The principle of early intervention lies at the heart of all good teaching. Every teacher knows that if a child struggles to master a concept or a skill, and nothing is done to help them overcome their difficulty, they will begin to fall behind in their learning.
The consequences of failing to support children who struggle to learn to read are particularly profound. Those who fail to achieve reading fluency invariably struggle to learn in other subjects too and leave school with limited prospects.
In adulthood, they are more likely to be in low-skilled work, experience long periods of unemployment and face mental health problems. Many are also likely to fall foul of the criminal justice system.
That is why it’s imperative we put a system into place that provides the right interventions for every child who struggles with reading. Crucially, those interventions should be made early on when it is most effective rather than have to pick up the pieces in later years.
One of the problems currently besetting our primary schools is that the pressures of league tables mean too many headteachers put their best teachers in charge of Years 5 and 6 rather than giving them responsibility for Years 1 and 2.
Three steps to effective early intervention
Step 1: The first step for any early intervention strategy, therefore, should be for schools to put their best and most experienced teachers in those crucial, formative years of Key Stage 1. That would ensure all children get the sort of personalised, quality-first teaching they deserve when they need it most.
Step 2: Children who struggle to keep up with their peers should be given extra support through targeted, small group interventions delivered either by a teacher or trained teaching assistant.
Step 3: Where this is not enough, a more intensive programme should be provided involving one-to-one help from a teacher or a literacy specialist.
By putting their best practitioners into the early years of primary school, headteachers will ensure the numbers of children that require more targeted support are kept to a minimum. As a result, they will be able to target their resources more effectively.
Early intervention also requires schools to be able to call on trained literacy experts to evaluate specific difficulties that hold back individual students. In addition, teachers need to be given enough time in the primary curriculum to allow them to reinforce key reading and writing skills before moving them on to the next stage.
To achieve all this, schools need to be able to employ high quality teachers and specialist support staff and they need to be provided with sufficient time and resources to ensure every child gets the personalised learning they need to become confident readers.
Such an agenda does not come cheap. But without effectively early intervention too many children will continue to fail at school with all the consequences that implies for both them and for society as a whole.
Next week: Tailor strategies to fit the individual child – be sure to read the next blog in our series about strategies for achieving world-class literacy
