Improving Literacy in the Classics Classroom

The need to develop subject discipline literacy was raised by several speakers during the Harrow Ancient History CPD day in January. For high literacy and reading comprehension skills are needed for learners studying text heavy subjects, such as Ancient History, to be able to meaningfully engage with the large number of literary sources that must be studied. Moreover, the importance of developing literacy skills within schools goes beyond just that of accessing subject discipline material, for literacy is related to levels of happiness, confidence, and self-esteem amongst learners (National Literacy Trust), which in turn lead to greater intrinsic motivation and higher levels of academic engagement and attainment. The need to address these concerns is becoming increasingly important as we see literacy rates decline amongst the lowest performing pupils in England (DfE, 2023). The teaching of Latin and Greek supports the development of literacy (Holmes-Henderson, A. and Kelly, K., 2022) and source-heavy subjects such as Ancient History and Classical Civilisation can also be taught in a way that strengthens literacy. Teaching literacy skills within our subjects therefore not only improves student academic achievement and examination outcomes but is also a tool with which to promote and champion the utility of teaching of classical subjects.

There are many ways in which to improve literacy within the Classics classroom. The two I will focus on here are pre-teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension strategies.

Pre-Teach Vocabulary

If students do not understand the meaning of words within a text, they will not be able to comprehend the meaning of that text (Hendrick, C., 2026.). Vocabulary should therefore be actively taught before reading to support literacy and reading comprehension. Moreover, students at all attainment levels will benefit from extending their vocabulary base. Alex Quigley developed the SEEC Model (Select, Explain, Explore, Consolidate) for explicit vocabulary teaching and suggests that it is important to select and explicitly teach words that allow students to understand the meaning of the text and to also briefly explain words which help support fluency of reading (2026). If unsure about which words students will find difficult, consider Isobel Beck’s tiers of vocabulary: Tier 1 everyday words; Tier 2 academic words; Tier 3 subject specific words (Beck et al., 2018). Or listen to students as they read through a text to identify words that they hesitate on or cannot explain the use of in context.

When pre-teaching vocabulary, dual coding can be used to introduce words before exploring meaning by providing examples of word use in sentences as well as synonyms, antonyms and, where relevant, the Latin and Greek roots of words. Students’ understanding of definitions can be checked through questioning and low stakes formative assessment. In the case of Greek and Latin names referred to in the texts, pronunciation and spelling should be practised to familiarise students with these words and build fluency for both reading and writing.

Reading Comprehension Strategies

Reading strategies guide students to comprehend the meaning of a text by modelling and applying the tools used by expert readers (EEF, 2025). These strategies should be taught explicitly to students and reinforced until they become automatic.

Methods that could be used to support reading in all classical subject areas are:

Metacognitive reading strategy:

• Before reading – What do I know already about this topic? What do I expect might happen? What is my aim in reading this passage? What strategies will help me read it?
• During reading – What do I understand about what I am reading? What strategies would help me overcome any difficulties I am facing?
• After reading – What did I understand from the passage? What would I do in the same way or differently to read a similar text in the future?

Guided reading questions:

• Provide students with questions to aid understanding and focus them on what is important in the text as they read.
• When used as a flipped learning approach, where students read the texts before coming to the lesson, this gives students time to digest and think through the texts at their own pace, whilst also giving more time in lessons for questioning and examination of the themes in the sources. However, this does rely on students being motivated to complete the reading tasks before coming to the lesson and so may not be suitable for all contexts.

Summarising:

• Summarising is an example of generative learning and the SOI Model (Select Integrate, Organise) developed by Fiorella and Mayer (Fayaz, 2020).
• Ask students to summarise a text to engage them in thinking about its meaning and provide an opportunity to check their understanding.
• Summaries can be done as a written or drawing task. For example, ask students to create a storyboard of a section of their GCSE Latin or Greek set text and annotate each box with key vocabulary or to create a graphic organiser or diagram to show the connections made within a text.

Questions for reflection

• Which texts and sources do your students struggle with most?
• Where best could these be introduced into your lessons and schemes of work?
• How much time and opportunity do you and your department have to plan literacy scaffolds?