Langley Park School for Girls is a successful 11-18 academy in Kent, UK, and one of four secondary schools forming part of Impact Academy Trust.

Recognizing the link between reading competency and student outcomes, in July 2023 the trust took a strategic decision to strengthen ‘catch-up’ provision across all four secondary schools for students who are reading below age-related expectations at the start of Year 7 (sixth grade).

A common standardised reading assessment, NGRT, was introduced to baseline students’ reading ability at the start of the year. Children with a low reading score were placed on a reading intervention scheme to address phonics gaps and weaknesses.

A reading lead, Debbie Rice, was recruited to oversee the reading strategy across the trust, and to support schools in implementing the Year 7 phonics intervention program. The trust also took the decision to work with DK Learning on trialling a phonics reading ‘catch-up’ program, Phonic Books.

At the end of the intervention, we caught up with Liz Cordingley, Assistant SENCo responsible for supervising the interventions, and Kate De Sousa, one of the learning support assistants (LSAs) who delivered the sessions, to capture their experiences of taking part in the trial.

About the intervention 

Based on the NGRT results, 14 Year 7 girls at Langley Park School for Girls were selected to take part in a 10-week reading intervention. Each student attended two 30-minute sessions a week, working 1:1 or 2:1 with their allocated LSA. In the first session, the LSA would pre-teach the phonics skills covered in the reading book by using activities from the worksheet for the relevant title. In the second session, students would read the book, and together, the LSA and the students would work through the associated comprehension activities.

The Phonic Books diagnostic tool was used to ensure that students were matched to books at the correct level of challenge. Liz attended Phonic Books training with the series founder, Tami Reis-Frankfort, which she cascaded back to LSAs assigned to the intervention program.

What worked well?

The Phonic Books diagnostic assessment accurately matched students to books. Selecting books which are not only at the right level of challenge, but which also address students’ phonics ‘gaps’ is essential for a successful intervention. Both Liz and Kate agreed that the assessment was accurate, and that the books targeted students’ weaknesses. Liz explained, 

We did the initial testing to see which level books they should be put on, and that seemed to be more accurate than previous programs we’ve used.

Each book targets a specific phonics skill. A phonics scheme must focus on specific gaps, allowing teachers to identify and practise these with their students. Reflecting on this, Kate said, “It was well sequenced, in that it dealt with every phonics sound individually and progressively, so for the lower-level readers you were finding out what their niggles were.”

The phonics activity books were a particular strength.

Each title has a corresponding phonics activity book, allowing students to practice a specific grapheme-phoneme correspondence. “They were very good, because they were targeted at a specific phonics sound. One of the two students in my group has little phonics niggles; she gets muddled with certain digraphs and trigraphs. So the activities were very good for practicing those,” she added.

The program is structured, yet can be used flexibly. With her background as a primary teacher, Kate is an experienced phonics educator. Depending on students’ specific weaknesses and reading barriers, she would sometimes modify the structure of the sessions to suit their needs. “The nature of my training and experience as a primary school teacher means that I could adapt it. So I didn’t always do the comprehension worksheet because sometimes they read it and got it, but if one [student] was fluent and one had a niggle, I could set the comprehension task for the fluent one, while I revisited the phonic skill with the one who was struggling.” Liz added that for less experienced LSAs, the accompanying resources provided the structure they needed.

The comprehension activities worked well because [less experienced LSAs] wouldn’t have come up with the right questions themselves.

What did students say?

The books received a mixed response, with some students finding the storylines captivating. All students reported that they achieved one or more reading goals by the end of the intervention. Liz relayed that one of the girls who was “flying through” the books was asked whether she wanted to stay on the intervention. She was adamant that it was helping her reading fluency, and chose to continue despite the ease with which she was now reading the books “because she really enjoyed reading out loud.”

Was there an impact?

Overall, the intervention worked well. Both Liz and Kate agreed that students who struggle with reading lack confidence, and without the support of an adult, they would simply skip over words they can’t decode. Working 1:1 or 1:2 with students meant that they could be given the targeted support they needed. Phonic Books was well structured and easy to use. “I’d happily continue using the books for students with gaps in their phonics skills,” said Liz, with Kate’s agreement. Of the 14 students who were selected for the intervention, 11 completed the pre-trial and post-trial NGRT test. The data shows that nine students made value-added progress, i.e. the gain in their reading age exceeded the time lapse between test 1 and test 2. While the duration of the trial was too short to say with certainty whether changes in reading scores could be attributed to the intervention, this does indicate that the trial improved most students’ reading performance.

Advice for other schools

At Langley Park School for Girls, the success of this intervention has been contingent on a number of factors: selecting the right students, matching them to books which address the gaps in their reading skills, and working with them either 1:1 or in pairs to ensure that they receive the targeted support they need. This is underpinned by adopting a progressive phonics catch-up program which pre-teaches each skill before students apply it. Above all, the success of the trial is thanks to the hard work and dedication of the staff at the school.

Download a PDF of the case study here.