Tutor Read Aloud

The Tutor Read Aloud initiative involves tutors reading high-quality texts aloud to students during tutor time, with the aim of improving literacy, vocabulary, comprehension, and engagement — particularly for disadvantaged learners. At Gosford Hill School, we value reading. Therefore, each week, KS3 and KS4 students have two 30-minute reading slots for Tutor Read Aloud, when form tutors read text to their tutor group.

Why do we have a Tutor Read Aloud initiative?

• The Tutor Read Aloud Initiative provides students with access to texts they may not otherwise attempt independently, fostering reading for pleasure — itself linked to improved outcomes across subjects.
• The EEF’s Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools Guidance Report (2021) stresses that vocabulary instruction is most effective when it is rich, explicit, and embedded within meaningful contexts.
• Reading aloud exposes students to tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary in authentic, contextualised ways.
• The gender gap in reading ability widens at secondary school, with girls outperforming boys.
• Nationally, a quarter of students at 15 still have a reading age of 12 or below.
• There is a significant correlation between student reading ability and eventual performance across all subjects at GCSE and later success in further education / employability.
• In GCSEs exams, the ability to read and have a broad vocabulary is even more important to access Geography, Maths, History and Science papers than it is for English Literature.

What do we read?

The texts that have been chosen for Tutor Read Aloud aim to give our students a wide range of genres and perspectives. In previous years, students at Gosford Hill School have read the following books:

• Blame My Teenage Brain by Nicola Morgan
• Skellig by David Almond
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai