Lucy Bullingham, Year 5 Teacher and Reading Lead at Bevois Town Primary School, shares how DreamBox Reading Plus has been invaluable as a tool to target reluctant and struggling readers, as well as providing them with access to high-quality texts at home.
After years of searching for a way to assess the comprehension and reading fluency of her pupils, Lucy was thrilled to discover the online reading development programme Reading Plus. Now the school is able to identify children struggling with specific reading skills and provide effective and timely interventions.
“Reading Plus ticks so many boxes that other programmes have tried to do.”
Improved reading results
Our current Year 6 group has made accelerated progress in reading and we have a larger proportion of our children achieving EXS and GDS.
The programme’s patented Guided Window tool, which guides the reader’s eyes left-to-right across text at a bespoke speed utilising a moving box, has enabled children to become more accurate in their reading and increased their confidence and comprehension.
Less able readers are able to practise key skimming and scanning skills through visual skills assignments within the programme, and the vocabulary lessons have enabled them to broaden their understanding of words.
Children are also able to choose books that interest them and relate to topics they are studying in other subjects, which has enabled them to increase background understanding and access more of the curriculum.
Effective data collection and assessment
I have been looking for an appropriate assessment tool for such a long time and this is the best thing I have found – I love it.
The in-built baseline InSight Assessment is phenomenal as it goes into further detail about the levels that children are working on. For example, I can now identify children with high comprehension skills but low fluency speed and vocabulary – a group who can often be overlooked and struggle when testing as they do not have the stamina to read for an extended period of time.
Progress is very clear to see from the concise reporting data collected. You can also see any weaker areas of comprehension and target specific interventions at a whole-class, small group or individual level.
Pupil enjoyment
The programme is easy to use and the children love the choice of texts.
Previously, engagement with reading at home was sporadic and many children struggled to access high-quality texts, but accessing Reading Plus online has made this possible. Engagement in reading at home has steadily increased and is easier to monitor.
There has also been a positive impact on self-belief, fluency and reading stamina.
Broad choice of cross-curricular texts
Reading Plus is filled with high-interest texts that encourage children to broaden their reading diet. After each text, pupils encounter a variety of comprehension questions that cover the curriculum. It is a welcome change that children who are lower attainers in reading can still read a variety of high-interest texts rather than being ‘stuck’ on one single level reading the same books repeatedly and only answering questions relating to retrieval.
About Bevois Town Primary School
We use Reading Plus across Key Stage 2. Each class has one reading lesson per week dedicated to Reading Plus in school and children are encouraged to complete the rest of their assignments from home.
There is daily use for our lower attaining readers and our teaching assistants use the support materials available to download from the programme to target specific reading skills with more reluctant and struggling readers.
We run Reading Plus interventions across the afternoons with specific children in Year 3, 4, 5 and 6.
“The level of support Bevois has received from the Customer Support Team has been excellent – I could not fault it. I have always been replied to promptly and never felt that any questions that I had were silly.”
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When used as recommended, we expect students will:
- Make six months’ of comprehension progress in text complexity.
- Increase their reading speed by 20 words per minute.
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