“ReadingWise is our trust-wide reading intervention strategy for all 23 of our secondary schools.”
Improve Phonics, Decoding, Comprehension and Vocabulary Across your Multi-Academy Trust
Our programmes cover Phonics, Decoding, Comprehension and Vocabulary. ReadingWise is a viable 'one stop shop' for literacy intervention across your trust. This can streamline the delivery for your schools and literacy leads and leads to a coherent and efficient literacy strategy. ReadingWise can deliver significant reading improvement for each pupil falling behind, whichever area of reading they are struggling with. ReadingWise often delivers disproportionate gains for disadvantaged and SEN learners. This is described in the Star Academies partnership below.
For Primary and/or Secondary Schools
ReadingWise programmes are effective in both primary and secondary settings. For over a decade we've worked closely with primary and secondary literacy leads to improve reading. Our team have vast experience from the smallest rural primary to the largest inner city secondary, and from small trusts with 4 schools to larger groups with over 50 schools.
Robust Evidence Base
Our programmes have been evidenced by the Department for Education ('gold standard' RCT) and by Cambridge University. The impact we deliver has been consistent across 100,000s of pupils across the UK.
The government-funded study showed that ReadingWise accelerated pupils' reading ages almost twice as fast as traditional classes. An average reading age increase of almost 10 months was achieved in under 1 term. The quantitative analysis was conducted by the widely respected Professor Becky Allen. The report can be read here.
Star Academies and ReadingWise
Star Academies is a very successful multi-academy trust which often tops the progress 8 tables for its secondary school outcomes. After reviewing the various options, Star Academies selected ReadingWise to be their single literacy intervention across all 23 secondary schools. After consulting with the ReadingWise team, GL Assessment's New Group Reading Test (NGRT) was selected to identify cohorts that needed reading intervention. This assessment was supplemented with single word reading tests (SWRT) to isolate issues with decoding / phonics.
The ReadingWise team works closely with each Star school, as we would for the schools in your trust. The partnership has yielded very impressive results. After 12 months of ReadingWise literacy interventions across all 23 secondary schools, the number of 'fluent readers' increased by 1,357 pupils, while the number of ‘early readers’ decreased by 446 pupils.
More than a Literacy Intervention
Often schools vary within a multi-academy trust, sometimes significantly. These differences could be related to the catchment area, to staffing or other historical issues. One reason multi-academy trusts choose to work with ReadingWise over other literacy interventions is our deep experience across a vast range of schools in the UK. Our team have experience with every reading assessment, many different school-wide and trust-wide reading projects, and have delivered many thousands of hours of training to school staff at every level. They have participated in governmenbt-funded randomised controlled trials and studies by Cambridge University. Our capacity to align your staff and your reading intervention policy is a powerful factor in delivering success.
Knowing Which Pupil Needs Which Intervention
With every school, such as those led by Star Academies, ReadingWise supports the trust to conduct a pre-launch assessment programme led by relevant staff. Depending on your focus - Decoding, Comprehension, Vocabulary - English Teachers, Literacy Leads, TAs, and SENDCos receive in-depth training on how to deliver the modules effectively. They can then target the appropriate cohort of pupils depending on their need.
Once the cohorts are defined, targeted interventions can be delivered using the ReadingWise modules for pupils identified as reading below their chronological reading age and dependent on their need.
Training in 2 hours
Staff at every level, including teachers, TAs, literacy leads, and SEND specialists, are then trained in Zip, Vocab, Comprehension, and Decoding, the four modules available to raise reading levels across MATs in both primary and secondary schools.
Our training is highly effective yet streamlined, recognising the value of your staff's time. This should be a consideration when selecting a literacy programme for your trust. ReadingWise pioneered online training in 2015, and can deliver to large groups of staff in 2 hour sessions remotely. Our training is extremely efficient and your staff will be ready to deliver the programmes and will make an impact quickly with minimal time lost.
Our training is always highly rated by staff. The DfE-funded study found that 82% of staff found our training very good or excellent.
Smooth Integration
ReadingWise is a range of online modules. As with any online programme, pupils have their own logins. Multi-academy trusts deploy a range of MiS (Management Information System) such as SIMS, Arbor, or Bromcom. We have experience in all of them, and work with integrations such as Wonde to eliminate administrative tasks for your staff.
Arranging a Demo is Your Next Step
With our extensive experience across so many UK schools and MATs, we are ideally placed to discuss your plans to improve reading across your trust. The smallest group of schools we work with has 4 schools, and the largest has 53. Many hundreds of thousands of pupils have completed our programmes across all ages.
We can give you advice, and if we don't believe we're the best fit to improve reading in your setting we will tell you so. The greatest impact on reading improvement is our goal.
An initial demo and fact finding call takes just 20-minutes. We will learn about your aims and challenges, and we will provide you with expert advice and an insight into how our programmes might help you achieve you goals.
