Characteristics of schools with good reading attainment

• Involving pupils in assessing their own skills (this happened in only a few schools, but where it did, pupils were motivated and understood how they could continue to improve)
• Identifying pupils' difficulties in reading early on, using appropriate interventions and evaluating their impact so that tactics can be changed if they are not helping
• Ensuring that low-attaining readers can see that they are making progress

Major concerns of the report
Ofsted inspectors found that attainment in reading varied greatly between schools which were contextually very similar: that is, some schools in very deprived circumstances are still doing well. However, schools seldom used the broader range of material pupils read at home as a starting point to further their reading in school and improve their motivation. Most additional support was focused on raising attainment, but did not address improving the attitudes of reluctant readers.

Other success factors

• Developing parental support through specific initiatives that involve parents actively in reading with their children, and maintaining home-school communication about reading, including induction booklets and reading or family literacy workshops
• Making additional arrangements for an adult to read with children whose parents did not read with them at home
• Providing support before the gap between low-attaining pupils and their peers widens and damages their self-esteem
• Giving pupils freedom to choose their own books within the appropriate level
• Helping pupils to see a genuine purpose for their reading (eg teaching comprehension through other subjects in the curriculum)
• High expectations of pupils
• Systematic assessment of pupils from admission to transfer
• Rapid, early coverage of phonics, together with the teaching of a broad range of strategies for coping with unfamiliar words
• Rigorous self-evaluation by schools, to appraise practice and provision
• Recognising and tackling the school's own weaknesses, seeing such issues as a high incidence of special educational needs as challenges to be overcome rather than obstacles that cannot be altered

Ofsted (2004). Reading for purpose and pleasure: An evaluation of the teaching of reading in primary schools. London: Ofsted.

Download the full report from www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications