In the UK today:

• at least seven million adults are functionally illiterate (annual United Nations survey)
• one in six people has a literacy level below that expected of an 11-yearold
• 84% of 11-year-olds achieve the expected levels for reading  
• 75% of 11-year-olds achieve the expected levels for writing.  (National Literacy Trust)

A child's reading skills are important to their success in school as they will allow them to access the breadth of the curriculum and improve their communication and language skills. For this reason, at Richard Bonington Primary, we have put a number of intervention programmes in place to ensure progress:

Lexia interventions

Our lexia intervention programmes run in Years 2 - 6 and provide differentiated instruction for pupils of all abilities. Lexia’s research-proven program provides explicit, systematic, personalised learning in the five areas of reading instruction.

Lexia’s personalised approach targets skill gaps as they emerge, providing teaching staff with the data and student-specific resources they need for individual or small-group instruction. This resourcing is then used by teachers and teaching assistants to provide further support as needed on an individul basis.

Small group 'book study' approach

Across Key Stage 2, teaching assistants use a 'book study' approach to focus in on the key comprehension skills needed to aid understanding of a given text. Pupils are encouraged to read aloud and discuss their understanding of a text, supporting their opinions with evidence from the text. Children who are not making sufficient progress in reading are targeted for these sessions in order to ensure that they achieve age related expectations at the end of the year.

'Whole word reading' sessions

These sessions are specifically targeted at children aged between 3 and 5 years old. The interventions are used to target children who continue to struggle with the phonics approach during the spring and summer terms. This approach has been very successful for a number of children at Richard Bonington.

Fluency and retrieval interventions

Teaching staff use various assessment techniques to target children who are struggling with fluency and basic retrieval. These children are then placed in small group intervention sessions to support them in improving these skills further.

AcceleRead

AcceleRead is a software programme, which is used in some classes at Richard Bonington, to improve the reading, writing, spelling and listening skills of pupils who are experiencing literacy difficulties. This is achieved through structured phonics exercise over a recommended period of time.