Theme: Reading as a Learner of EAL: planning support for secondary pupils

Convenor/s: Justine Dakin

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This term’s meeting focuses on reading, especially at secondary level.

Catharine Driver from The National Literacy Trust will discuss the challenges for secondary schools who admit EAL learners beyond the age that initial reading has been taught. Although some of these students can already read well in another language, others may have had limited previous schooling or literacy teaching and will need considerable support to become fluent readers. Catharine will outline some of the key issues to consider when planning reading provision and teaching support for these older EAL pupils.

Literacy consultant Bex Shore will talk about BoostingReading@Primary & BoostingReading@Secondary. The programme aims to improve the use of reading strategies amongst primary and secondary students so that they become successful, independent readers who can read for enjoyment. The programme is designed for pupils from Years 1 – 10 who are working below ARE with decoding, or to support comprehension and fluency for good decoders. Bex has redesigned the programme to take into consideration the needs of EAL learners and will give insight into this.