Reading fluency strategies to support primary teachers

A new programme to help primary schools improve reading fluency is to be rolled out by the Department for Education’s English Hubs this autumn.
 
The reading fluency CPD programme is being delivered to the hubs by HFL Education – formerly Herts for Learning – to help ensure that best practice is shared with schools across the country.
 
Reading fluency is widely recognised as the bridge between word decoding and reading comprehension.
 
The programme is the fourth centralised Medium Level Support (MLS) programme to be introduced since the English Hubs initiative was founded in 2018.
 
HFL Education has designed a ‘train the trainer’ scheme using data and insights gathered from its own successful Reading Fluency Project – currently the subject of an EEF trial.
 
The scheme will provide English hub leaders with all the knowledge and resources they need to share best practice with their local schools throughout the 2025/26 academic year and beyond. The new CPD will also include contributions from world-renowned reading expert, Professor Tim Rasinski, who has been a long-time supporter of HFL's work in this area.
 
Penny Slater, Partnership Lead at HFL Education said: “We are so excited to be part of the team that is putting reading fluency strategies into the hands of primary school teachers across the country. Our programme is based on extensive research into the different elements which contribute to reading fluency – accuracy, automaticity and prosody – and it is impactful for all children, not just those struggling with reading. We are looking forward to sharing our expertise and experience with the English Hubs network and supporting the roll out to schools nationwide.”
 
Reading fluency is the hot topic in improving reading standards. The Ofsted English education subject report, published in March last year, noted that once pupils can decode accurately, schools are less clear about how to build fluency and comprehension. Reading fluency was also highlighted in the EEF’s Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 Guidance Report (second edition, 2021), recommending that pupils should be supported to develop fluent reading capabilities.
 
HFL Education will begin training English Hub leaders in the summer term ready for an autumn roll out to schools, in the form of CPD training sessions.