The Department for Education’s Reading Framework has been updated and expanded.
The updated and expanded framework comes after KS2 SATS results revealed a drop in reading attainment levels from 75% of children meeting the expected standard in 2022 to 73% in 2023.
Updates have been made to assist schools in supporting children beyond key stage 1 and the EYFS. What has been changed, and how do these changes affect schools?
The reading framework: What is it?
The reading framework guides primary and secondary schools to help them meet ‘existing expectations for teaching reading’.
The document is lengthy, spanning 176 pages and covering 13 sections:
- Section 1: The importance of reading and a conceptual model
- Section 2: Language Comprehension in Reception and Key Stage 1
- Section 3: Word reading and spelling
- Section 4: Developing fluency
- Section 5: Pupils who need the most support
- Section 6: What skilled readers can do
- Section 7: Choosing and organising books
- Section 8: Developing a reading for pleasure culture
- Section 9: Reading across the curriculum
- Section 10: Teaching reading in the English lesson
- Section 11: National assessments
- Section 12: Leadership and management of reading
- Section 13: Supporting pupils’ reading in key Stage 3.
The guidance has a few key aims, including:
- Setting out the research underpinning the importance of talk, stories and phonics, highlighting the importance of fidelity to phonics programmes, outlining the DfE’s evidence-informed position on the best way to teach reading
- Supporting schools to evaluate their teaching of reading from Reception to year nine by offering schools a set of audit tools
- Providing practical support for high-quality teaching of phonics, fluency and comprehension
- Explaining the importance of phonics teaching for older pupils at risk of failing to learn to read because they cannot decode well
- Supporting schools in fostering a love of reading in pupils
- Supporting schools working with parents to help their children learn to read
The reading framework: Who is it for?
Writing in his foreword for guidance, Schools Minister Nick Gibb states that a significant number of schools (92%) report having read the original framework, published in July 2021 and 66% report going on to make changes to how they teach reading as a result of the guidance.
The framework is non-statutory, but primary and secondary schools are encouraged to use the guidance from Reception to KS3.
The reading framework: What has changed?
Many updates have been included, with the guidance growing from 115 to 176 pages.
Advice for key stages 2 and 3
When the reading framework guidance was first published by the DfE in 2021, it contained guidance and advice for those working in Reception and key stage 1.
This expanded guidance now covers key stages 2 and 3 as well.
This includes specific examples of children in key stages 2 and 3 who would require additional reading support and what that support would look like.
Section 13 of this framework focuses on supporting pupils in KS3 with reading, including identifying those who need support when moving from primary to secondary school.
Emma Adcock – VNET Principal Teaching and Learning Consultant, July 2023