The Books
The chosen texts are suitably challenging for each year group, and they are diverse in culture, era and genre. Students in each year group will read 6 texts across the academic year, alongside texts studied through the curriculum.
reading for progress and pleasure curriculum.pdf
An important impact of our Reading for Progress and Pleasure programme is the growing culture of enthusiasm and ownership around reading across the school. Increasingly, learners are requesting specific books, recommending titles to their peers and making thoughtful suggestions about what they would like to read next. This proactive engagement demonstrates that reading is no longer viewed as a task, but as something learners genuinely value and enjoy. Their willingness to discuss texts, share preferences and seek out new reading experiences reflects rising confidence, independence and a developing identity as readers. This is clear evidence that our approach is successfully fostering both ambition in what they choose to read, determination to read widely, and respect for diverse stories and perspectives.
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