Literacy Interventions

Literacy support for your child

At Pontarddulais Comprehensive School we offer a range of diferent methods of support to help your child’s development with literacy. These include Lexonic Leap, Lexonic Advanced and Catch Up.

You can use the links below to find out more information about each of these literacy intervention methods.

Literacy at the speed of sound

‘Reading ability has a considerable impact on both educational attainment across the curriculum and wider life outcomes. Research finds robust associations between reading ability and educational success’.

All learners should have an adequate level of English Language acquisition in order to be able to access the full curriculum and reach their potential, both within the educational system and beyond.

The LEXONIK programme improves reading ages by an average of 27 months in 6 weeks for mainstream students reading below their expected level.

Some students need additional input prior to this, which is why LEXONIK LEAP was developed.

 

Lexonik Leap

Lexonik Leap is a phonic intervention that effectively resolves phonic gaps for learners who find literacy particularly challenging. It progresses their reading, spelling and oracy.

Lexonik Advanced Level 2 & 3

Lexonik Advance is a vocabulary intervention that trains learners to develop phonological awareness and make links between unknown words using common prefix, root word and suffix definitions.

Lex – meaning: a system of laws. Intended also to suggest ‘Lexicon’ as in vocabulary.

onik – chosen for sound quality – and the end section of sonic for the fast nature of the product.

Why Lexonik?

    • Students have to hear a word up to six times to place it firmly in the long-term memory;
    • The word should be read, and meanings discussed, in multiple contexts;
    • Lexonik teaches, reinforces, and provides frequent exposure to subject-specific word meanings and includes repeated practise using word-building strategies. This ties in with our Tier 2 Vocabulary of the Week sessions that are completed in registration and the idea of retrieval practice which has been a key focus on our SDP this year;
    • If pupils improve their knowledge and use of vocabulary, their reading and writing often improves in turn;
    • As well as this, exam questions nowadays are filled with wordy questions such as a Numeracy exam or a History exam, and so pupils need to be equipped with the relevant skills to be able to access these exams.

How Are Pupils Selected?

We use a range of numerical data to see if pupils are eligible for a Literacy intervention programme. Relevant members of staff will test the pupils to see if they are suited to a programme and which programme they are best suited to. To do this we use individual standardised scores and Wide Range Achievement Tests.

What do the results show?
How have our pupils benefitted so far?

Lexonik Leap has been developed to support any student who is performing below the expected levels in early stages of reading and spelling English. We have found that this has also helped many of our lower ability pupils e.g. extraction/dyslexic pupils.

English and Literacy Whole School Tracker

Pupil X
Pupil Y
Pupil Z
Pre-Leap Standardised Score
75
77
71
Post-Leap Standardised Score
97
99
99

Lexonik Advanced

The majority of students can benefit from Lexonik teaching and all improvements should be celebrated.

We have found that the best results are achieved with students who have been selected appropriately.

It should also be noted that the benefits of participation are varied and some of the positive outcomes that we have noticed regarding Lexonik are more complex to measure e.g., confidence, engagement with the curriculum, verbal communication and more.

English and Literacy Whole School Tracker

Pupil X
Pupil Y
Pupil Z
Pre Advanced Reading Age and Standardised Score
12.6 / 105
13.9 / 105
11.7 / 97
Post Advanced Reading Age and Standardised Score
18.9 / 144
18.1 / 139
18.9 / 129

Literacy Catch Up

Catch-Up is a Literacy intervention which aims to boost pupils’ reading attainment and enable them to achieve grade-level competency.

Pupils are selected based on data which gives us an insight into individual reading ages in comparison to a pupils’ chronological age. In order to support pupils and bridge gaps in their knowledge pupils are invited to take part in a 6 week programme.

Pupils are extracted from two lessons a fortnight, not including Maths, English or Science. During these sessions, they will be in groups of no more than six pupils and will explore a wide range of fiction and non-fiction reading material. The programme is designed to challenge pupils as well as develop their interest in reading. It will also allow pupils to familiarise themselves with, and improve upon their performance, the Personalised Assessment style questions.

From the success of previous programmes, we are confident that improving Literacy skills will help pupils across all areas of the curriculum.