In one school, leaders were very clear about the different needs of pupils who had poor decoding skills when they joined, compared with pupils who needed additional practice to become fluent. Assessments focused on identifying those who needed help with phonics and accurate word reading, rather than other components of fluency such as pace and expression. As well as specialised tests, staff at this school listened to pupils read, to refine their understanding of what help was needed. Timetabling additional reading lessons Strong leadership of reading made sure that these schools had staff with the right professional development and training to teach reading. The culture of reading embedded in all the schools was summed up by a Senior HMI who was part of a research visit to one school: For paired reading we’re looking at the weaker groups of readers – that’s around fluency, decoding etc – this is the best strategy to help them initially. The theory behind it is that for the readers that really struggle, you start reading aloud together… Then as you go through you’re helping them with the strategies and modelling those strategies in practical terms – what it looks like to break it down, chunk it into syllables, sound it out. As you go through their confidence builds so you’re reading less and less and they’re reading to you.

In one school, we heard how engaging with particular groups, such as struggling readers, was part of the librarian’s performance targets. The librarian created opportunities for struggling readers to use the library more regularly, and frequently had the very weakest readers in the library. Conclusion The HMI focus groups indicated that secondary schools did not always have staff trained to teach pupils who were in the early stages of learning to read. They also showed that teachers did not always know how to help struggling readers in class. It is important that all pupils get the specific teaching they need, alongside a well-thought-out reading curriculum, so that they can read well before they leave school. This project was an in-depth qualitative study. The aim was to understand what schools did and why, rather than measure the impact of additional teaching for struggling readers. There was also no intention to assess the quality of support for struggling readers or reading support across the school. The aim was to develop an understanding of what effective practice might look like, to support other secondary schools and inform inspection practice.

's, a, t, p' Lesson Pack - Level 2 Week 1 Lesson 5

I want to really emphasise the importance of a well-informed librarian. Over the years we really had to fight for that but it’s made all the difference. HMI summed up how, without a carefully thought-out and implemented strategy behind improving reading, what some secondary schools are doing is ‘tokenistic’. When I first joined the school I had to go out a couple of times and do some reading tests with teachers. I started to go into that [reading support] and it helps me a lot with my reading. I don’t stutter as much as I used to.’ literature review – to understand the issues for struggling adolescent readers and review evidence of effective strategies and interventions shown to support older struggling readers The most widely used approach associated with the teaching of reading in which phonemes (sounds) associated with particular graphemes (letters) are pronounced in isolation and blended together (synthesised). For example, children are taught to take a single-syllable word such as cat apart into its three letters, pronounce a phoneme for each letter in turn /k, æ, t/, and blend the phonemes together to form a word. Analytical phonics

secondary and primary schools HMI – to understand the current issues they find in schools and what might support inspection practice My favorite phonics-based book set are the Storybooks from Primary Phonics. I think I am nostalgic because I learned to read with these sweet little books! These books begin with sounds (m, n, r, f, s, l) that can each be voiced without a vowel sound. This makes them easier to blend with the vowel. It also introduces letter Aa as the first vowel sound, which is the case for all the Phonics Readers listed. At the beginning, your child will be sounding out:

All the schools recognised the importance of secure phonic knowledge and accurate decoding. They used a phonics programme for struggling readers who had gaps in their phonic knowledge. As one reading support teacher said, ‘The weakest readers always struggle with phonics.’ The aim of this research was to illustrate what some secondary schools do to support struggling readers effectively. We did not want to measure the effectiveness of support, but instead wanted to develop an in-depth understanding of some common threads of good practice and high-quality provision that could be used in similar contexts. We therefore used a purposive sample of a small number of schools where a range of evidence indicated accelerated progress for readers who did not meet national standards on entry to Year 7. discussions with His Majesty’s Inspectors ( HMI) who are primary specialists or secondary English specialists

Understanding phonics will also help children know which letters to use when they are writing words. According to 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment ( PISA) data, at age 15 in England there is a gap equivalent to 8.5 years of schooling between the highest and lowest achieving 10% of readers. [footnote 28]The level of reading achievement of struggling readers suggests they will have difficulty with more complex texts that require specific subject knowledge. [footnote 29] Methodology overview No one sits down with high school teachers and explains how Year 6 SATs work. For teachers that is something that is not explained. We don’t understand what the scaled score of 100 or 95 means in high school. Yes, there is definitely a gap there. Schools had to make difficult decisions about when to timetable additional reading lessons. Each of the schools had considered when to give extra teaching, and whether pupils should miss lessons or not. There was no consensus about the best time in the day for additional reading lessons. This was a hard decision for leaders and one not taken lightly, as this senior leader explained: School leaders recognised that secondary teachers might not know how children learn how to read. Teachers also said there can be gaps in their own understanding of what being a struggling reader looks like in practice, and what they might find difficult. This gap in knowledge was described by a literacy coordinator during one school visit:Is your child easily distracted, so do you need fewer pictures? (Bob Books, Fun Tales, Primary Phonics) Phonics is a way of teaching children how to read and write. It helps children hear, identify and use different sounds that distinguish one word from another in the English language.

Many pupils said that reading had previously caused them stress and anxiety. This was often when pupils were asked to read aloud in class. One Year 7 pupil said, ‘It was really embarrassing because I didn’t know how to say some of the words.’ Another Year 7 pupil in the same school said: Teaching children to blend the sounds of letters together helps them decode unfamiliar or unknown words by sounding them out. For example, when a child is taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, they can start to build up the words: “tap”, “taps”, “pat”, “pats” and “sat”. The Simple View of Reading ( SVR) is a model of reading that says reading is the result of word recognition and language comprehension. The SVR was proposed by Gough and Tunmerand developed further by Hoover and Tunmer. [footnote 5] Hoover and Tunmer define word recognition as: The high status given to reading by leaders created a culture where all departments demonstrated a similar commitment to reading. Staff did not see reading as solely the responsibility of the English department. In 2 of the schools, curriculum subject leaders had a focus on reading in their departmental development plans. These were matched to the needs of struggling readers as well as other pupils. Departments had reading leads who discussed reading at staff meetings, and led professional development on reading. Investment in training gave all teachers a level of understanding and insight that meant they could help identify pupils who might need additional teaching, and could use specific strategies to help them in class. Specialist training and development for reading teachers also created a pool of expertise that staff could use for advice and help.

In contrast, other secondary schools are treating pupils as individuals and building up a complete picture of their barriers to reading. One HMI said: