‘Lighting the touch-paper’: ‘Faster Read’ impact nine years on…

Secondary and primary teachers in the UK are typically under significant stress and are naturally sceptical about interventions claiming to radically transform their students’ reading levels and reading engagement. However, nine years later, the ‘Faster Read’ (2014-15), led by Julia Sutherland (PI) with Jo Westbrook (Education) and Jane Oakhill (Psychology), continues to be enthusiastically spread by teacher advocates via social-media networks, conference presentations and articles, reinforcing the team’s own publications, engagement and impact work.

Recently, Assistant Head, Sonia Nunneley, published How ‘Faster Read’ lessons can boost reading’ in the TES online (June 5^,  2023) – one of the ‘most read’ articles. Nunneley described how, inspired by the Faster Read research, she rolled its pedagogic model across her school, successfully boosting the school’s reading levels and students’ enthusiasm for reading for the last three years. Similarly, children’s book editor of the Wall Street Journal, Meghan Gurdon, recommended US teachers and parents to adopt the Sussex Faster Read approach to address Covid reading and learning losses (WSJ, September 16, 2022).

The impact of agentive teachers embedding the Faster Read in UK schools was demonstrated by Julia and Jo’s recent HEIF-funded, mixed-method impact study (2022). Two hundred schools surveyed, across England, Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland have adopted this model, half for 4-8 years, many across all three year-groups at Key Stage 3 (11-14 years), with multiplier effects on the number of students impacted over time. 99% of teacher respondents would recommend it to other English or Literacy teachers for KS2 (primary) KS3 and KS4 (secondary) and 40,000 students have experienced the Faster Read approach so far.

Teachers in mainstream and alternative-provision schools report that it increases students’ reading levels, reading engagement, reader identities, reading confidence, independent reading, and in some cases, students’ writing, attendance, engagement with school and well-being. Amy Fletcher, English Deputy-Head & KS3 Leader, Tower Hamlets School, London, said that as well as enhancing reading for all students in her culturally diverse school, a  key impact is: ‘significant numbers of students are progressing to study English at A Level and university, [bucking] the national trend of declining numbers in English because our students really enjoy reading.’ Local Head of English, Lauren Haywood, Peacehaven Community School, has introduced it to two schools for nine years, which has significantly improved students’ reading levels on standardised tests and has made her: ‘design our entire KS3 curriculum around it, making disengaged and struggling readers love reading – and teachers love teaching reading!’

 

Julia has led and organised 40+ CPD and conference events for teachers, including online during Covid. Recently, Julia and Jo gave online CPD for Ayrshire LA and 45 teachers, who are embedding the Faster Read in Scottish primary and secondary schools. A large online conference is being organised for summer 2024 for teachers to share Faster Read practice across the UK and a film has been made for the new website, with experienced teachers providing CPD for those wanting to adopt the model. The research was cited in the latest Ofsted (2022) Research Review: English and is being promoted by a range of ITE Secondary English courses, e.g., the Institute of Education, London and Universities of Bristol, Huddersfield and Exeter.

The Faster Read has been enthusiastically supported by National Associations for the teaching of English and literacy, such as the UKLA and NATE, and has been championed by the English and Media Centre (EMC), the leading national centre for research-informed CPD for English teachers. The EMC in London has invited Julia to do CPD events to support teachers wanting to adopt this approach to reading. At the last of these events, Andrew McCallum, Director of the English and Media Centre, London, tweeted:

The kind of research English teachers are crying out for! Subject-specific, backed up by hard evidence & based on expertise & common sense.

International Literacy Consultant, Mary Myatt, also highly recommends the Faster Read to Primary and Secondary English teachers, seeing it as one of the most impactful research studies on literacy in her ‘Curriculum Conversations’ (December, 2023). 

Schools across the UK are adopting the Faster Read and exploring what happens with their students’ reading-development and engagement with reading. For example, at the Scalby School, a Research School in Huntingdon: Case study: The Faster Read programme at… | Huntington Research School. 

 

Recent publications and conference papers

Sutherland, J., Westbrook, J., Oakhill, J. & Sullivan, S. (2023) ‘An immersive, ‘Faster Read’: a pilot, mixed-method study, developing whole-text reading comprehension and engagement with adolescent struggling readers’, Research Papers in Education, DOI: 10.1080/02671522.2023.2238285.

Sutherland, J. and Westbrook, J. (2022) ‘Reading Comprehension’ in A. Watson & R. Newman (Eds), A Practical Guide to teaching English in the secondary school, London: Routledge.

Sutherland, J. ‘Teachers as agents and all students as “readers”: evaluating eight years of the Faster Read’, BERA ‘Exploring issues in English, education & social justice’ conference, University of Bedfordshire, 30 June, 2023. This paper is currently being extended for publication.

Westbrook, J., Sutherland, J., Oakhill, J. & Sullivan, S. (2019) ‘Just reading’: the impact of a faster pace of reading narratives on the comprehension of poorer adolescent readers in English classrooms. Literacy, 53, 2: 60-68 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lit.12141