Reading: Consistency and firm foundations are key to success

Naturally I love a geeky phonics debate, so I’ve been closely reading the recent exchanges around the EEF evaluation of the ‘Read Write Inc.’ and ‘Fresh Start’ schemes with great interest. The research highlights some really important points but, as the EEF themselves acknowledge, the complexity of creating truly randomised conditions in schools is incredibly challenging.

Having run reading interventions as a headteacher, as well as having established RWI and Fresh Start across the Ark network, I am reminded the devil is not so much in the detail as in the implementation.

We made the decision two years ago to make reading a strategic network-wide priority at Ark across primary and secondary. Of course it has always been a core part of what we do, but we wanted to be even more intentional about it. We wanted to ensure that all students could read at or beyond their chronological age and be confident, fluent readers. This meant ensuring that every teacher saw themselves as a teacher of reading.

The network support means we can implement programmes like ‘Read Write Inc.’ (RWI) in a very systematic way, monitoring how consistently they are applied and tracking the impact on students.

We have by no means cracked it. We still have far too many children who have slipped or remained behind their chronological age. But we are proud that between September 2021 and summer 2022 our students achieved on average more than 15 months’ progress in reading age over a period of less than 10 months (16.5 months for primary and 15.1 for secondary).

This contributed to 73 percent of KS2 pupils achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. This was significantly over the national average and was achieved with a cohort that includes 46 per cent pupil premium eligibility.

RWI programmes are part of our success, but certainly not the only element. Our key lessons have been that:

• Focus is key. We explicitly identify the bottom 20 percent of readers in every school. We know who they are at both a network and school level and lay out very clear expectations for schools. Typically, this includes additional reading time, targeted homework and recently we used this as a way to prioritise resources from the national tutoring programme.
• Phonics is necessary but not sufficient to a great reading strategy. We emphasise developing language comprehension, vocabulary and fluency alongside decoding. Phonics support has to run alongside additional literacy support.              
• For any reading intervention, rigorous training and regular refreshers for every member of staff are critical to sustaining a consistent approach – a big investment in time and effort. Every teacher has to see themselves as, and feel equipped to be a teacher of reading. We also consciously target the most skilled teachers to work with our lowest level readers to prioritise their progress.
• Organising our timetable and reading support around the stage a child is at and not their age, with smaller, regularly assessed intervention groups, allows us to be agile and really target the most urgent need.
• Children should not be rushed through RWI after the PSC if we want to build their fluency. Our expectation is that they have completed the programme by Easter of year 2. After that, reading lessons centre on high-quality texts and employ Ark’s ‘signature strategies for reading’.
• Delivering targeted training to groups of leaders (phonics leads, reading leads, etc.) has allowed us to more effectively share best practice.
• Starting young brings big benefits. Where our schools have nurseries, we build in phonic awareness and always start RWI in reception.
• Better digital resources drive improvements and provide additional time for practice while reducing teacher workloads. Our digital strategy means that all our children from year 3 onwards have access to digital devices and therefore to adaptive reading programmes.

As the EEF acknowledges, there is still more research to be done to establish the fundamental enabling conditions of an effective synthetic systematic phonics programme.

In the meantime, I can’t believe that anyone is surprised to learn that implementation is challenging and complex. We’ve seen similar challenges and debates play out, and we know that few educational programmes survive first contact with reality.

Ultimately however, we cannot let this stop us asking these questions, participating in rigorous research, using what we know and reminding ourselves that any intervention is only as effective as its implementation.