Research School Network: Three steps to reading What can teachers do before, during and after a text to support pupils?

Crikey, reading’s difficult isn’t it?!

You probably know that already, but I find it’s never a bad thing to be reminded of it again. Those reminders can come from different sources:

- The EEF’s Reading House, which shows the many elements of reading
- Reading something outside of your comfort zone, or maybe in a foreign language
- Listening to a pupil grapple with some text

My latest reminder actually came when I went for a run. I’ve not run enough recently and so it was altogether a bit of a struggle. I began to think how easy it would be to stop and walk for a bit, or stop completely! It’s understandable to want to avoid something difficult, whether that be a jog in the park or reading in a lesson. The slight difference being I had chosen to do this to myself, whereas many children who find reading difficult definitely do not choose to expose themselves to text for four or five hours a day.

And then came a bit of a downhill section. A blessed relief.

Now, we don’t want reading to all feel like a downhill section, but if there are moments where we can alleviate some of the load, especially for those who find reading a challenging cognitive endeavour, then they are worth taking. Worth providing teachers with a coherent set of strategies with which to do this.

We have framed these strategies around the idea of ​‘before, during and after reading.’ The evidence points towards expert readers deploying their tools at these different moments to help guide themselves through a text. The options are intended so that teachers can support pupils in reading texts of any length, in any language, across the curriculum:

Of course, such things can become what Willingham calls ​‘a bag of tricks’, with teachers spending too long on such strategies. We want brief, strategic deployment of strategies by teachers to give that ​‘downhill’ moment on the run, that little impetus that allows pupils to be supported around a text, allowing them to engage more fully in the learning moment it is creating.

Going forward, we want teachers to more explicitly communicate about the choices they are making with texts, articulating aloud what they are doing ​‘before, during and after’ as they address even perhaps just a simple ​‘Do Now’ instruction at the start of a lesson. Ultimately, we want this process to be undertaken by pupils, building first their knowledge of the strategies and then their ability to enact them independently.

Ultimately, reading isn’t running, but a little downhill section can sometimes benefit us all when undertaking a challenging task.

Reflection questions:

- What strategies do teachers deploy to support children with their reading?
- Are those strategies applicable for different phases and/​or subject areas?
- What strategies do pupils have when interacting with text?


Further reading:

A Greenshaw Research School blog about a similar ​‘before, during, after’ approach
EEF blog: Getting to grips with reading comprehension strategies