Reading is not only 50% of the GCSE English qualification, it's an important life skill to have. You will spend your life doing this, so why not do it to the best of your ability?
In the exams, it's the one thing we can't predict or control. The GCSE English Language exams are unseen - we will never know what inserts they will choose for you to read in 15 minutes in an exam in November or June. There are 2 golden rules when it comes to the Reading sections in the exams: 1) You need to be prepared for whatever comes up through having confidence in your reading skills and 2) Don't worry about it because you have no way of predicting it.
The texts in the exams will be no more than 800-900 words in total. We know what questions will come up in the Question Papers; the order they come in, how many marks they are worth, how long to spend on them and how to answer them...
The quality of your answers are not based on the Question Paper, they are based on the clarity and quality of your reading.
Don't like reading? It's time to fall in love with what you dislike. Passing GCSE English depends on it.
There are 3 things you need to cover in your reading: 1) a full understanding of the story overall, 2) understanding of the characters (or narrators in Paper 2) in detail - what do they think, feel, say and do? 3) full analysis of writer's methods - what language and structural features has the writer used? Where? Why? How?
For Paper 1, read the opening pages of short stories, read the opening pages of novels, read flash fiction...For Paper 2, read articles, speeches and letters. The Guardian newspaper can is often used by AQA for the exams. Read articles in the Guardian for revision of persuasive writing and SPaG. It's still free online or to download on to your phones, for now at least. You can read anything you like, it's all good revision. The Guardian has an 'Opinion' section - read this for Question 4 and Question 5 in Paper 2 - the 2 highest marked questions, worth 16 marks and 40 marks respectively.
As you read, learn what to look for. As stated previously: understanding of the story overall, what the characters/narrators are thinking, feeling, saying and doing in the stories and the writer's use of language and structure to engage you as the reader.
Learn to annotate texts - notes in the margins, underline, highlight, circle...In the exams the answers will all be in front of you. Your job is to go and find them through your reading and then write your responses as practised in classes. Learn how to read quickly and find your answers effectively. Everything you annotate is an answer you can analyse in your responses and can be used as evidence through short quotations. WHY is the character thinking/feeling/saying/do that? WHY is the writer using that language or structural feature the way they are? WHY does it have an effect on you as the reader? EXPLAIN yourself through the quality of your reading. NEVER RUSH YOUR READING! The quality of your answers depend on the depth of your reading. Take your time. If you don't fully understand the story on first reading, read it again! This is NOT wasted time. You can't answer questions with clarity and relevance if you don't understand the texts you have been asked to read.
You can read in the Library, or take out paperbacks or purchase books or read on Kindle or on your phones or laptops or tablets...there are plenty of ways to read and you don't have to go anywhere to do so, it can easily come to you. Read when you are waiting for someone, when you are travelling alone, when you are on a break or at the end of a long day. There is ALWAYS time to read!
You read all of the time. You are constantly revising for the GCSE English exams. So why not embrace reading as a key life skill and practise reading for meaning so that when those 15 minutes appear in the exam, you know exactly what to do with them...
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