Year 7 to 10 lessons stopped to ‘Drop Everything And Read’
Year 7 to 10 lessons stopped to ‘Drop Everything And Read’
To improve reading and literacy in Years 7 to 10, we run a variety of initiatives as part of our Communications Agenda. One of the highly successful activities we run is DEAR Time, which stands for ‘Drop Everything And Read’.
For one period, the whole class ‘drops everything’ and students then take turns to read a text and discuss what they have read to highlight key vocabulary and share their thoughts on the issues raised in the material.
In this academic year, we have extended the initiative to ensure Year 9 and 10 are involved as well as Year 7 and 8 students. This way more students get to benefit as we embed reading into every class, no matter what the subject.
We run these sessions three times a year and all classes focus on a different subject area so if they normally have an art, history or PE lesson, their reading text can be relevant to art, history or sport. Topics change throughout the academic year and may include historical perspectives, careers, current reports or fiction, but ultimately will be interesting and enriching.
It was really impressive to see how enthusiastic our students are about wanting to get involved and read the text and how the whole class engages.
