Usborne Phonics Readers - 12 Book Set

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We also saw how additional help for struggling readers was part of a wider whole-school strategy to improve the reading of all pupils. This meant that as well as additional teaching in the foundational components of reading, such as accurate word reading and fluency, struggling readers benefited from teaching across the curriculum that focused on the vocabulary knowledge needed for comprehension and subject-specific reading. Annex A: detailed research methods You’ve got gradual change over the years, staff have actually started to really realise the fundamental importance of literacy, reading, writing, regardless of your subject.

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 The decoding skills pupils do have may not be fluent enough for the demands of the secondary curriculum. A study with pupils in Years 7 to 9 found that only a small number of struggling readers with poor reading comprehension had adequate word reading fluency. [footnote 14] Although poor word decoding does not prevent comprehension, it is a barrier to skilled, proficient reading comprehension. [footnote 15] We also saw from inspection evidence that schools focused assessment and teaching on struggling readers at key stage 3. Schools assessed pupils’ reading in Year 7 and new starters in Years 8 and 9, but there was less evidence of this happening in key stage 4. This means that pupils who begin to struggle later, or new starters in key stage 4, might not receive targeted support. This academy is a mixed secondary school with a sixth form. It is part of a sponsor-led academy. The school has 1,150 pupils, of whom 32% speak English as an additional language and 30% are disadvantaged.In other schools, pupils could identify specific aspects of reading they were receiving help with. Each of the 3 pupils below talked about the additional teaching they had been given, and the impact it had on their reading: discussions with His Majesty’s Inspectors ( HMI) who are primary specialists or secondary English specialists

HMI said in focus groups that schools often did not know whether any strategy to help struggling readers was working. This was because they did not evaluate the impact of individual reading programmes. HMI said schools found it hard to talk about the difference something was making and how this informed planning and evaluation. Buying programmes to support struggling readers should be the beginning, not the end of the process. Before buying a programme, schools should know what will be needed. There is a body of knowledge that all pupils need so they can make progress. Schools should use insightful assessment to ask whether what is in place is helping those who need it most, and what progress these pupils have made in learning that body of knowledge. Schools tended to stop additional support and monitoring once pupils were beyond key stage 3. Each of the schools assessed and monitored struggling readers until at least Year 9. However, none of them told us that they continued to monitor pupils’ progress beyond key stage 3, or once pupils had reached their chronological reading age. Nor did they always continue to give pupils the additional help once they had ‘graduated’ from a reading programme. This meant that the schools did not always know the longer-term impact of help, or whether pupils continued to struggle in key stage 4. Several pupils told us that they felt less enthusiastic and motivated to read for pleasure by the time they reached key stage 4. Introduction Skilled readingThe illustrations in Primary Phonics are very simple, and the readers progressively learns their vowel sounds. These Storybooks Starter Set 1 are the perfect introduction to phonics-based early reading. The books contain decodable stories, so they have an added comprehension element while the inside covers clearly list phonetic concepts and sight words included in each book.

In spring 2022, we led research visits to 6 secondary schools in which a higher-than-expected proportion of poor readers got a grade 4 or above in English language at GCSE. The findings illustrate how these secondary schools identify specific reading weaknesses, and how they provide targeted support for struggling readers. The report describes how these secondary schools make sure that pupils who have left primary school not able to read age-appropriate books with fluency become proficient readers who can access the secondary curriculum. [footnote 4] During focus groups, inspectors told us that although schools assessed pupils’ reading, it was not always clear how these assessments were used or what their purpose was. They described how programmes like Accelerated Reader [footnote 31] are regularly used by secondary schools to monitor and assess reading, but said that the information from these programmes was not used systematically in the school curriculum. This kind of detailed assessment was important to ‘try to work out what the barriers are’ as one reading support teacher explained.It’s very complicated – we talk about two things – teaching pupils to read who are struggling and helping them to access the curriculum. In other subjects they are being taught vocabulary useful for that subject. But is it actually teaching them to read? It’s a very difficult area for secondary schools to navigate, not just the quality of interventions, but how much time it takes or where it is in the curriculum. It’s a real tension for secondary school leaders to manage that.’

Note: Major conurbations include London, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Tyneside, Merseyside and Greater Manchester. Limitations Bob Books are an incredibly effective and affordable option for any child. They include simple illustrations, so they do not distract from the simple developmental text. Bob Books Set 1: Beginning Readers starts with simple sentences such as: Oversight of struggling readers is led by the vice-principal and assistant principal. The assistant SENCo and English teacher leading on the form-time reading programme also have responsibility for the progress of struggling readers. The academy invests heavily in specialist programmes for struggling readers. 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: I sincerely hope that this collection of Best Phonics Reader Sets will help you make an informed choice for your child(ren) or students. There are many options out there, and it is important to keep the child’s needs and interests in mind when choosing what is best for them!Follow your child’s natural interest and look up information on the internet. They won’t notice that they are practising their reading. They will also be practising vital retrieval and research skills S Higgins, M Katsipataki and R Coleman, ‘Interim evidence brief reading at the transition’, Education Endowment Foundation, 2014. ↩ secondary school visits – to collect first-hand evidence from pupils, teachers and senior leaders about what schools do to help struggling readers