Language Led Literacy

Whole-School Strategies for Improving Reading Across the Curriculum, including Multilingual Reading Support

This practical and research-informed session offers an introduction to strategies that support the development of reading skills for multilingual learners in Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3.

We will explore:

• Foundational reading concepts and what the research tells us about how multilingual learners read;
• Common challenges multilingual learners face in developing reading fluency and comprehension; and
• Evidence-based strategies to make reading instruction more inclusive, including translanguaging, oracy-rich approaches, and multilingual-friendly classroom practices.

Designed for teachers, leaders, and support staff, this session will:

• Deepen understanding of how multilingualism intersects with reading development
• Provide actionable classroom strategies that build learners’ language, confidence, and reading stamina
• Offer tools to help identify and address barriers to reading progress in diverse, multilingual classrooms
• Support whole-school thinking around inclusive reading provision and teaching across the curriculum.

Suitable for teachers, leaders and TAs in the primary, secondary and special phases

About the facilitators

Anna Leaman

Anna is an experienced education consultant with a background in teaching and leadership in UK and international schools, including specialist SEND settings. She specialises in EAL pedagogy, literacy development, and inclusive curriculum design.

Anna has led English and EAL departments, developed targeted interventions, and supported whole-school improvement through coaching and training. She now works with schools to embed language-aware, inclusive practices that raise outcomes for multilingual learners.

Soofia Amin

Soofia is an Assistant Head Teacher at Kensington Primary (TTLT) and a Specialist Leader in Education for Multilingualism. She has wide-ranging experience supporting multilingual pupils, promoting the use of first languages, and embedding whole-school approaches to language-inclusive practice.

She has trained schools across London, worked with the DfE on improving provision in priority areas, and supported leadership teams through audits and tailored CPD. Her work has been recognised nationally, and she collaborates with universities on research and professional development to celebrate and strengthen multilingualism in education.

Accessing the online event

Following registration for this event you will receive an email from Eventbrite confirming your place. If you do not receive the email within a few minutes, please check your junk or spam folders and check that the correct email address was provided at the time of booking. If you did not create an account at the time of booking or someone else booked on your behalf, you will need to create an Eventbrite account. Open your booking confirmation email, select ‘Claim Your Order’ and then choose a password. Make a note of your email address that was used to make the booking and your new password – you will need these to access the Eventbrite page containing the link to the event.

A minimum of 48 hours before the event begins you will receive another email from Eventbrite containing a direct link to the event and to the Eventbrite Online Event page. Login to Eventbrite, using the same email and password you used to create your account. You will now have access to the online event link and any pre-event materials. This link must not be shared with other people.

Please test the link the day before the event to make sure you can connect. If you need help please email info@otsa.org.uk or call 01865 647999 in good time before the event begins. We will be unable to help during the event itself. Please note, if you unsubscribe from Eventbrite before the event takes place you will not receive any further emails from Eventbrite and therefore will not receive the email with the link to the event.

We do not provide refunds if you are unable to access the event due to technical issues that are beyond our control.

Participation in online events

In all cases, at the beginning of the session to confirm your identity please ensure that your camera is on, your username matches the name you registered with and that you register in ‘chat’ with your first name, second name and organisation. This is for security and registration purposes and we may remove, without refunds, participants who have not confirmed their identity as described above.

Our online events aim to be interactive and at times you may be expected to have your camera and microphone on during the session, although usually your microphone should be muted.

We may use ‘Raised Hands’, ‘Reactions’, ‘Chat’, ‘Polls’, shared whiteboards and shared screens during the session. We may also use ‘Breakout Rooms’ to allow you to work in a smaller group.

This event will not be recorded for copyright and privacy reasons.

Payment

Payment is required at the time of booking by credit card, debit card or Paypal. Unless otherwise stated, a ticket gives admission to one person at face-to-face and online events. In the event that you share an online event link with other people who then attend the event, including sharing your screen, or you arrive at a venue without a ticket and we are able to admit you, we will invoice you or your organisation for additional tickets retrospectively.

Refunds

No refunds will be given with less than 30 days notice.

In the event of a refund request, please note that the Eventbrite booking fee of 6.95% plus 0.59p per ticket is not refundable.

To keep our event fees as low as possible, we are not able to issue invoices for payment by cheque or bank transfer and we are not able to reserve places without payment.

We strongly recommend that you take out ‘event ticket insurance’ which may cover the cost of your fee should you be unable to attend the event.

Technical difficulties

Should an online session encounter any technical difficulties we will do our best to continue with the session, this may be on a different online platform. In the event that we are unable to do this we will rearrange the session, if you are unable to attend the new date a full refund will be given.

Restriction on AI and Automated Participation

Our online training sessions are designed for human participants only. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) bots, automated systems, or any non-human entities to attend, participate in, or interact with the training content is strictly prohibited. We reserve the right to remove any unauthorised participants and take appropriate action if this policy is violated.