As a concrete and practical step to help raise literacy standards in our school, the Literacy Lift Off programme commenced in Rang 1 and Rang 2 during the 2013/14 school year.  In 2014/2015, it was expanded to include Rang 3.  Its introduction was possible with help from the Parent Association and a kind donation to the school which helped us to raise the funds necessary to purchase a PM+ levelled reading scheme consisting of over 1800 books.

The Literacy Lift Off programme is an intensive reading intervention programme for helping literacy and writing levels and is already showing significant improvements in pupils’ attitudes to literacy, reading accuracy, fluency, comprehension and writing skills.

It is a daily literacy hour (over six weeks) where the principal, special education teachers and SNAs, in collaboration with class teachers, work in the classroom from Monday to Thursday mornings for five 10 minute rotating sessions on a range of literacy activities. These activities may include:

• Re-reading familiar books to build fluency and confidence;
• Being introduced to and attempting to read a new book
• Composing and recording their own messages;
• Exploring how words work using magnetic letters and whiteboards;
• Computer-based literacy activities;
• Writing Activities

A key aspect of the programme is that each boy is working in small groups on literacy based activities that are suitable for his level of ability. 

To support the boys in this process we ask parents to:

1.  Listen to their boy reading a familiar book (a book already read in class) each night. This book will be in their child’s reading folder. Parents can support their child by asking questions about the story and characters, by asking them to be a word detective and finding certain words, by helping them with tricky words, etc.

2.  Look at and talk to your boy about the work he has in his Literacy Lift Off folder. 

A selection of the 1800+ books we use in the Literacy Lift Off Programme.