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Reading as a rainbow

22 Oct 2012

“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blindingly enter into the other?” Herman Melville

The great American author of Moby Dick sets us on the path of our first network theme for this academic year – A combined approach to the teaching of reading. The complex productive skill of writing has traditionally topped the list of many of the school improvement plans in recent years but with falling standings in international comparison surveys, the spotlight of Government policy and attention has fallen on reading. Add to this a new draft National Curriculum, new Teachers’ Standards and new Ofsted Framework with reading high on the agenda and we have a perfect opportunity as individuals and as a whole school to take stock of our philosophy and approach to the colourful, multifaceted cornerstone of education which is reading.

As national reading standards stall and internationally our ranking falls, inevitably remedies are sought. The two front runners in terms of solutions? phonics and reading for pleasure. Both essential of course, but still only two of the myriad of colours that encompass the rainbow that is reading. Superb phonics without immersion in the purposes and practice of reading for meaning gets us only so far. Reading for pleasure cannot sit as one colour strand but bleeds into every single colour of our reading rainbow, from the aforementioned phonics itself through personal response to books, motivation, and to developing depth of comprehension and wider thinking skills. It’s here we have the heart of our theme.

Reading contains so many extraordinary colours and each blurs and blends into the other. We can’t separate them out, concentrating on one element to improve the overall quality and intensity of the whole, they must be viewed together. Each streak of colour plays its part and bleeds into all the others. There is no hierarchy of colour, what is the yellow of phonics and decoding without the blue of meaningful comprehension? What is comprehension without the orange of enjoyment and pleasure which emotionally connects us to a text? What is reading for pleasure without the violet of reading skills and depth of questioning that can enhance that quest for meaning and develop our thinking, response and attitudes?

Over the coming half term we’ll be exploring each of the colours of the rainbow that is reading; unpicking and exemplifying the individual colours, sharing and looking for innovative practice, whilst at all times reinforcing the central idea that both as a teacher and as a whole school it is how we combine, balance and weave all these colours together that the true beauty and power of the reading rainbow reveals itself.

The rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours and our human eye is able to distinguish almost 100 different hues. Fortunately, our practical brain divides them down into primary colours and for a standard rainbow of course this equates to seven. In an attempt to mirror this more manageable arrangement of colour we too have categorized the strands of reading into seven for ease. An interesting task for the outset! Which seven headings might you choose?

Download an overview of our categories and journey with us as we move through and explore each colour in turn. The pot of gold at the end? Hopefully, an informed and comprehensive whole-school approach to the joy and lifelong skill that is reading. 

If you mean that the proximity of one color should give beauty to another that terminates near it, observe the rays of the sun in the composition of the rainbow, the colors of which are generated by the falling rain, when each drop in its descent takes every color of the bow. Leonardo Da Vinci, Treatise on Painting, 1490s

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