Recognising the need for a proven intervention, John Bramston Primary School followed advice from partner schools and implemented DreamBox Reading Plus – the adaptive online reading programme designed to improve fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
To determine if Reading Plus was impactful, Gabrielle Martin, Year 5 Teacher and Reading Lead, conducted a nine-month study tracking the reading progress of pupils.
“Adopting Reading Plus for our school was a great benefit. Looking at all our children using the programme, many have progressed with reading and understanding. Their reading speeds have also accelerated over the nine months, which will help when taking timed tests.”
The issue
Gabrielle Martin set out to address the persistent issue of pupils not meeting the expected standard in the KS2 SATs despite existing efforts to provide high-quality texts and encourage reading for pleasure. With Ofsted inspections approaching, the need for a robust intervention became clear.
The study
To test if Reading Plus does what it says it can do, “Prepare confident, lifelong readers”, Gabrielle conducted her own study following three lower achieving pupils – CR (Y4), DN (Y5) and MA (Y6).
Over nine months, Gabrielle tracked the progress of these three pupils through Reading Plus and their results in reading assessments each term.
Key takeaways
Over the nine months, Gabrielle noticed that:
- All three pupils (CR, DN, MA) made significant progress – despite technical issues within school, which hindered their Reading Plus usage.
- All the children using Reading Plus in school who were not involved in the study also made progress in reading and understanding.
- Children who put in the effort, read every day and did the vocabulary exercises made the most progress in reading.
- The results for Years 5 and 6 are far more impressive than those for Year 4 due to higher usage in school and at home.
Useful Reading Plus features that Gabrielle highlighted were:
- Adaptive assessment (InSight): The programme’s in-built assessment quickly determines pupils’ reading capabilities.
- Personalised instruction: Adapts to each pupil’s progress, providing just-right level reading and vocabulary tasks.
- Comprehensive online and printable materials: Supports learning with video tutorials and lesson plans.
- Accessibility: Allows for home access, ensuring continuity of learning as it can be accessed from a range of devices.
The results
Below is a table detailing the outcomes of the research study.
CR is a Year 4 pupil
Before Reading Plus (July 2023), CR was working below the expected level.
After one term of Reading Plus usage, CR had:
- Read 55 texts – 27 of which they scored 80%+ correct in the programme’s in-built comprehension questions.
- Increased their reading speed by 28 words per minute.
- Increased their reading age by one year.
“While CR has made steady progress this term, their attainment isn’t as advanced as the other two because they aren’t doing as many hours on Reading Plus.”
By the end of the Reading Plus study, CR had only read an additional three texts, so their progress remained the same.
“The results for our Year 5 and 6 classes are far more impressive than those for Year 4 due to the amount of Reading Plus time the children had access to, and if they followed usage at home too.”
DN is a Year 5 pupil
Before Reading Plus (July 2023), DN was working below the expected level.
After one term of Reading Plus usage, DN had:
- Read 75 texts – 55 of which they scored 80%+ correct in the programme’s in-built comprehension questions.
- Increased their reading speed by 74 words per minute.
- Increased their reading age by 3.7 years.
“These results have impacted the end-of-term class assessments, where DN answered more questions successfully.”
After nine months of Reading Plus usage, DN had:
- Read 120 texts – 76 of which they scored 80%+ correct in the programme’s in-built comprehension questions.
- Increased their reading speed by 74 words per minute.
- Increased their reading age by 4.3 years.
MA is a Year 6 pupil
Before Reading Plus (July 2023), MA was working below the expected level.
After one term of Reading Plus usage, MA had:
- Read 73 texts – 57 of which they scored 80%+ correct in the programme’s in-built comprehension questions.
- Increased their reading speed by 61 words per minute.
- Increased their reading age by 3.4 years.
“These amazing results have shown an improvement in the end-of-term class assessments where MA went from being below to just below. That’s one step in their attainment!”
After nine months of Reading Plus usage, MA had:
- Read 154 texts – 104 of which they scored 80%+ correct in the programme’s in-built comprehension questions.
- Increased their reading speed by 120 words per minute.
- Increased their reading age by 5.5 years.
Study conclusion
“Adopting Reading Plus for our school was a great benefit.
“If you look at just the three children I tracked, significant progress was made by all of them. However, if you look at all our children in the programme, many have progressed with reading and understanding. Their reading speeds have also accelerated over the course of the nine months, which will help when taking timed tests.
“This means that moving forward to next year, when I target the upper KS2 children who are not reaching the expected level (the lowest 20%), they will go on to Reading Plus at the start of the year to gain the most out of it and raise their ability level and hopefully reach full potential.”
Gabrielle Martin.
What is Reading Plus?
Reading Plus is an adaptive online reading development programme designed to enhance fluency, vocabulary and comprehension skills. It dynamically monitors pupil performance, adjusting support and content levels accordingly to ensure pupils progress effectively. With over 1,400 engaging texts, pupils can self-select from a diverse library of informational, fiction and non-fiction materials. See more about our content library here.
Reading Plus serves the needs of a wide range of pupils. Children eligible for pupil premium, and those with EAL and SEND, benefit significantly from the programme’s personalised scaffolding, adaptive technology, and varied informative and cultural texts. Read our Y6 efficacy study with Derby Research School here.
Interested in seeing the impact Reading Plus can have on your pupils? Get four weeks’ full access to Reading Plus – for free!
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When used as recommended, we expect students will:
- Make six months’ progress in comprehension levels in text complexity.
- Increase their reading speed by 20 words per minute.