What works for slow readers

Greg Brooks outlines the results of a significant piece of research undertaken by the National Foundation for Educational Research on schemes for promoting skills among ‘slow readers’. The findings will provide little comfort for the ‘phonological awareness only’ school of thought. He confirms the view most teachers would support that phonological skills should be embedded within broader approaches. Elsewhere, he questions IT techniques, unless carefully supervised. Tellingly, he concludes that none of the schemes tackled school improvement, a prerequisite for their success in the first instance.