What is the Year 1 Reading Fluency Project: Foundational Fluency?
‘The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils read easily, fluently and with good understanding…’
National Curriculum in England: English Programme of Study
The Year 1 Reading Fluency Project: Foundational Fluency is designed to support struggling readers in year 1 to make swift and dramatic gains in their reading attainment. Through the combined use of evidence-informed reading strategies and high-quality texts, the Year 1 Reading Fluency Project is designed to improve pupils’ trajectory to Phonics Screening Check success. Participating pupils learn to apply their phonics knowledge into authentic and enjoyable reading experiences. The project works alongside schools’ existing SSPs and pupils will apply their increased confidence and enjoyment in reading to their decodable books.
Project aims
The Year 1 Reading Fluency Project is designed to equip teachers with the knowledge and skills they need to make a difference to outcomes for pupils who are currently not on track to achieve a pass of their Phonics Screening Check, or those who might be on track to pass the PSC, but who struggle to apply their phonics knowledge into reading books. We recognise from our work with Y1 pupils in schools that many children find it difficult to move their reading skills on beyond phonic decoding. Their reading may lack accuracy or automaticity; they might find their decodable texts hard to access, challenging to comprehend, and demanding in terms of the reading stamina required to read them fluently.
The Y1 Reading Fluency Project: Foundational Fluency training is logically sequenced and carefully spaced to allow time to put learning into practice throughout the 8-week intervention period. Equipped with project strategies, teachers deliver two, twenty-minute sessions weekly to a selected group of struggling readers. In just 8 weeks, these pupils make incredible progress in their fluency, leading to great gains in their accuracy and comprehension. Furthermore, pupils develop confidence and begin to view themselves as authentic readers.
Ofsted’s ‘Strong Foundations in the first years of school’ report states that children “...need more practice in reading decodable books to develop reading fluency. They also need time to develop their language comprehension by talking with adults about rich and interesting texts.” Our project focuses on improving outcomes - and fostering pleasure and motivation for reading - through carefully crafted core strategies to develop fluency and comprehension.
