Empowering Every Reader: Kitchener Primary School’s Journey with Giglets

School Context

Kitchener Primary School is a proud School of Sanctuary in Cardiff, serving a richly diverse community. Around 90% of pupils are EAL, with over 40 home languages represented across the school.

With a broad range of languages and reading abilities across the school, staff sought an engaging, inclusive, and flexible platform to support reading development. Giglets offered exactly that - a rich digital library accessible to all learners, regardless of background or ability.

Choosing Giglets to Support All Learners

“We initially chose Giglets as it was a brilliant online platform with a wide variety of books, including audio readings for our EAL pupils.”
- Jen Bibey, LLC Lead

Staff at Kitchener recognised that traditional access to books wasn’t feasible for many families. Giglets provided a practical solution - a digital library with differentiated texts, audio support, and engaging resources that could be tailored to each pupil’s needs.

The intuitive platform also made it easy for teachers to share books, monitor engagement, and use comprehension questions to support formative assessment.

How Kitchener Uses Giglets

Giglets is now embedded into literacy routines across the school:

• Guided Reading Carousels: Pupils in upper PS2 - PS3 read collaboratively using reciprocal reading strategies in small groups, guided by their reading age.
• Whole-Class Literacy Lessons: Teachers use visual and auditory stimuli from Giglets texts to develop skills like prediction and inference.
• Vocabulary Focus: Staff highlight key words in texts to help pupils build contextual understanding of new vocabulary.
• Assessment Support: Pupils complete reading test questions after texts, giving staff clear insights into comprehension strengths and areas for development.
• EAL inclusion: Where appropriate, EAL children are given access to texts in their own language. The value of diversity is also celebrated through Giglet’s multilingualism and its texts reflecting diverse cultures.
  

“Giglets is not used to replace guided reading but to complement it. Collaborative use has been far more effective than independent tasks”
- Jen Bibey, LLC Lead

Impact and Outcomes

Giglets has had a measurable and positive impact across the school:

• Increased Reading Engagement: Pupils enjoy the digital element and have access to a broader range of texts than ever before.
• Increased National Assessment Scores: Through a whole-school literacy development strategy, including the use of Giglets, learners became more comfortable navigating online assessments, and attainment results also improved.
• Accessibility for All: Features like font size adjustment, text colour options, and audio narration ensure all pupils, including those with EAL or additional needs, can access texts independently.

“We saw an increase in scores within our national assessments after using Giglets reading test questions”
Jen Bibey, LLC Lead

Benefits for All

Pupils, staff and the wider school community all experienced the benefits of using Giglets:

• Pupils: Greater access to engaging texts, tailored reading experiences, and more confidence in reading assessments.
• Staff: Reduced planning workload and more efficient formative assessment tools.
• Community: Improved home-school connections through shared reading and access to a digital library beyond school hours.

As a multilingual tool, with purpose-built features to support inclusion, Giglets reflects Kitchener Primary School’s ethos of inclusivity and has been embraced by staff and pupils alike.

“Giglets is my favourite website”
Lisette, Yr6 Pupil

Context

Giglets has helped to transform the way reading is approached at Kitchener Primary School. From boosting EAL pupil confidence to enriching guided reading sessions, the platform has become a vital part of the school’s literacy strategy.

Would you like to use Giglets in your school?

The Giglets library consists of over 2,000 texts across 40+ different languages with supporting resources including higher-order thinking skills questions, reading test questions and cross-curricular tasks. Giglets is ideal for inspiring a love of reading and motivating learners.

Support pupils in developing those ever-important comprehension skills with our enhanced texts and accessible reader. To see how Giglets can enhance your literacy provision, contact us today.