Making Sure that
Everyone Can Read
Making Sure that Everyone Can Read
Teaching Struggling Readers
Beginners at Risk of Failing
No child should be held back because they are not phonemically aware. It is easier to be aware of phonemes when they are matched to letters. What is more, delaying phonics can be harmful, causing those who have poor phonemic awareness to fall behind, and increasing the likelihood that they will have reading difficulties later.
Teaching Older Learners
Older learners whose reading is poor usually dislike reading and withdraw, become anxious or misbehave. Not only are they likely to fail academically, but their mental health suffers and many of them find themselves in trouble with the law. It is imperative to tackle this urgently and teach them to read well enough to access a secondary school curriculum and achieve functional literacy.
Those who cannot read words easily and fluently should be taught systematic synthetic phonics with the same content as for beginners. However, teachers should consider using a programme that does not include activities that might seem “babyish”. It might be best to choose a programme that is different from the one that was used with them when they were younger, so that they cover the same content and practise the same skills in a slightly different way.
Pupils at a similar stage can be taught in a small group. Otherwise, it is best to teach one-to-one. Teaching should take place in the same quiet place, with the same well-trained adult, preferably every day and at least three times a week. This is difficult to manage, especially for secondary schools, so it must be seen by school leaders as a priority.
As for all pupils, tasks should always be achievable and some should be challenging, so that pupils know they are making progress; this is most important for those who have failed in the past.
Pupils who struggle with word reading should take part in the same lessons as their peers when they listen to an adult read or discuss a book or topic. However, asking them to read the texts by themselves and complete written comprehension activities wastes their time and further demoralises them, because their decoding skills do not yet allow them to read well enough. Written composition might also be too challenging.
Those who can decode complex words, but not fluently, may simply need extra practice, or they may benefit from a fluency programme with reliable evidence that it helps.
Pupils for whom English is a new language may have no difficulty learning to decode words, but their reading comprehension may be poor and they may need help learning to understand spoken and written English.
Other pupils who can decode complex words and texts fluently, but without understanding, and whose understanding of spoken language is poor, will benefit from help from a suitably qualified language specialist.
Pupils with Special Needs
Evidence shows that systematic synthetic phonics, rather than a whole-word approach, provides pupils with moderate to severe and complex needs the best opportunity to gain functional literacy. Pupils who have a hearing or visual impairment are generally able to access phonics teaching if they have some hearing or vision.
For pupils diagnosed with dyslexia, systematic synthetic phonics is the best evidenced way to teach decoding, teaching in small incremental steps.
For a very few pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), it might not be appropriate to begin teaching them to read.
For more detail, see The reading framework, Section 5: Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
