Worthing school helps launch new national reading programme designed to help primary school children catch up quickly

The HFL Education Reading Fluency Project, backed by teacher, author and activist Hon Dr Stuart Lawrence, was run at English Martyrs Catholic Primary School in Goring earlier this year and children showed a remarkable improvement in a short time.

Today, the project is being launched nationwide to improve reading standards, as these have been significantly impacted by school and library closures during the pandemic.

The powerful programme has been running for six years but for the first time, an author has become personally involved. The project will now be shaped around Dr Lawrence, with extracts from his book as study texts and the opportunity for schools to attend a webinar with him.

Teacher Lauren O'Sullivan, English lead at English Martyrs, said: “I have been so impressed with the children's confidence in reading since taking part in the project. I am thrilled that we took part in it! I have seen a huge improvement in reading comprehension and retrieval skills since the spring term. All children that took part have gained an average of two years and two months for comprehension skills.

"The children are now showing expression, resilience and high levels of fluency. This in turn has made a huge impact in motivation, enjoyment and confidence in reading. I have had fantastic feedback from the students and from their parents. It has been very beneficial to focus on it with smaller groups of children as you can really pin-point the punctuation by marking in the text and also the modelling of prosody and repetition has worked wonders.”

Dr Lawrence, an advocate for equality, diversity and inclusion in education, has seen the project inspire children who have fallen behind with their reading. His debut book, Silence is Not An Option: You Can Impact the World for Change, is one of the texts being studied.

He said: "Having worked with children and young people for many years, I know exactly what a disadvantage poor reading skills can be. I’ve seen first-hand how it can lead to a lifetime of struggle for jobs and social inclusion, and then an increased likelihood of living in poverty or even taking part in criminal activity. It’s vital that at this pivotal age, children’s reading skills are embedded to set them up for life. That’s why I’m backing this ground-breaking initiative from HFL Education, which has the potential to change the lives of children taking part.”

The project was created for pupils in years five and six who are working below the expected standard in reading, with the aim of helping them to catch up through two 20-minute teacher-led sessions per week. It uses a combination of strategies including modelled expert reading and echo reading to improve fluency, which in turn enables students to better comprehend the text.

Penny Slater, primary English specialist at HFL Education, said: “A positive relationship with books and reading gives children a significant advantage not just in their studies but in many aspects of life. Sadly, we’ve seen the average reading comprehension age of the students who come to start our programme drop in the five years we’ve already been running it. We’re pleased that the programme has been able to help them and believe there’s never been a more important time for our programme to be available to young readers.

"We created the 2023 Reading Fluency Project to give schools the resources they need to help struggling students become enthusiastic and confident readers who are able to understand and engage with what they are reading and learning. Stuart’s book is the ideal text to help teachers bring our project syllabus to life; it is uplifting and empowering for all children, and there is also a live webinar with Stuart as part of the course this year to help young people engage with Stuart’s words and connect with them on a whole new level.”

Schools interested in taking part in the KS2 Reading Fluency Project in autumn 2023 can visit the HFL website, email [email protected] or call 01438 544464