Reading Engagement in Curriculum for Excellence

Research shows that reading engagement is an important factor in literacy attainment; engaged readers read more often, more widely and read more texts. This benefits their vocabulary, their verbal reasoning and their knowledge of the world.

A curriculum likely to produce engaged readers is one that is taught in a way that encourages pupils to experience the curriculum as coherent, to exercise choices about what they read, why and how, and a curriculum in which they are given opportunities to collaborate over their reading and their understanding of texts. It is also a curriculum that is premised on teaching reading strategies, including reading comprehension strategies, that can 'travel' from task to task, and a curriculum in which pupils are presented with tasks that have an intrinsic purpose. 

Given this, it is clear that simply putting more reading into every curricular area is highly unlikely to deliver the engaged readers envisioned by Curriculum for Excellence, although it may superficially satisfy Curriculum for Excellence demands for 'literacy across the curriculum'.

The teacher has to think about the curriculum mix that will work with his or her class. Also, many strategies recommended for teaching reading comprehension were devised by psychologists and are premised on the need to ensure replicable results in randomised controlled trials. They are de-contextualised and must be translated into lessons that are intrinsically interesting and are relevant for pupils, lessons that generate a desire to read because reading benefits the reader emotionally, socially and intellectually. 

Teachers also have to question the use of 'Assessment is for Learning' strategies, which may focus pupils' attention unhelpfully on attainment and performance rather than on reading for intrinsic pleasure and content. 

This session will encourage teachers to think analytically about their pupils and the reading curriculum they currently provide. Come only if you are prepared to question your own practice and to think the unthinkable; that perhaps not all AifL strategies benefit all pupils, and that, since CfE has placed the reading curriculum firmly in the hands of teachers, we now need to design a curriculum that will deliver. 

The session will outline some key comprehension strategies that pupils need to be taught in a mix of contextualised and de-contextualised ways. It aims to provide a space for teachers to think about the balance between de-contextualised teaching and tasks that provide intrinsic purpose and ensure that pupils experience the social and emotional benefits of reading as well as cognitive ones.

Gill Friel, Educational Consultant, Freelance/Oxford University Press

Gill Friel was Head Teacher of a small rural and large city school, both of which HMIE deemed 'excellent' in the area of Literacy. She is an educational writer and has published widely in the areas of Reading and Writing. She is an associate tutor in teacher education at the University of Strathclyde. Gill is Scottish consultant for several publishing companies and she delivers in-service to schools on Reading and Writing in a Curriculum for Excellence.