Welcome to the inaugural HFL Reading Fluency Project Newsletter! We are HFL Education, a leading national provider of school improvement and business support services, training, and resources. Our mission is to help schools, educational settings, and multi-academy trusts deliver high-quality education, ensuring successful long-term outcomes for children.

Reading fluency is a cornerstone of effective literacy education, and recent advancements are opening new avenues for enhancing this crucial skill. As teachers, staying abreast of this development can empower us to be better support our pupils’ journey toward fluent reading.

In this newsletter, we share exciting developments from our work in reading fluency. Here’s a look at what’s new and promising in this field.

HFL Education is proud to be conducting an efficacy trial of the KS2 Reading Fluency Project, funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and the Department for Education (DfE) this autumn term. We are hopeful that following a successful 2-armed trial, this impactful work will reach even more children. The trial is fully recruited, with all 180 schools having secured places swiftly upon the announcement of the trial. Watch this space for updates as we receive them! Find out more here.  

Reading Fluency Across the Primary Curriculum
Date Thursday 7th November 2024
Time 9.00am – 3.45pm
Please consider joining us, on this new offer to our Reading Fluency portfolio of training! This course builds on the proven success of our Reading Fluency Project, which has had remarkable results in supporting struggling readers. Much of the learning that takes place across the school day is hooked into the complex skill of reading and this course will support you to bring whole class, simple to implement, high-impact pedagogy to all your subjects to support pupils to access the learning. 
 

The Reading Fluency Project: Raising Reading Achievement in the UK
HFL Reading Fluency Project leads, Kathy Roe and Penny Slater, collaborated with the eminent Professor Timothy Rasinski and respected scholar Abbey Galeza to produce a publication for the Iris Journal of Educational Research. The article focuses on the impact of the HFL Reading Fluency Project and the importance of reading fluency instruction, especially for pupils who struggle in reading. 
 
A sincere thank you to Dr. Rasinski whose essential contributions and expertise have shaped this work. Read the article on the International Journal of Education Research (IJER) website.

Insights from the recent DfE English Report - Telling the Story
You will no doubt be aware that the DfE have recently published their English report, Telling the Story. Section 18 was music to our ears as the link between reading fluency and comprehension was explicitly referenced. We have long known of this link, or bridge as Dr.Tim Rasinski calls it. It isn’t enough for children to be repeatedly tasked with practising comprehension (though written activities in many cases). Instead, they need to be taught to read the text with a decent level of fluency first, in order that there be head space for the understanding of that reading to happen. We are huge advocates for authentic repeated reading practice in the classroom as a way of shoring up automaticity and application of prosody; those of you who have participated in our project will have systematised this approach as a result. If you haven’t, and you would like to join our next cohort, details are below. 

HFL Reading Fluency Project
Have you been considering joining our impactful HFL Reading Fluency Project? Perhaps you are thinking that although your phonics programme is embedded, and children in your school can now read with accuracy, that bridge between word reading and comprehension is wobbly? At KS2, children who participate in the HFL Reading Fluency Project make an average of 2 years and 3 months progress in just eight weeks.*
 
We are now taking bookings for the full Reading Fluency Project for KS1 – 4. Book to join us for the KS1, KS3 or KS4 project in autumn term, or get in early for the spring term 2025 project for KS2. Further information can be found here.

Email us at reading.fluency@hfleducation.org to express your interest or ask any questions. 
 
*As measured by the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension.