‘Drop Everything And Read’ initiative improves reading and literacy
'Drop Everything And Read' initiative improves reading and literacy
One of the highly successful activities we run across all curriculum subjects has been DEAR Time, which stands for ‘Drop Everything And Read’.
This has improved reading and literacy across Years 7 to 10 and is one of many activities that is part our our Trust Communications Agenda.
We recently held our last session of the academic year where for one period, the whole class ‘dropped everything’ and took turns to read a text and discuss what they have read, then highlighted key vocabulary and shared their thoughts on the issues raised in the material.
We run these sessions three times a year and all classes focus on a different subject area so if they normally have an computing, food or PE lesson, their reading text can be relevant to computing, food 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.
We are pleased to confirm that DEAR Time will continue in the 2025/26 academic year so our new Year 7 students can look forward to engaging classroom activities.