Drop Everything And Read
At Central Academy, reading is a key skill that is really important to us. We aim to encourage students to read regularly to help them become more confident and fluent readers in order to be successful at school and beyond.
We create lots of opportunities for students to read within our school day, including Tutor Time reading, library access, and in-class reading. Our Tutor Reading Programme aims to promote the enjoyment of reading as well as having proven results in increasing students’ reading age.
The books chosen for the programme have been selected to allow students access to a rich variety of literature including classic fiction, modern fiction, and non-fiction. Books have been carefully selected to be age appropriate, challenging, and enjoyable. They cover a vast range of topics that will engage and inspire our students and further promote a love of reading.
Many of the books chosen for the programme have won various awards and are regarded as literary classics – some of which our students wouldn’t normally read. The programme aims to expose students to this rich variety of literature to not only promote the enjoyment of reading, but also to gain ‘cultural capital’ and to help shape their character. Here are some examples of texts read across the Key Stages.
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Year 7
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Year 8
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Year 9
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Year 10
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Year 11
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Year 12
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Year 13
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Classic / Pre-20th Century
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The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (C.S Lewis)
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
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The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Black Beauty (Anna Sewell)
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A Kestrel For A Knave (Barry Hines)
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
War Horse (Michael Morpurgo)
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Anne Frank – The Diary Of A Young Girl (Anne Frank)
Marina – Carlos Duiz Zafon
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Macbeth (William Shakespeare)
An inspector calls (J.B Priestly)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickins)
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Contemporary
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The Boy At The Back Of The Class (Onjali Q. Rauf)
Letters From The Lighthouse (Emma Carroll)
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Harry Potter (J.K Rowling)
Nisha’s War (Dan Smith)
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The Reason I Jump (Naoki Higashida)
The Hunger Games Series (Suzanne Collins)
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Never Let Me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
The Life Of PI (Yaan Martel)
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The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window (Jonas Jonasson)
Burnt Shadows (Kamila Shamsie)
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This story is a lie (Tom Pollock)
Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell)
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Why is reading for pleasure important?
- It helps us develop empathy - the ability to stand in someone else's shoes and understand their thoughts, feelings, and actions.
- Reading helps us manage stress - regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels and higher self-esteem than non-readers.
- Reading improves our relationships and friendships. Social situations are complex and sometimes difficult to navigate, but reading fiction can help us develop skills and understanding in this area.
- Reading expands and improves our vocabulary and the better our vocabulary, the more able we are to access the curriculum and the better we do at school.
- Reading expands our life experience. Our brains react to stories as if we are actually living the events we are reading about. This means that from your desk in the classroom, you can travel to anywhere in the world and experience almost anything!
- And most importantly, reading makes us happier! Many studies have shown that people who read regularly, report feeling happier in general than those who don't.