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conversely for the assumed skills they allow to be isolated and rehearsed. It would be foolish in the extreme to blame busy classroom teachers or school leaders for the current state of affairs. Only the distorting effect of excessive accountability pressures could ever have led to something so obviously misguided. This is not to suggest that high-quality teaching would automatically flourish if these accountability pressures were less severe. Expertise in any area of teaching is hard won. However, I am certain that every teacher in existence – unencumbered by the misconceptions foisted upon them by a system superficially chasing test results – would correctly assume that reading instruction should include lots of time spent reading entire books and other texts carefully chosen for the language and experiences they www.teachwire.net | 51 offer to pupils. Instead, many of us have been guided to teach reading as little more than poorly disguised test rehearsal. If I sound frustrated, then that is because I am: frustrated with myself for teaching in this way for the first half of my career; frustrated with a system that can distort the professionalism of teachers in such ways; but most of all, frustrated for pupils everywhere, deprived of lessons that genuinely develop their reading capabilities and motivate them to see the value of literacy. It is a situation that requires urgent attention. Busting myths As I am a primary reading consultant, you will be forgiven for thinking that I am incentivised to exaggerate the problem and then offer my own individual solution. However, while I do support schools to use a specific approach, I certainly do not think that there is only one way to teach reading effectively. If as a profession we can move away from the misconceived view of discrete, transferable comprehension skills, then almost any approach to teaching reading in KS2 can be effective, assuming it meets three priorities: 1. Develop pupils’ reading fluency through active decoding with modelling, practice and feedback. The teaching of initial decoding that is central to reading development in reception and KS1 merely begins the journey to fluent reading. It is the application of what pupils have learned to real texts – with unfamiliar words and unfamiliar parts of the alphabetic code – that builds their grasp of the English writing system and allows them to recognise words with the automaticity required for fluency. Ideally, every pupil would receive this practice via daily one-to-one reading with a trained adult, but such a thing is logistically implausible. However, whole-class structures, such as repeated oral reading, can achieve much of the same benefits through teacher modelling, purposeful rehearsal and discussion of a relatively brief text. 2. Increase pupils’ understanding of written English and the world to which it relates by providing a variety of texts chosen for this purpose. We cannot profess to care about developing pupils’ desire to read independently if our reading lessons do not frequently offer opportunities to become engrossed in books in their entirety. By reading at pace with occasional pauses to explain and ask questions in ways that do not overly interrupt the momentum, we can build pupils’ knowledge of written language and show them the value of reading. 3. Nurture pupils’ understanding of their subjective, strategic role in interpreting and appreciating texts by guiding discussions that analyse written language and explore children’s own ideas. By engaging pupils in text discussions that explore an author’s language choices and themes, we help them to recognise the craft of writing and the ways in which we can analyse texts. And by asking questions that platform pupils’ own opinions and ideas, we nurture their curiosity and help them construct their own identities as readers. In short, beyond focused practice to develop fluency, the effective teaching of reading mostly involves us introducing pupils to the wonders of written English through meaningful experiences with texts chosen for this purpose. Reconceptualising reading instruction in this way offers us the chance to replace years of tedious test preparation with reading lessons that are more efficient and more enjoyable. Our pupils deserve no less. TP Christopher Such is an experienced primary school teacher, school leader, reading consultant and author. His latest book, Primary Reading Simplified (£19.99, SAGE), is out now. T E ACH RE AD I NG & WR I T I NG DOWNLOAD RESOURCES AT Download your FREE Pie Corbett reading spine at tinyurl.com/ tp-PieReadingSpine primarycolour.home.blog @suchmo83.bsky.social @Suchmo83