Boost your schools and MATs literacy results: Arrange your 20-minute demo at a time to suit you.
Find out everything you need to know about ReadingWise with our friendly, knowledgeable team.
Successful Multi-Academy Trust Collaborations: Star Academies
We work with trusts across the country. We are extremely proud of our work with them and believe we offer exceptional impact and ongoing support.
One successful multi-academy trust collaboration is with Star Academies. Star Academies is a trust consistently ranked amongst the top-performing multi-academy trusts in national performance tables.
Rigorous Selection Process
In March 2022, ReadingWise was selected to improve reading in a coherent, aligned approach across all 21 secondary schools (since expanding to all 23 Star secondaries). ReadingWise formed a component of a well organised, trust-wide reading initiative which involved a new role in each school: the 'Book Culture Lead.'
A Clear Aim
The aim of the ReadingWise programme was to increase the number of ‘fluent readers’ and reduce the number of ‘early readers’ which were defined based on the standardised assessment NGRT's results.
The results were strong, as outlined below. An additional 1,357 pupils became fluent readers after one year of ReadingWise. There were 446 fewer ‘early readers’ in the same timeframe.
Success: An Increase of 1,357 in Fluent Readers
ReadingWise Star Academies Collaboration: Table of Results After 12 Months (September 2022 - Summer 2023)
As we can see from the NGRT data, after 12 months:
- The overall baseline improvement was 6%: an additional 1,357 pupils became fluent readers.
- There were also 446 fewer ‘early readers’ in the same timeframe. Students who were struggling with reading are now doing much better after benefiting from the ReadingWise modules and personalised interventions in the classroom.
- For disadvantaged students, 7% more became fluent readers in this timeframe.
- For SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) students, there was an imporessive 9% increase in fluent readers after 12 months.
Lisa Crausby OBE, Star Academies Executive Director, oversaw the World Class Book Culture programme. Some of her comments are found below:
“ReadingWise is our trust-wide reading intervention strategy for all 23 of our secondary schools. It has provided an accessible and inclusive solution to help all pupils become fluent readers.The Vocab module is used successfully across all schools to support Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary and is closely linked to our ambitious curriculum. The Comprehension module serves our struggling readers and the Decoding module supports our early readers to make rapid improvements.
The ReadingWise team goes the extra mile to personalise the product to meet our needs. They also provide intensive training and follow-up to ensure all schools maximise the potential of the programmes. Consequently, within the last 12 months, the number of fluent readers has increased significantly and this includes disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs.”
Book Culture Leads
To drive the Star Academies 'World Class Book Culture' programme, Book Culture Leads were appointed in each school. These form a point of contact for the ReadingWise Community team to train and support school staff as they work to improve reading across the various cohorts.
Shahnaz Ilyas, English Teacher and Book Culture Lead at Tauheedul Boys, has been working closely with Emily, her ReadingWise contact. Shahnaz commented:
“ReadingWise is really good value for money. As a school, we ended the year 22-23 with an outstanding 90%+ fluent readers across year groups 7-11. We made a remarkable 18% impact in reading following the launch of Star’s World Class Book Culture Programme.ReadingWise has played a pivotal role in delivering targeted intervention allowing our category two and three pupils to develop core decoding and comprehension skills. Tailored to the TIBHS programme of study, English and Multidisciplinary word lists have allowed our pupils to develop independence across all areas of the curriculum.
Read our in-depth article on the Star Academies collaboration with ReadingWise.
Take a closer look at the Star Academies MAT Case Study.
"The children are absolutely loving ReadingWise and it's proving to be so beneficial to assess the retention and knowledge of prior taught tier 2 vocabulary. As a result of its multiple exposures, the children are now transferring known vocabulary into written work."
Yasmin Atkinson, Year 4 Teacher at Old Priory Junior Academy, St Chistopher's Multi-Academy Trust
"In only one term, the majority of our children made at least 10 months progress in their reading age- some even more! We have decided to purchase Reading Wise for the whole school and are very excited to see the progress throughout school.”
Hannah Boardman, Irlam Primary School, Salford, UK
"He’s always been reluctant to read aloud and practice reading but has really enjoyed working his way through the programme, at his own speed and with little interference from an adult. His confidence in reading aloud (and so willingness to do it) has definitely increased.”
Caroline Fielding, Charlton Park Academy / CENMAC, London
“That is 15 months progress in 4 academic months !! We are amazed at this and feel it is credit to the program and the systems we have developed as a result of our work with ReadingWise.”
Nicola Parker, Deputy Head, Billing Brook Special School
”ReadingWise Zip is a godsend for our reception learners.”
Suzanne Sterling, Claytons Primary School, Buckinghamshire
"ReadingWise offers us a way to close the gap as pupils move from primary to secondary, and I think crucially within the school, it offers us a way to close the gap as they progress through the year groups.”
Ben Davis, Head, St Ambrose Barlow High School, Salford
