At KS3 we had a number of elements to our reading and writing programme: book projects, free writing, weekly news report, poetry tea, word of the week and reading time.  Each of these aspects were put into our weekly timetable, I have outlined them for you below.  Again, this is just what worked for us, it is not the best or only way to encourage reading and writing.  I'm sharing this because when I first started home educating my children I wanted someone to show me what they did so I had a starting place. If this can be helpful in that way to someone starting out then that's great, but it is not meant to be looked at as a set practice that should be followed, do things your way, pick and choose what works for you. 

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WORD OF THE WEEK. This took the form of a weekly competition between my children and I.  Every Monday I would choose a new or rarely used word and write it on the side of the white board with the definition and an example sentence.  We would then have to use it as often as we could throughout the week in our written work or speech.  Each time we used it correctly we gained a point.  The one with the most points got a prize each week and it was surprisingly effective at improving our vocabulary. At the end of each week we transferred the word to our 'word wall', creating a reference point as a reminder of the words for future use. You can use paper and pen to make your own poster word wall; we had an old white board that we used as ours. You can use an online dictionary's word of the week like vocabulary.com here or choose your own.  Here are 2 lists that I used: a KS4 list from Archer Academy that I found here and one for KS3 that I found free from Upper Wharfedale School. 

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READING TIME. By KS3 most children are able to read fluently. It is a time to encourage a love of reading and for them to develop their vocabulary and ability to engage in a broader range of texts.  We have done our best to help our children to become critical thinkers as we have read and analysed different texts together.  We include time to read books together as a family and individual reading time on our timetable. Here is a useful reading list for KS3 if you are looking for book ideas:  

If your child is not yet reading fluently alone, don't be discouraged.  They can still enjoy reading more challenging books together with you or by listening to audio books as you work on their reading fluency.  It is important that children at this age have access to books that they enjoy in order to develop an appreciation of literature and a broader vocabulary.  It can be boring if all they read is the early reader texts that they can manage alone. Reading together gives them access to more complex story lines and vocabulary without getting over tired or stressed. 

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BOOK PROJECTS. We have read lots of books in the last 3 years and have tried to find a balance between nurturing a love of reading in our children and developing the writing and analytical skills needed ready for IGCSE. The book projects are listed below and have been used in a variety of ways.  One of my children was happy to work through these projects alone, another preferred to go through them with me, you can do whatever works best.  

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WEEKLY NEWS REPORT. Each week my children researched and reported back to the family a news article of their choice.  We limited them to 2 children's news webpages for their research just to ensure they were not exposed to anything too harrowing but you can decide where you want to direct them depending on your own children's ages.  We used BBC Newsround and Dogo news the links for each are here: BBC Newsround and Dogo News . This activity may require guidance and a framework at first but as it was a weekly task my children became independent with this quite quickly. I left it open ended for them to be able to present their report in whatever way they wanted.  We sometimes had power points, sometimes role played tv news presenters. There are a number of key skills developed by this activity: Independent research skills, verbal communication and presentation skills, summary skills and it also broadens their reading material which leads to a broader vocabulary.  It is well worth the initial effort of modelling the task and providing writing frames at the beginning.  Here is a report writing frame to help:

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FREE WRITING. One of the most beneficial things I have found in developing writing skills at KS3 is Julie Bogarts 'Free Writing', here is the link.  The basic idea is that you and your child spend a set amount of time, can be as little as 1 minute at the start, and write anything at all.  If they hate writing they may just write' I hate writing' over and over for 1 minute, but that's fine, it's a start.  There are no rules, no grammar or spelling checks, they just have to write continuously for the set time. It really helps if you do it with them too. I found that my children gradually came to love free writing, and the time allocated to it grew and grew.  Removing the usual constraints that are there for all their other writing tasks made it more enjoyable and gave them the freedom to find their own voice in their writing.  

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POETRY TEA.  Another of Julie Bogarts ideas that we have thoroughly enjoyed is 'poetry teatime' the link is here. Poetry tea is exactly what you imagine, having tea and cakes while enjoying listening to poetry.  We had never read poetry together before we started home schooling, so if this is completely new to you don't be put off. We added it to our Friday afternoons and it became something my children really looked forward to, not just because of the cake and biscuits.  You can use and adapt it to fit your family; we have a different theme each week and my children each found a poem to recite that is linked in some way to the theme.  We also spent some time looking at specific poets rather than themes, both worked well and it has produced an appreciation of poetry in each of my children.  I even found that they began to write their own poems during their free writing time. 

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