Teach-Primary-Issue-20.1

Intervention lead and HLTA at St Bede’ Catholic Primary School, Claire Davies, discusses the impact of DreamBox Reading Plus on literacy skills and reading for pleasure in school... ABOUT US: NAME: Claire Davies JOB TITLE: Intervention lead and HLTA, St Bede’s Catholic Primary School. FAVOURITE FEATURE: Clear, trackable data WILL IT WORK FOR YOU? • Boost SATs success – improve fluency, comprehension and independence in line with Year 6 expectations. • Prepare for secondary – build vocabulary and raise reading levels for challenging cross- curricular texts. • Support every learner – adaptive online lessons personalise reading instruction and provide targeted practice. • Free training included – get unlimited customer support and CPD to help your school maximise reading impact. Talking About: DREAMBOX READING PLUS PROGRAMME TO SUPPORT KEY STAGE 2 How did you introduce Reading Plus? At St Bede’s Catholic Primary School, we introduced DreamBox Reading Plus as part of a wider push to improve reading fluency, confidence and vocabulary across KS2. We wanted a programme that was adaptive, engaging and capable of supporting children with very different needs. Reading Plus was easy to set up, and pupils quickly understood how to navigate its personalised content. From the first few weeks, teachers could clearly see how the structured lessons and eye-movement guided reading supported pupils who previously found sustained reading challenging. How do you use Reading Plus day to day? Reading Plus is now embedded into our weekly timetable and has effectively replaced guided reading for many pupils. We use the programme during interventions and whole-class sessions, relying heavily on the live data dashboard to guide planning. The ready-made resources help us target specific skill gaps. Because the texts automatically adapt to each pupil’s needs, progress is far more consistent than we have seen with other reading approaches. What difference has it made to progress? The impact of Reading Plus has been remarkable. In just six months, our pupils have made an average of 2.3 year-level gains in text complexity, something we’ve never seen at this scale. In Year 6 especially, children who were previously working below Expected Standard in SATs practice are now achieving Greater Depth. Their confidence in answering text-based questions has transformed; they approach assessments independently, make inferences accurately and demonstrate much stronger stamina. We’ve also noticed a significant improvement in vocabulary, which feeds into writing and understanding across the curriculum. And what about the wider benefits? Reading Plus has helped us reignite a culture of reading for pleasure. Pupils enjoy the technology- led format, and many challenge themselves to increase their word count at home. Some weekends we see word totals rise by more than 20,000. Because vocabulary is systematically taught and reinforced, children are now far better equipped to access the wider curriculum and tackle more demanding texts. This improved proficiency is crucial for preparing them for secondary school, where reading complexity increases sharply. Contact: daisyeducationuk. com info@daisy educationuk.com LOVE... WHY I 64 | www.teachwire.net PARTNER CONT ENT