Usborne Phonics Readers - 12 Book Set

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Many of these children who are coming to us with such a low reading age already have probably had intervention after intervention at primary school and it hasn’t worked, so they need something different. Inspection evidence shows that schools frequently use reading ages as a measure of reading ability. Reading age assessments measure the gap between a pupil’s actual age and how well they should be reading for their age. Reading age assessments tell schools less than they might seem, because older pupils vary a lot in how they read. [footnote 21] Reading ages can show whether a pupil has a problem with reading, but not what that problem might be. They focus on comprehension and do not look at decoding and fluency, for example.

We read to our children every day, but they rely on us to read to them. Reading a book on their own will make all the difference in their learning and desire to read! Oh the first joy to see them read their own book for the first time! The lowest 30% are also assessed for a tailored reading programme that is taught by staff who have been trained by the programme developers. Selected students complete three 30-minute individualised lessons each week. Lessons are in 2 parts: systematic decoding practice; and systematic language teaching related to graded prose texts. Staff teaching on this programme are trained to use diagnostic assessments to identify pupils’ needs, match them to appropriate teaching and plan lessons. This training is followed up with additional coaching sessions and monitoring meetings, as well as observations of teaching. C Young, T Rasinski, D Paige and W Rupley, ‘Defining fluency: finding the missing pieces for reading fluency’, Issue June, 2020; ‘Report of the national reading panel: teaching children to read’, National Reading Panel, 2000. ↩ 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. You can see the progress they’ve made, you see it in lessons when they’re eager to read. It’s beyond the figures – we do what we do to see that palpable result. It’s not necessarily about that number on a spreadsheet or reading age – it’s about them having that confidence.

Is your child easily distracted, so do you need fewer pictures? (Bob Books, Fun Tales, Primary Phonics) Sometimes struggling readers can fool people into thinking they are fluent readers, others will stumble over words and it is more obvious. Equally you can have a student who doesn’t read well out loud but takes in all the information and understands.

Schools frequently stopped giving pupils additional help once they had ‘graduated’ from a reading programme or had reached their chronological reading age. This meant that schools might not know if previously struggling readers were continuing to make progress with their reading. inspection evidence retrieval – to validate the sample of schools to visit, and better understand what schools do to identify and support struggling readers These readers may work for your child as a review of the letter sounds or if you think they can distinguish easily between the vowel sounds. The second two sets of phonics readers are excellent for fluency and early story comprehension: Animal Friends Books, and Basic Phonics Readers Set. The longer they are taking to read something the less likely they are to be taking it in fully. Lots of omissions, replacements of words – we call it misreading and careless reading. It’s really common. It may not seem important but it can have a big impact on comprehension and change the entire meaning.Diagnostic tests included DiaPhon, Diagnostic Reading Analysis, Test of Word Reading Efficiency and Fresh Start. Accelerated Reader is a popular commercial computer-based reading programme that uses graded books and related comprehension and vocabulary quizzes. ↩ Understanding phonics will also help children know which letters to use when they are writing words. 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.

Senior leaders prioritised reading. They invested in additional, bespoke help for struggling readers and training for staff who taught reading. Leaders made sure that this help was part of a well-thought-out curriculum and a wider school reading strategy for all pupils to become proficient readers. They communicated this commitment to all staff, raising the visibility of reading across the school so that all staff knew the part they played in supporting struggling readers. Leaders shared information about struggling readers with staff. Teachers and support staff knew which pupils were getting additional help, what aspects of reading they struggled with and what intervention they were receiving. They used this information in lesson planning. It also helped staff to create a consistent approach to teaching struggling readers. The research was approved by Ofsted’s research ethics committee and we got informed consent from everyone we spoke with, including pupils and their parents. What we learned Written language can be compared to a code, so knowing the sounds of individual letters and how those letters sound when they’re combined will help children decode words as they read. 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.

From Oxford University Press

The school uses a baseline standardised reading test to screen all new pupils. This gives each pupil a reading age, and identifies which pupils may need additional teaching. The school also tests all new pupils’ spelling and comprehension, and assesses foundational skills such as phonics, word recognition and fluency. All Year 7 pupils do a cognitive ability test in the first 2 weeks of the autumn term. 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 In schools where teachers were trained to understand and spot reading problems, subject teachers better understood the knowledge pupils needed to become proficient readers, and the gaps in knowledge that might affect this. In one school, it was evident that teachers understood how pupils might struggle with different components of reading, as one of the mathematics teachers explained: