Leading literacy across a large Secondary school often seems like a never ending task – Alex Quigley once likened it to a Sisyphean task (https://alexquigley.co.uk/why-whole-school-literacy-fails/) – and I have definitely been flattened by that boulder many times! I have seen countless initiatives to raise reading levels come and go over the last 20 years, many of which just don’t seem to stick. Every year cohorts are presenting different issues when they start in Year 7: weaker attention spans, specific SLCN and an ever dwindling love of reading for pleasure. Coupled with the fact that most Secondary teachers did not receive explicit training on how children learn to read, this makes a perfect storm in modern schools. How can you help to repair something that appears to have broken early on in a child’s life, before they even started school? It is no wonder that the government has launched a National Year of Reading in 2026, as well as revamping the ECTE to include specific guidance on supporting students with SEND, high quality oral language teaching and early cognitive development.  
 
So what are some surefire ways to improve the reading experience for students in Secondary lessons?  

1. The starting point has to be knowing your students and by this, I mean their current reading level. Use whatever data your school collects, e.g. reading ages through standardised testing like NGRT, verbal CAT scores, baseline assessments in comprehension and fluency with SEND students. Combined with your observations in the classroom, this will help place the student on a scale – they might be an emerging reader, i.e. they need help decoding words and lack fluency when reading instructions aloud, or they might be able to read a page of a Shakespeare play with ease. And they will probably be in the same class, unless you have some sort of streaming or small class intervention.  

2. Using your knowledge of the reading proficiency, you now need to be conscious of this every time you plan a lesson with reading in it. Which is probably daily! This is not going to land well for some, but Primary teachers are much better at this as they plan their lessons across the curriculum, because they know their class so well. Secondary teachers are always going to be at a disadvantage as they have to understand the complexities of how hundreds of children learn, rather than 32, with less time, subject knowledge and support. That being said, every teacher can adapt their teaching to support the needs of a weaker reader.  

3. Planning more effective longer reading tasks – firstly, look at the text you are using. Let’s take a Geography worksheet on climate change as an example. Once upon a time, you might have handed this out and asked students to read the information in silence and then answer the questions. However, is the text accessible for your weakest reader? There are some great websites like https://rewordify.com that will tell you how hard the text is, plus reword it using less Tier 2 vocabulary and give you a range of gap fill style activities if you want them. If your resource is from a reputable source and aimed at the relevant education level this probably isn’t necessary. Once you are happy that your text is suitable, then you can approach using it in a variety of ways. Reading in silence is going to be OK for about two thirds of your class, but as Tom Sherrington says, ‘to address underachieving groups, teach everyone better’ (To address underachieving groups, teach everyone better. – teacherhead). Three ideas to experiment with would be: 
   • Teacher led whole class reading – pause on tricky Tier 2/3 vocabulary and provide a quick definition – one adaptation would be to ask the class to repeat the word out loud to secure the learning. 
   • Choral reading – teacher and class read the text out loud together. This gives all students the chance to try using the tricky words without feeling singled out or under pressure. 
   • Paired reading – in pairs, students take it in turns to read sentences/paragraphs, whilst the teacher circulates and checks in with the weaker readers. This works well if you already know your class and have seated them in a strategic way, e.g. in reading pairs. 

4. Adapting your everyday teaching is also important, as it reinforces good literacy habits and creates a strong routine for every learner. For example, creating a culture of being curious about the etymology of subject specific words, i.e. breaking them down into different morphological parts and thinking about variations. Or taking 30 seconds to verbalise how to use a new word in a sentence. Take every opportunity to model how a fluent reader thinks when they are reading in your subject, especially when it gets tricky. Show students how you work out meaning through context and making links with other things you have read. This ‘struggle’ needs to be made explicit for our less confident readers. 

5. Finally become more knowledgeable about how children learn to read. If this is not part of your school’s CPD programme, ask for it. Better still, learn it yourself. I have benefitted hugely from observing my own children going through the magical early reading process. If your school has post-16 provision and teaches A Level English Language or Child Development then there will be a wealth of resource already. Your SEN team will also be specialists in particular areas of early literacy.  But there are some excellent resources out there if you want to independently up your game in the classroom. Alex Quigley’s ‘Closing the Reading Gap’ is a seminal read, as are the EEF reports like this one: Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools | EEF  

To conclude, you might not feel like you ever get the boulder to the top of the mountain, but you are not on your own. As Quigley concludes, if we all help to push it, then we are more likely to manage this daunting task. And anything that helps the life chances of the students we teach, is always worth the effort. 

By Prue Bendell, 24/08/2025