Drop Everything and Read (DEAR)

Vision and Curriculum Intent

We have heard it said many times before, reading is good for you. Through the delivery of our DEAR programme, we are helping to cultivate a love for reading which will be passed on to future generations of children.

Through reading, we are transported to new and exciting places beyond the realms of our everyday lives. We know that as children get older, many of them stop reading for pleasure. More than any other factor, reading ability and the number of words we know are the main predictors of social mobility. Ultimately, we want our students to have as many truly enriching learning experiences as possible and we are very excited to introduce our DEAR (Drop Everything and Read programme.)

All the books on the DEAR programme have been carefully selected to develop students' range of vocabulary, but also, to provide them with important cultural capital. In short, not just knowledge of words, but knowledge of the world.

It is well documented that students’ reading habits are changing. Some may even argue that students are not reading less; they are just reading differently. For example, traditional books are being exchanged for electronic books. But as teachers, we know how important it is to carry out sustained reading over time.  Teachers are faced with this very dilemma; often students are just not doing enough reading.

We have introduced DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time to ignite a passion and love of reading.  Every week all students in years 7, 8 and 9 have a DEAR lesson which involves the shared reading of a chosen text followed by some guided questions and teacher-led discussion.