Find out how TES Primary School of the Year, St Aloysius, use Reading Plus to accelerate reading progress

TES Primary School of the Year 2021 winners, St Aloysius, have been using Reading Plus since 2019. Acting Deputy Head, Julie Doughty, explains how the programme has accelerated pupils’ reading progress.  

Why were you looking for reading support? 

We have a very good culture for reading in our school and have always performed very well in local and national assessments. However, we needed a programme that could:

• Speed up the pace of the slower readers. We have a small group of children who struggle with fluency.
• Develop an understanding of vocabulary and comprehension skills for readers who lack confidence.
• Engage and spark a love of reading for our more reluctant readers. We have a group of very reluctant readers who don’t read at home; as such, it was becoming quite challenging to engage them.
• Help staff to be able to pinpoint where each child’s needs were, thus enabling them to tailor teaching and interventions to support these specific areas.

Why did you choose Reading Plus?        

We chose Reading Plus because we were very interested in pinpointing the areas in which our children were struggling. We wanted to use it to excel our good readers and support our children who found reading challenging. We were very impressed by the wide range of texts available to the children and the incentives that were like an online game. The different applications on Reading Plus make it very easy for teachers to grasp the areas which need to be focussed on quickly. The reports are highly beneficial in showing the progress made by each child in each area from the baseline.

Can you comment on the level of support received from our Partner Plus team?  

The Partner Plus team have been exceptional. They answer all queries very quickly and have been on hand at every step of the journey to offer support and guidance. They provided extra training to new staff too, which was fantastic.

We have found Jonny and the team so helpful and would like to say a big thank you for all of the support over the last two years.

Do the children enjoy using Reading Plus?         

The children have really enjoyed Reading Plus, particularly the gaming incentives like the ‘power ups’. They have also commented on the wide range of texts. Many of them found the range of non-fiction particularly interesting.

How has the reporting data helped guide your teaching? 

The Lexile reports that Reading Solutions UK produce showing the impact Reading Plus has had on the reading speeds of children are very useful.     

The reporting data has also been fantastically useful in helping us to decide on reading groups and intervention groups. It has helped us gauge precisely where our children are and know which skill areas to focus on specifically.

Where do reading levels/engagement levels stand in your school after using Reading Plus?      

The reading levels of all of our children improved following the use of Reading Plus. Whilst initially we used it in Y6, we have now started using it as an intervention in Year 5 to help prepare children for Y6 and the pace of learning. We can’t wait to see the impact that it has had this year.