“We don’t usually get the chance to do this interesting work...”

What’s the curriculum diet for pupils with low starting points such as those identified as ‘poorer’ readers?

It’s a diet of phonics, decoding, SPAG and levelled readers.

All of which are necessary, but not sufficient.

If we are serious about closing the reading and attainment gap, pupils need to be offered work above their pay grade.

This is not about giving them difficult stuff and letting them sink or swim.

It’s about offering them rich, demanding content and supporting them to get there.

Pupils relish the chance to do difficult work, as long as the conditions are characterised by ‘high challenge’ accompanied by ‘low threat’.

They wanted to find out what happened next. They didn’t need to understand every word because they were getting into the flow of the narrative.

‘Simply reading challenging novels aloud, and at a fast pace in each lesson, repositioned ‘poorer’ readers as ‘good’ readers, giving them a more engaged, uninterrupted reading experience over a sustained period.’

I’ll be exploring these insights from ‘Just reading’: the impact of a faster pace of reading narratives on the comprehension of poorer adolescent readers in a webinar on Tuesday 18th March 4-5pm.

Available on Myatt & Co - live and recorded. Access with an individual or group annual subscription.

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Until next time

Mary