Reading in Years 7 & 8
Accelerated Reader
Accelerated Reader is computer programme used to motivate students to read, monitor their progress and reward them for doing so.
It ensures students read the right book for their ability and checks their understanding of a book they have read.
It also promotes and encourages regular reading practice, both at school and at home.
Students will take a STAR test in September, January and April that will generate a reading age and a book level. They can then choose books that fall within their book level and are appropriate for their ability.
Key Websites
Renaissance Home Connect
Accelerated Reader Book Finder
Love Reading for Kids
A Parent's Guide to Accelerated Reader
Reading in School and Reading for Pleasure
Year 7
In Year 7, we read the following texts, among others, throughout the year:
The Bone Sparrow - Zana Fraillon
Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Further reading students might want to do at home to support these are:
If students want to read for pleasure, recommended books for their age group are:
A Different Dog - Paul Jennings (Animal)
Hari and his Electric Feet - Alexander McCall Smith (Arts / Friendship / Culture)
Shadowsea - Peter Bunzl (Adventure)
House of Roberts - James Patterson (Science Fiction)
Year 8
In Year 8, we read the following texts, among others, throughout the year:
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Tempest - William Shakespeare
Further reading students might want to do at home to support these are:
Text
Further Reading
The Tempest
BBC Bitesize
The Hunger Games
Matched - Ally Condie
Divergent - Veronica Roth
Gone - Michael Grant
If students want to read for pleasure, recommended books for their age group are:
Pet - Akwaeke Emezi (Family / Culture / Race)
Witch Child - Celia Rees (Gothic / History / Fantasy)
The Disconnect - Keren David (Friendship / Family / School)
The Hunted - Charlie Higson (Horror / Ghost)
Reading in Year 9
Year 9 Book Club
Students are invited to be part of our Year 9 Book Club
This is a new initiative that will involve the whole year group and is the focus of all their English homework this year
Parents, guardians, teachers and form tutors will also be a part of this
It is designed to build on the Accelerated Reader approach students are used to from Years 7 and 8, but in a more collaborative and mature way
Every week, students should read something, whether that be an ongoing novel, poetry, non-fiction, drama or even a fiction extract
They will fill in a log, not so much explaining what they have read, but questions their reading threw up, or something interesting that they learned.
The Year 9 Book Club website should help with this.
It contains information about a number of recommended reads, loosely linked to their schemes of learning for each term.
This is not a prescriptive list, but somewhere to turn if they are unsure.
Parents / guardians also have access to this website, via the link below, to enable support
https://sites.google.com/southcraven.org/year9bookclub
Reading in Years 10 & 11
Key Websites
CommonLit
Love Reading for Kids
Reading in School and Reading for Pleasure
At Key Stage 4, we read the following texts:
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Further reading students might want to do at home to support these are:
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
Freefall - William Golding
The Diary of A Young Girl - Anne Frank
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
If students want to read for pleasure, recommended books for their age group are:
The Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkein
Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
1984 - George Orwell
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
Reading in Sixth Form
Key Websites
JSTOR
Seach journals, primary sources and books
You will need to set up a login but the resources are free
www.jstor.org
The British Library
The national library of the United Kingdom
Gain access to the world's most comprehensive research collection
www.bl.uk
Reading in School and Reading for Pleasure
At Key Stage 5, we currently read the following texts (these are subject to teacher discretion and may change):
A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennesse Williams
The Duchess of Malfi - John Webster
Hamlet - Wiliam Shakespeare
Mean Time - Carol Ann Duffy
Selected Poems - John Keats
The Whitsun Weddings - Philip Larkin
Selected Poems - Ted Hughes
Selected Poems - Sylvia Plath
A wide range of fiction and non fiction texts
A wide range of different media texts including music videos, radio, newspapers and film
Further reading students might want to do at home to support these are:
The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language - David Crystal
Rediscover Grammar - David Crystal
Language and Social Contexts - Amanda Coultas
How Texts Work - Adrian Beard
You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation -Deborah Tannen
The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Mean and Women Really Speak Different Languages? - Deborah Cameron
The Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
Middlemarch - George Eliot
The Glass Menagerie - Tennesse Williams
The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Tess of the d’Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy
If students want to read for pleasure, recommended books for their age group are:
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The White Devil - John Websiter
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Small Island - Andrea Levy
There are also a number of interesting academic articles available on our subject Google Classrooms which link to students studies:
Staff Choices
We asked our staff...
What was the last book you read?
VIDEO
What was your favourite book when you were younger?
VIDEO
Staff Childhood Choices