Reading at St George

We have exciting plans for a new Library and Resource Centre, with work due to start in 2024.

In the meantime, students can borrow books from the English department. Everyone also has a login for the free online library SORA, where you have access to thousands of different texts that you can read at home on your tablet, phone or even smartwatch.

You can download the SORA app from your usual Google or Apple app stores, or access the SORA website here. Instructions to help with logging in and downloading books are here.

Our English department also runs a weekly Book Club.

Tutor-time activities

During one of your tutor times each week you will be introduced to the latest Word of the Week. The purpose of this is to get you into the habit of decoding words that you do not understand and recognise. These skills can then be used when you come across an unknown word in a lesson, exam or even when reading at home. You will be introduced to different prefixes, suffixes and root words in the hope that you begin to recognise how different beginnings and ends of words change the meaning. There will be a new word each week. After decoding the word and finding the definition, you will carry out a series of tasks that get you thinking about how this word makes sense in the context of our daily lives.

There will also be a recommended Book of the Week. These books are recommended by students and teachers. See your English teacher or Miss Bowers if you like the sound of any of them and would like a copy.

Contributions in tutor and use of the Word of the Week across the school are always rewarded!

There is an annual trip - usually to the Harry Potter Studios Tour - for our literacy superstars.

Student support

Some students will be offered intervention in order to help you with your reading. This is based on your most recent reading tests (carried out in the previous term), which may identify you as having a reading age which is lower than your chronological age. Students attend one lesson per week of small group Literacy intervention with a member of the English department. This focuses on your reading, comprehension, vocabulary and how to ensure you are reading more effectively. In order to do this, you will be taken out of one of your timetabled lessons (avoiding core subjects) for one lesson per week, for the following term. After this term, we will then determine how much progress you have made, and whether you would benefit from further intervention the following term.

In addition, students may be taken for Core Literacy Skills Intervention, including phonics, with our  specialist teaching assistants. 

We also operate Accelerated Reader and students identified for this path can choose books and test their reading standard and progress online, with support from staff.