Stop boring young readers stiff. Give them more books, more often, says study

The Faster Read project believes children should be introduced to a series of books, one straight after the other, in the classroom. This allows a developing brain to understand the pull of an extended narrative and to become engaged.

“Learning to read has to be about enjoyment and immersion in a book, but the way it is usually done bores students stiff,” said Julia Sutherland, a senior lecturer in education and co-founder of the project. “They take so long over one text across a [school] term that it loses all meaning.

“Reading to pupils while they follow along allows them to develop a whole, flexible mental image of the shape of the story. This is how we learn to understand things … It builds a sophisticated sense of comprehension and enjoyment.”

Sutherland and her colleague, Prof Jo Westbrook, are presenting the findings, based on the original work of fellow academic Jane Oakhill, to the government as part of the English curriculum review. But their theory has already spread across British schools.

They have told the Department for Education that reading to children who struggle in year 8 (aged 12-13) improved their reading level by 18 months over just 12 weeks. Ten years after the project’s initial research, a thousand secondary school English teachers are following their advice.

“We have missed out on the importance of listening together and following the length of a text because of the huge drive to study phonics,” said Westbrook. “Today, children are not exposed to enough books.”

Last week, the National Literacy Trust’s annual report showed the lowest levels of reading in Britain since it began to monitor the situation 20 years ago, a drop of 36%. The steepest decline was among primary-aged children and it was also marked in boys aged between 11 and 16. Fewer than one in five young people between the ages of 8 to 18 said they read something daily in their free time.

Although Sutherland and Westbrook believe children should read faster, they are not advocating “speed reading”, which first became popular in the US in the 1950s when Evelyn Wood coined the term after studying reading habits. The idea was to avoid sounding out each word in your head, but modern analysis of the brain has shown this stage is important to comprehension, even when readers are not aware of doing it.

Speed reading is still commonly taught in India and in Japan – where the Shichida method is widespread – and by some schools in Australia. It is often sold as a form of self-improvement. However, there is a lack of evidence that it improves understanding.

The Faster Read project believes the better approach is to tackle a whole text at pace, emphasising meaning. Then, it argues, reading speed tends to pick up naturally.