Assistant Head Emma Hodgson and Year 6 Teacher Erin Smith from Colegate Community Primary in Gateshead share how Reading Plus has helped to improve pupils’ reading levels and confidence.
Erin Smith, Colegate’s Community Primary new English Lead, introduced a range of new strategies to improve reading across the school, such as an overhaul of the school library, new reading books, a new phonics scheme, and staff training. They also decided to implement Reading Plus.
The school were looking to improve pupils:
- Comprehension skills.
- Fluency skills.
- Reading stamina.
Why Reading Plus?
We chose Reading Plus as our online reading development programme as we liked that it was personalised to each pupil, the quality of the programme’s data, and how engaging it is.
What were reading levels like before Reading Plus?
Our pupils lacked basic comprehension and fluency skills and had poor reading stamina. Very few chose to read independently for a significant length of time, so they also struggled to read for pleasure.
The positive impact of Reading Plus
Since implementing Reading Plus, we have noticed a positive impact on our pupils’ fluency, stamina, and confidence. Reading levels are far better, and our children are growing increasingly fluent.
Reading Plus also supports our less able readers by adapting their reading pace to match their capabilities, providing age-appropriate texts, and offering a support mode.
Past academic year data from our 484 students on the programme show an average comprehension score of 86%, with an average comprehension gain of 1.8 years.
Pupils’ enjoyment
Our children really enjoy using Reading Plus. They love moving up through the levels and then being awarded certificates to celebrate success.
Teacher enjoyment
We, as teachers, love how easy it is to see a pupil’s progression. We also appreciate how it offers our children many questions tailored to their needs to help them improve and provides staff with helpful intervention materials. Also, the programme was easy to implement in school and at home.
Reliable support
The RSUK Customer Support Team are helpful! We received good responses and contact from them.
Benefits of Reading Plus data collection
The Insight Assignment (initial baseline) feature has been very useful and often surprising!
The reporting data has helped guide our teaching by allowing us to see who may be struggling in guided sessions in class.
How Reading Plus helps children reach their potential
We have timetabled Reading Plus as a morning starter activity daily for all Year 6 and some Year 5 children. All pupils can access it from home.
The positive effects of Reading Plus have also stretched out to the wider school curriculum, as children can often draw upon what they have read on the programme in other subjects.