Reading & Literacy
Our aim is that every student leaves us with strong foundations in reading, writing and communication. Literacy at Penryn College is taught across the school, fostered, supported and encouraged by all staff.
What we want for every student
By the time students move on from Penryn College, we want them to:
- be fluent readers and writers- have a positive attitude towards books and reading, and read widely for pleasure as well as for information
- enjoy writing in different contexts and for different purposes and audiences
- write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting language and style to the task
- be curious and creative about language, including about the meaning of new words
- have a wide vocabulary and a secure understanding of grammar
- speak confidently in group discussion and explain their ideas clearly
- listen carefully and sensitively to the people around them
How we foster reading
Reading in the English Curriculum
Through English students will read most widely. Each Key Stage 3 unit is built around a core text, with a range of shorter satellite texts – poems, non-fiction, short stories, drama and film clips – so that students approach a theme from several directions and learn to read across forms rather than only in one. Units such as Power, Persecution, Heroes and Villains, Nightmare Worlds and Outsiders give the reading a question to answer rather than simply a book to finish.
Year 7 begins where our students live. Cornish Narratives and Landscapes sets Charles Causley and John Betjeman alongside Cornish myth – the Mermaid of Zennor, Jack the Giant Killer, the spriggans – and opens into Gothic writing from Conan Doyle, Shelley and Dickens. From there the reading widens: Shakespeare in every year, pre-1914 and contemporary writing side by side, and literature from around the world. Every text is checked for its suitability for the age group that meets it, and teachers plan carefully for the difficult material some of these works may contain.
The Faster Read in P4
Since September 2025 every student has read whole novels as part of their daily P4 lesson, Rather than working through short extracts, students read complete books, immersively and with time to talk about them. Our P4 Reading puts ambitious, contemporary, culturally diverse novels in every student’s hands, fostering opportunities to develop students personal development through reading.
How we read: predict, clarify, question, summarise
At Penryn College our shared reading strategy across the school ensures students are being taught the skills needed to become an independent reader as they meet more challenging reading in their future. The four steps work as a cycle, used before, during and after reading:
Predict – anticipate what is coming, make predictions and draw inferencesClarify – extract meaning by rereading, decoding, looking up unfamiliar words and using context
Question – deepen understanding by posing questions, answering them, and exploring them in discussion
Summarise – pull out the main ideas, synthesise, and think about the big picture
Our approach activates what students already know, builds dialogue and collaboration, and develops independence and deeper thinking. Across the school teachers model how to read a source, an instruction, a graph or an argument in their subject, and build the daily dose of reading into every lesson.
How we check every student's reading
We test every student’s reading using the New Group Reading Test (NGRT). It gives us the student’s reading age and a standardised score that compares them fairly with students of the same age across the country. Our approach to reading testing ensures we identify a student who is struggling within weeks rather than terms. And it means we can see whether the support we put in place is working, and change it if it is not.
Support for the readers who need it
Our four waves of reading intervention ensure every reader gets what they actually need – including our strongest readers. Reading support is tailored to each student's needs. Through a graduated programme of phonics, fluency and guided reading interventions, we help students develop the skills, confidence and fluency needed to become successful, independent readers. Support is regularly reviewed, ensuring students receive the right level of challenge, while confident readers continue to be stretched through rich reading opportunities across the curriculum and beyond.
What your child will read this term
Year 7 Skellig — David Almond — Autumn term
Year 8 Steady For This — Nathanael Lessore — Autumn term
Year 9 The Dark Lady — Akala — Autumn term
Year 10 The Hate U Give — Angie Thomas — Autumn term
Our Library
Alongside the core texts, we choose books for our library following the recommendations of the 2023 reading framework. We look for books that cover a wide range of subjects and vocabulary, that provoke a strong emotional response, that tell a strong story, and that include fiction and non-fiction, modern and traditional. We refresh the library at least once a year as new books are published.
The Reading Framework (Department for Education)
How you can help at home
The single most useful thing you can do is talk to your child about what they are reading. The P4 novel makes that easy – ask them what has happened, what they think of a character, what they would have done.
Let them see you read: children whose parents read are far more likely to read themselves.Let them choose: comics, magazines, non-fiction, football reports and rereading the same book five times all count.
Keep books within reach: the town library, charity shops, the supermarket book aisle, birthdays and Christmas.
Talk about words: when a new or technical word comes up, ask them to explain it. A wide vocabulary is one of the strongest predictors of success at GCSE.
Rehearse before writing: if your child is stuck on a piece of writing, ask them to say the sentence aloud first. If they can say it, they can write it.
Read it back on paper: errors are much easier to spot on a printed page than on a screen.
Tell us if reading is a struggle at home: we would far rather know.
A Parent’s Guide to Sparx Reader
Please click here to access ‘A Parent’s Guide’ to Sparx Reader – the online reading platform we use here at Penryn College.
Key Stage 3 Sparx Reader Information 2024-25
PiXL Reading Newsletter - Spring 2024
Literacy at Penryn College - Information for Parents/Carers
