The power of reading how the next government can

Read On. 
Get On.
campaign, in the next decade close to 
1.5 million children will turn 11 without being able
to read well.
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England has the highest level of inequality in reading 
levels between better-off and less affluent children 
in Europe, with the exception of Romania,
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and 
there are also big variations in children’s reading 
ability across England. In the best areas, nearly nine 
out of ten 11-year-olds can read well; in the weakest 
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benchmark.
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The performance of the strongest areas 
shows that there are no excuses why nearly every 
child, including those growing up in poverty, cannot 
learn to read well, with the right support. 
Strong early language skills give children the essential 
foundation for learning in primary school. In this 
chapter, we set out how this can be built on in the 
primary years. Our approach is rooted in the skills 
and experience of teachers and school leaders. 
In the past, top-down approaches have helped to 
raise basic standards in literacy.
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But as literacy 
standards in primary schools have steadily improved, 
the challenges now are to address the full range of 
complex reasons why some children still fall behind, 
to stretch children who have the potential to excel, 
and to encourage all children to regularly read for 
pleasure. These more complex challenges require 
powerful and accountable teachers and school 
leaders, not standardised national programmes. 
Government should support the work of skilled 
professionals, with appropriate resources and
access to the latest evidence on teaching practices, 
and hold schools to account for improvements in 
children’s attainment – particularly among children 
from disadvantaged backgrounds. We are not
calling for substantial new resources for primary 
schools because we understand the fiscal challenges 
of the next parliament and believe that the priority 
for any new investment is in the early years, as
set out above. 
"UTTHENEXTGOVERNMENTCANHAVEAMAJORROLE
driving a national focus on reading attainment 
in primary schools. Our priorities for the next 
government are:
1. Improving the evidence base available to schools 
on reading comprehension, learning from the 
spread of phonics teaching approaches. 
2. Working with schools to develop a new 
generation of school leaders for literacy. 
3. Focusing school accountability on children
from disadvantaged backgrounds who are
falling behind.
READING POLICY IN
PRIMARY SCHOOLS
Over the last decade, there has been a clear shift 
towards teaching younger primary school children 
the basics of reading through phonics. This has 
rested on a strong evidence base showing the impact 
of phonics teaching approaches on children’s basic 
reading skills. Independent assessments of the
merits of specific phonics approaches have enabled 
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IMPROVING CHILDREN’S
READING IN
PRIMARY SCHOOLS

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teachers to confidently select the best strategies
for their pupils. In this section, we argue that a
similar approach should now be adopted to embed 
the use of evidence-based teaching practices for 
reading comprehension. 
Phonics is a way of teaching children to read by 
identifying the sounds of individual letters and 
combinations of letters. Knowing the sounds of 
individual letters enables children to ‘decode’ new 
words – that is, to work out how to say a new 
word using their understanding of how to say 
individual letters. This is a precursor to being able 
to understand the meaning of the word. There is 
significant evidence that phonics is the most effective 
way of teaching the basics of reading, particularly for 
children aged five to seven. 
Phonics became a priority for the previous Labour 
government following the Rose Review of early 
reading in 2006,
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and this has continued under the 
coalition government. The coalition introduced 
the phonics screening check for six-year-olds in 
2012. This short, teacher-led assessment is used to 
check children’s ‘decoding’ skills and identify those 
who need extra support. Just under three quarters 
(74%)
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of children met the expected standard in 
2014, up from 58%
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in the first year of the test. 
This substantial improvement is likely to be the 
result of several factors. The introduction of the 
screening check and the associated national focus 
on phonics gave schools a clear steer about which 
teaching practices the coalition expected schools to 
prioritise. But the government backed this up with 
new evidence-based resources to help teachers 
identify the best programmes and approaches for 
teaching phonics.
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The Department for Education 
appointed an independent expert to develop a set 
OFCRITERIAFORJUDGINGTHEPOTENTIALEFFECTIVENESS
of phonics approaches. The full range of phonics 
teaching strategies was then assessed against this 
criteria and the results published, enabling schools 
to easily identify which approaches are likely to have 
the greatest benefit for children – and which should 
be avoided. 
The coalition’s focus on phonics has clearly led 
to improvements in ‘decoding’ skills among young 
primary school children. However, there has 
been less of a focus on the teaching of reading 
comprehension, which is particularly important 
for older primary school children. Reading 
comprehension focuses on improving children’s 
understanding of the books and other texts they are 
reading. Strong reading comprehension skills make 
reading fun, engaging and memorable, and are the 
source of children’s wider learning. 
Problems with reading comprehension are one 
of the main reasons for children not reaching the 
expected standard of reading by the age of 11.
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Most 
worryingly, the gap in reading ability between children 
from poorer and better-off families starts to widen 
significantly after the age of seven.
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This suggests 
that stronger interventions are needed to ensure that 
older primary school children, from poorer families 
in particular, have more opportunities to build on the 
strong foundations provided by phonics. 
There is a strong academic evidence base supporting 
the use of reading comprehension strategies to 
improve the reading abilities of older primary school 
children (especially those aged eight and over). The 
Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has found 
that these strategies add an average of five months 
to children’s reading progress, if used correctly – 
which equates to ‘moderate impact’ compared to 
the full range of interventions reviewed by the EEF.
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They are also relatively low-cost, at around £48 per 
pupil a year to cover teacher training and materials. 
These costs can easily be covered through existing 
pupil premium budgets. Reading comprehension 
approaches seem to be more effective for boosting 
the reading ability of older primary school children 
than, for example, phonics.
Reading comprehension approaches typically help 
children to understand how different kinds of texts 
are structured, and how they can use this to follow a 
story or argument. Children learn how to summarise 
and clarify what they have learned from a text, and 
to identify for themselves sections or concepts 
they haven’t understood. They learn how to make 
inferences about behaviours or themes that might 
be implicit rather than explicit, and to predict what 
might happen next in a story based on what they’ve 
already understood. 
An example of a reading comprehension approach 
is a teacher and pupil(s) taking turns to lead a 
discussion about a text, with the teacher asking open 
questions to check comprehension. Teachers can also 
use visual aids like a flow chart to help children map 
out the development of a story and the emergence of 
key themes. Computer-based tutoring can also help 
children work through a text in a structured way and 
at their own pace, with individualised feedback. 

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RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE
NEW GOVERNMENT