​It is of course not just the job of the English teacher or EAL lead teacher to support pupils with their reading. 

 

Reading is needed for all walks of life and all subjects and therefore, the more we can support pupils to access the content of our subject - which involves, at its most fundamental level, decoding text and comprehending it - the more likely they are to stay engaged, motivated and included, which in turn leads to better learning and a higher level of academic achievement.

 

However, it is evident that you cannot just spend your lessons supporting reading, when there is curriculum coverage to prioritise and many other pupils to focus on! 

 

The support needs to be built into planning, resourcing and the activities you intend to include. 

 

In order to do this, it is important to be confident with our understanding of what pupils with EAL need in order to read confidently and in a way that enables them to learn and participate alongside their peers.

 

It is useful to have an idea of the reading level of the pupils in your lessons and a conversation with the EAL lead teacher should give you the information you need. 

 

They will also be able to tell you if certain pupils are receiving interventions to support with reading, and if there are any specific resources/pedagogies/strategies that might be useful to enable inclusive practice. 

 

Putting all of this into practice may seem a daunting task but our advice is to take what we refer to as a ‘drip drip’ approach and just try to ‘drip’ small approaches into your planning and teaching. 

 

These, over a period of a term/year, will make a huge difference to the experience of your pupils. 

 

And here we mean ALL pupils - anything you put in place to support pupils with EAL will support everyone in the class. 

 

EAL strategies tend to involve effective use of visuals, prompts, modelling, thoughtful use of language etc. - useful for all.

 

As secondary teachers, our training and professional development throughout our career is unlikely to have focused on supporting pupils with reading (unless English is our subject!). 

 

It is therefore useful to have an overview of what pupils require to be able to read effectively and for meaning. 

 

The following video provides this overview and then goes on to examine strategies for supporting pupils with EAL and identifies potential challenges.​

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