Every Child To Read
Published: March 9th, 2026
My last blog (Every Child to Succeed) was about the proposed changes to the SEND system, what inclusion IS and what it involves – and the crucial importance of READING within an inclusive setting. Are you an avid reader from choice? If so, what do you read? Fiction, non-fiction – both?
I have just finished reading the classic Penguin edition of Dickens’s, ‘David Copperfield’ – all of its nine hundred plus pages; the featured book for our monthly reading group. Phew! Was I glad to reach the end! An experience that has caused me to think deeply about reading in our schools.
No-one in their right mind would dream of criticising Dickens – arguably the greatest of novelists. But if we are to encourage young people to read from choice, and enjoy their reading – should these classics continue to be part of the National Curriculum for all children and young people? I am thinking here of children with SEND and/reading difficulties?
Copperfield, like most of Dickens’ s novels, has a reading age of about sixteen plus: based on the Fry graph estimate (for each 100 words: more syllables + fewer sentences = higher RA). So the longer the sentences – with a higher proportion of difficult words – the harder such a text is to both decode and comprehend. And, of course, Dickens wrote at a time when far fewer people actually read books: serious reading being limited to the aristocracy and others at the higher end of the social scale. Can we, in today’s world, even imagine those 19th C workers trudging home from a long and tiring day in the mill – then relaxing with a book (even if they could read a little)? It would have been a rare thing indeed! The language of the time was also noticeably different than today’s. As I made my laborious way through some of Dickens’s more archaic and obscure passages, it often felt as if I was trying to see through a steamed up window.
Yet, we are reminded that social mobility depends on reading. Without it, children can never fully achieve their potential. Do you remember when the Harry Potter books first came onto the scene? As a teacher, I recall one young boy who was a poor reader, and identified as Dyslexic. ‘What are you reading?’ I asked him. ‘Harry Potter,’ he replied. I was quite taken aback, as I knew he would have found this text difficult. ‘Why are you reading that?’ I asked. ‘Because all my mates are reading it,’ was his thought-provoking reply. That child, just like all of us, wanted to feel included. I have since been very grateful to JK for those HP books – which, in my view, encouraged far more boys to persevere with reading.
But now, in 2026 – our National Year of Reading? A dilemma! More children are arriving at secondary schools with RAs way below their chronological ages – severely limiting and restricting cross-curricular learning. Data for the small secondary school in which I was recently helping with their reading programme, was as follows, organised into four main groups:
| RAs below 9 | 17 in Yr 7, 19 in Yr 8, 19 in Yr 9: total 55
A few of these children had RAs below 8. |
| RAs between 9 and 11 | 71 in Yr 7, 52 inYr 8, 36 inYr 9 : total 159 |
| Pupils with EAL (English as Additional Language) | These pupils’ spoken English demonstrated poor use of vocabulary and sentence structure – with ‘word reading’ and comprehension both delayed. |
| Pupils with SEND | Additional barriers to reading – eg. cognitive difficulties, sequencing, memory and retention |
Some of these pupils were identified in more than one group – eg. many of those with low RAs were also EAL or had a specified SEND diagnosis. Which group is the most needy? Answer – all of them, in their variety of ways: which leads on to my next key point. Bearing in mind the proposed changes for pupils with SEND, with the main focus on inclusion, we must never make the mistake of placing children into labelled boxes – with every child in each box being allocated the same additional support. A pupil with three identified areas of difficulty (eg. RA below 9 years, EAL and Dyslexia) would need three clearly allocated areas of additional help, in order to succeed.
My own viewpoint is clear: that, as far as possible, both SEND and low reading skills need to be dealt with in a fully inclusive setting. The task for schools is to identify which pupils therefore require – Universal, Targeted, Targeted Plus or Specialised support; these being the four proposed categories into which education will be identified for each individual.
How might this work in practice? How can parents be involved? Difficult questions – and the subjects for my next blog.
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