Reading in School

We are very excited about our work to introduce Jane Considine's 'Hooked on Books' approach to the teaching of reading.

There are 3 key areas to think about:

1. FANTASTICS: 9 key areas that help children to identify the ideas, thoughts & vocabulary in the text.
2. STYLISTICS: 9 key ideas that help children demonstrate their understanding of reading (including retrieval, explaining, summarising & justifying ideas or opinions)
3. ANALYTICS: 9 key techniques that help children to analyse texts and think about their responses.

By focusing on each of these ideas (or lenses), teachers help children to deepen their understanding of how texts work as well as giving them opportunities to share, discuss and reflect on their thoughts and opinions.

What does this look like in the classroom?

A lesson will start off with a ‘fluency’ exercise. Children may practise reading challenging texts out loud to check their understanding. They might explore the meaning of new vocabulary or revisit unfamiliar words to consolidate their understanding. They may practise reading out loud, using punctuation and words in the text to ensure that pitch, pace and expression engage their listener.

Next the children will focus on a ‘Fantastic’ or ‘Stylistic’ lens (key area), exploring and annotating the text extract to find out the answer to a question. Children work with their partners to discuss what they have found so that they can answer the questions, drawing on evidence from the text to explain and justify their opinion.

Finally, the children focus on an ‘Analytic’ lens. They have the chance to add to their annotations as they build up their knowledge and understanding of the text, recognising the author’s purpose for writing as well as identifying & expressing their own responses and opinions to the text.

The lesson is talk-led; a careful structure gives children the support they need to structure and explain their own thoughts, demonstrating what their understanding of the text.