Rationale

The vast majority of our GCSE English language resit students don’t read. We know this as they tell us (often with pride) that they don’t read, alongside published research: the 2018 Taking Part Survey: Free Time Activities Focus Report found only 46% of 16–24-year-olds read in their free time. We also found that our learners lack experience in reading non-fiction texts, and these types of texts account for 50% of the qualification.

In the English Language examination students are expected to read over 1200 words. On average around 10% of these words are complex and the texts require a reading age of 15+. As less experienced readers, the reading and analysing of challenging texts required for GCSE is often off-putting for resit students. Having already missed the pass-mark, lots of students develop a dislike of reading and demonstrate low levels of resilience. This barrier is further compounded as current students have lost stamina and concentration due to COVID lockdowns. As Ofsted observed in their 2020 COVID-19 briefing ‘some pupils’ concentration or their mental and physical stamina have reduced. Some leaders said pupils were fatigued, ‘disconnected’ from learning or struggling to stay awake and alert.’ (Ofsted, 2020)

Other Contextual Information

Our action research took place in the English Department of our FE college. Macclesfield College is a provider of Further Education, Higher Education and skills training; serving the Cheshire East area and beyond. The project was led by two members of the English GCSE teaching team. We worked with two groups of resitting GCSE English Language learners, aged 16-19 from a range of main course subjects.

Approach

Learners at Macclesfield College have two 1.5-hour English lessons per week. We identified two groups and the key focus of the first session was to share the action research ideas and ascertain greater insights into student attitudes to ‘reading for pleasure’ and reading in leisure time. In introducing the project, we were transparent and open. We wanted students to feel a part of the action research project and this had a positive effect as the students felt a sense of importance and responsibility.

Once groups were identified, we began by asking students to complete a questionnaire (see Appendix 3). 100% of learners felt reading was good for them. However, 80% said they read for less than an hour per week, the other 20% said they read for less than 2 hours per week.

We collated a bank of short, bite-sized reading materials of approximately 300-400 words as we felt the length of extracts given in exams can overwhelm students. Our aim was to improve reading stamina and resilience. We asked students to identify a range of topics that would appeal to and inspire them. Topics suggested by participants provided a range of subjects: real crime, music, Formula One, mystery, teenage drama, ‘my story’, computing, space. These areas of interest were used when selecting extracts for reading. Eventually, we asked students to download and print an article on a topic of personal interest to develop their sense of ownership. (See Appendix 3 for some examples.)

Reading sessions were implemented as routine to provide regular mental exercise in reading. We tried to keep the ‘routine’ fixed so students came to expect it. These reading slots took place at the start of each lesson and lasted approximately 15 minutes. Students read the text together and completed a ‘low stakes’ discussion task. To enable a different ‘head space’ and move away from the familiar classroom set-up, we asked students to sit in circle or to turn inwards so we could see each other and create a different space. After some initial mild resistance to this change, students accepted this as a part of the ‘routine’. This was designed to separate the reading from the main content of the lesson, creating a safe space for reading and discussion.

We wanted to avoid any overt ‘exam focus’ and capture student responses and initial thoughts about texts. We used the same set of discussion questions for each text in order to reinforce the routine. These were deliberately informal and ‘low-stakes’. Later in the project, more detailed conversations focussed on the writer’s thoughts and feelings. What is happening? What is it about? What feelings are present? Post reading discussions were always open-ended but we did draw a link to writer’s perspective but without the ‘pressure’ to write up analytical responses. After the first couple of discussions, it became apparent discussions were stifled by students’ lack of discursive vocabulary, so we provided some key vocabulary and sentence starters to assist students in verbalising their opinions. The PowerPoint slide below was displayed during each discussion activity:

As the project developed, we did ask students to write some brief notes to record their initial response. Responses provided some useful and interesting insights, for example, a short extract from a letter from a 16yr old to a newspaper provided strong responses: ‘I agree with her, adults need to realise that when we grow up we ARE going to change and NOT stay how we are now – when we are young.’ We ensured this was low stakes by not assessing the notes and gave students the option to keep their notes private.

Finally, we were able to exploit existing, strong links with curriculum areas across the college. This helped in the identification of subject specific texts for the routine reading slots e.g., Health and Social Care – mental health and well-being during lock-down learning was a topic many students felt invested in and reading around the topic was of interest.