National roll-out of Every Child a Reader

Information for local authorities

Note: a detailed toolkit of LA resources to support the implementation of ECaR has recently been published by the Primary National Strategy (Every Child a Reader: ref 00034-2008PCK-EN). This is available to order from DCSF publications (email: dcsf@prolog.uk.com; tel: 08456022260). The contents can also be downloaded from The Standards Site (link opens in new window).

What is Every Child a Reader?
Every Child a Reader provides literacy interventions to Y1 and 2 children who require them. The purpose of the programme is to ensure that every child achieves age related expectations at the end of Key Stage 1 – other than a tiny minority who have a pervasive developmental disorder that was evident before they started school, or are very new to English at the time of their end of Key Stage 1 assessment. The programme is a key driver of the policy of the new administration of the current government to break the poverty cycle and close gaps in achievement. As such it forms a key aspect of the Every Child Matters and Personalisation agendas and has the potential to be pivotal to the LA strategy for early intervention. A commitment has been made to government funding so that by 2011 30,000 children a year will be supported through the programme. After a successful researched pilot in 2005/2007 the DCSF is committed to rolling out the ECaR programme from 2008 onwards through the Primary National Strategy. In order to achieve maximum pupil entitlement and reach the government target of 30,000 children per year, the majority of LAs will need to engage in partnership or consortia arrangements with neighbouring LAs when implementing the programme for the first time or continuing the programme from the pilot phase.

What does the programme involve?
The programme involves funding schools (either individually or as a cluster) to employ and train specialist Reading Recovery teachers who deliver daily one-to-one Reading Recovery teaching for the children with the most severe difficulties, and provide training, coaching and support to other adults (usually teaching assistants) who deliver lighter-touch interventions such as Fischer Family Trust Wave 3, Better Reading Partnership and Early Literacy Support (ELS) for children with less severe needs. Implementation of a layered approach to intervention and of the Reading Recovery element within its international standards and guidelines are non-negotiable aspects of the programme.

What the programme offers
Reading Recovery returns a minimum of 77% of the very lowest attaining six year olds to age-appropriate literacy levels after an average 38.5 hours of personalised teaching.  80% then go on to achieve National Curriculum  L2+ at the end of Key Stage 1, and 51% L4+ at the end of Key Stage 2. The programme is particularly successful in narrowing social class and gender gaps - the children involved in the ECaR evaluation were predominantly boys (63%) and predominantly poor (59% eligible for free school meals).

The evaluation of the pilot phase of ECaR showed that standards in many cases rose for all children, not just those directly taught, because of the presence of a skilled literacy expert in the school.

The national roll-out
The roll out of ECaR is dependent on building the infrastructure that supports the training and quality assurance of Reading Recovery teachers. This infrastructure consists of a core team of Reading Recovery Trainers, based at the Institute of Education in London, who train and quality assure the work of local authority ‘Teacher Leaders’, who in turn train and quality assure the work of Reading Recovery teachers in schools.

What is the commitment for schools?
Current proposals for 2008 onwards involve part-funding schools/clusters of schools to do one of three things:

• employ an already trained but inactive Reading Recovery teacher
• continue to employ a Reading Recovery teacher  previously funded though ECaR
• employ and train a new Reading Recovery teacher.

Reading Recovery teachers work 0.5 FTE teaching Reading Recovery lessons to individual children. The remainder of their time can be class teaching, PPA cover or other roles such as SENCO. Some teachers work part-time and solely on the programme. ECaR has encouraged schools to employ teachers on at least a 0.6 FTE contract, so that time is available over and above direct 1-1 teaching, for the oversight and quality assurance of other lighter touch literacy interventions.

Participating schools/clusters of schools will receive a government contribution towards the approximately £20K p.a. training and staffing costs involved in a 0.6 FTE post. This funding would be secured through to 2011.

The level of grant to schools for 2008-9 will be:
Inner London £11,700
Outer London £ 11,300
Non London £10,000

Implications for LAs and LA consortia
LAs will receive a grant towards the employment of a full time consultant (the ‘Teacher Leader’) to lead the programme locally. The expectation is that the Teacher Leader will generally be placed within the LA literacy team, but their work would be jointly directed by Primary Strategy and Learning Support/SEN staff.

In their first year in post the Teacher Leader will be involved in full time training led by the Reading Recovery Network of the London Institute of Education (details below).

LAs joining the programme for the first time and ‘hosting’ a Teacher Leader receive an initial grant of £50,000 in the first year. This is intended to contribute towards the salary costs of the Teacher Leader and towards the set up costs of a Reading Recovery Centre (further details below).  Thereafter, there will be an annual grant of £30,000 p.a. towards the Teacher Leader.

Funding will be allocated to LAs through the Standards Fund and the allocation of funding to schools managed by existing Primary National Strategy and local authority infrastructures, with quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation jointly delivered by the Primary National Strategy and the Reading Recovery Trainer Team.

Local authorities will also manage arrangements with other LA partners to ensure that full Reading Recovery programmes were targeted only at the very lowest attaining children, rather than at those who can benefit from lower cost interventions. This would be achieved by targeting funding on the basis of actual numbers predicted to achieve Level W or a low Level 1 at the end of Key Stage 1. Two or more schools with low numbers of children predicted these levels might share a Reading Recovery teacher. Schools with high numbers might have two teachers.

From 2008, Foundation Stage profile data will also be used to indicate levels of need.

What the LA/consortium has to do to implement Every Child a Reader
An LA consortium involved in this offer needs to:

• Agree a shared strategy for maximising the reach of the resources of Every Child a Reader to the individual pupils/schools in greatest need
• Agree arrangements for the employment and location of the Teacher Leader and the location of the Reading Recovery Centre (see below for details)

An LA or consortium of LAs involved in this offer needs to:

• Identify how it will top up the £50K  DCSF funding provided to contribute towards  training a Teacher Leader and setting up the Reading recovery Centre
• Identify how it will top up the £30k p.a. funding provided for a trained Teacher Leader
• Identify a suitable person to train from September 2008 – usually a literacy or learning support consultant or former headteacher, able to work at Masters level and follow a one-year full time course. The course involves teaching Reading Recovery to 4 children at a time in their own LA for four mornings a week and being at the Institute of Education on Thursday evening and all day Friday throughout the year. During this year the consultant would not be available for other LA work.
• Have that person complete an application form for the Institute of Education
• If they do not already have a Reading Recovery Centre, plan to have one in place by September 09. This involves converting a room in a training centre or school to provide a one-way mirror, small teaching space and larger observation space.
• In the autumn term 2008, develop and possibly consult locally on criteria for selecting schools to train an RR teacher in 2009-10, following DCSF guidance.
• Plan to hold an information meeting for targeted schools in early 2009.

What a school/cluster of schools needs to implement Every Child a Reader
An experienced early years/KS1 teacher to train as a Reading Recovery teacher.

0.5 RR teaching, 0.5 other duties – ideally 0.6 on Every Child a Reader, to enable the RR teacher to support those providing layered interventions as well as teach children directly.

The teacher teaches 4 children individually, daily for half an hour each. They will teach 8-10 children over the course of a year.

A quiet space with access to plenty of very simple reading books and basic resources (magnetic board and letters).
Cover for half a day per fortnight for training at the Reading Recovery centre.

Another teacher trained in assessment.

Also see: Practicalities of the roll-out