Research Outcomes

Developing comprehension skills in the early years - Think2Read Project (2003-2011)

Phase 1 of the Think2Read Project (2003–2006)

The programme yielded encouraging results. SATS results for participating Year 6 children showed a particularly high comprehension result of 90% passes at level 4/5, with a significant rise in standards in just two terms. The school considered this to be especially encouraging because of the number of children with dyslexic tendencies that were included in the score. Teachers reported that pupils were more willing to learn from one another’s assumptions and keen to explore and challenge each other about text and the author’s intention within the reciprocal reading process. Dr. Maureen Lewis, an observer from the NLS who came to visit the school in 2005, reported that the sessions seemed to have ‘opened the gates to children’s learning of prediction, clarification, questioning and summarising.’ Children were found to be experiencing a much greater appreciation of the books they were reading and were better prepared to engage in more independent and meaningful exploration of author’s intention, style of writing, narrative and non-fiction text and different genre.
This generated a step-by-step teaching guide for Key Stage 2, an Assessment Benchmark and a teaching focus to support the teaching of these skills in Key Stage 1.

Phase 2 of the Think2Read Project (2007-2009)

Professor Ros Fisher, Exeter University, conducted a separate study of Durham Street Primary and Hawthorne Road Primary during the Dartington Primary School pilot study. Two Year 2 (6-7years) teachers in each school took part. The classes were parallel year groups and this provided one class as intervention and one class as comparison. The intervention class teachers agreed to teach one lesson from the Think2Read programme each week. Otherwise the literacy teaching in both classes were similar. Results were promising, particularly in Year 2 of the three schools.
Ros Fisher observed that where the teacher followed the Think2Read programme carefully and were fully committed to it, the children made good progress in reading. She reported that there was some evidence that these children made better progress in reading according to the Neale Analysis than their peers in the parallel class. This is borne out by national test results. In the second of the two schools involved in the project where the approach was not kept as different as in the first school, there is a possibility that the increased amount of ‘group-work’ and less didactic teaching in both classes resulted in good results for both teaching groups.
The TEAM-Building role-focused approach designed to support group discussion and enquiry helped mixed ability groups of 6-7 year olds to organise themselves and explore reading material more collaboratively and purposefully. Children were surprised and delighted at their ability to identify literal from inferential meaning – and to generate their own questions from text and pictures for each other to answer.

Phase 3 results across the school were encouraging.

The programme was implemented in every classroom in Key stages 1 and 2 to promote consistency and sustainability of effective reading comprehension practice throughout the school. Staff appraisal showed that the programme was well received by all the teachers and assimilated into the curriculum with ease. The ‘quality and richess of resources and explicit easy-to-deliver lessons and activities’ seemed to accommodate a range of teaching styles that teachers found very supportive. The aim for the future of the school is to embed the Think2Read programme within the curriculum to establish ‘a community of comprehension and philosophical enquiry’.