Developing a reading culture with Reading Plus at Safa British School, Dubai

We caught up with the Head of English at Safa British School, Rebekah Ricketts, to discuss the impact of Reading Plus on creating a reading culture and improving students’ confidence and enjoyment of reading.

The need for a reading solution

We were looking for a reading programme to help develop students’ reading skills and confidence, which could be easily and regularly accessed and would provide me with actionable data that could be communicated clearly to students, staff and parents.

In a student vote, 60% identified themselves as not being confident readers. As a passionate literacy professional, this did not sit well for me.

Reading was something that everyone knew was important, but there was not an action plan for it in our secondary school.

To me, Reading Plus provided all the solutions that I was looking for, for our school.

Why did you choose Reading Plus?

I chose Reading Plus for several reasons, but the main ones are that I find the data the programme collects, which I can then share with students, staff and parents, valuable. I also liked the Guided Window feature, which supports student reading fluency. It is a moving text bar that helps build reading as a skill.

I also chose it because Reading Solutions UK’s ethos of “learn to read, to read to learn” resonated with me strongly as I am passionate about young people enjoying reading.

I could see through the programme and conversations with the team that reading education was a key motivation behind the ideas of Reading Plus. Seeing that passion from the team was something I could get on board with from the get-go.

Immediate short-term gains

Our students took part in a four-week free trial of Reading Plus, and the initial gains students made and the detailed data the programme gave were presented to relevant stakeholders and made a case for purchasing.

A smooth implementation

The implementation was so easy. The training was coherent and supportive (even when you factor in the time differences!). In turn, it allowed me to confidently explain the programme and how the data works to our whole staff.

Setting up our school expectations, based on the recommendations from Reading Solutions UK, was communicated regularly in English lessons and communications at home with parents.

Exceptional level of support

I’ve had so much support! The team at Reading Plus are pretty used to receiving a panicked email from me (usually before a lot of them are even awake in the UK) but action everything immediately.

Reading Development Consultant Jonny has been incredible in terms of support and communication. The turnaround time of my requests is usually within a day (sometimes an hour or so!), so I can’t praise their communication and support enough.

Increased motivation and engagement

The majority of the students enjoy using Reading Plus. I find that the best thing to support the students is to show them the data so they can see their progress. The programme has been an incredibly effective communication tool.

Extensive data collection

The teacher dashboard site is excellent. It is beneficial to get alerts when students complete levels and how it celebrates the small and big wins.

There are many things I like about Reading Plus. However, at the top, there is:

• The level of depth the programme goes into supporting the personalised provision students need. This is something we pride ourselves on offering at our school.
• The clearness of the data.
• How easily accessible and visible the progress information is.
• How it provides strategies for differentiated support for each child.

Valuable assessments and data for progression

The Insight feature is incredibly valuable. The coherence of the data and the depth that it tracks and monitors the students enables us as staff to see what further support and interventions need to be put in place.

Supporting whole school curriculum strategies

The reporting data has underpinned whole staff training (led by me) on reading across the curriculum.

Staff have been trained to look at all aspects of students’ reading ability, which is updated with every assessment they sit on Reading Plus.

Facilitating engagement from families and staff 

It must be said, the increase in reading engagement has also come from families and staff.

Reading Plus has enabled us to open a dialogue that is visible and accessible, and parents appreciate the detailed feedback we can provide.

Improving pupil and school outcomes

Reading Plus has been the best element of our reading across the curriculum strategies. Our reading levels and student engagement have made rapid but sustainable progress this year.

With some confidence, I can say that in my opinion, Reading Plus is the best online reading programme I have ever used.