Dreambox Reading Plus can accelerate reading growth by up to 97%

Reading Plus is an online reading development programme that teaches students the skills they need to become better readers, improving outcomes for schools and students.

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Children in a reading plus lesson with laptops

What is Reading Plus?

Reading Plus is an adaptive, online reading development programme. With a readability range from Year 2 to beyond GCSE, Reading Plus serves the needs of a wide range of students and reading levels, helping to accelerate reading growth and reading proficiency.

Our purpose is to:

Enhance reading skills through evidence-based, adaptive technology.
Support teachers with comprehensive data on students' reading progress and identify skill gaps.
Provide free training and support to make the lives of teachers and teaching assistants easier.
Make a positive impact on school and pupil outcomes.

The need for Reading Plus

The Reading Plus online platform supports students in shifting from the learning-to-read to the reading-to-learn stage of reading development. It is for students who:

Are secure in phonics and phonemic awareness.
Need to develop their reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension skills.

The Reading Plus programme also focuses on students' intrinsic motivation for reading by providing highly engaging texts and measuring their self improvement, belief, confidence, and interest in reading. All of these components come together to develop reading proficiency.

How does it work?

Step 1 – A personalised learning path to success

Students begin their Reading Plus journey with an adaptive assessment, which provides a baseline and a data-driven starting point.

The results place each student at the right level in the programme before creating a learning pathway to accelerate their strengths and improve their weaknesses.

We recommend:

Students access Reading Plus for 30 minutes three times per week.
Weekly assignments are composed of five reading and one vocabulary task.

Step 2 – Lessons begin

Over 1,300 high-quality and age-appropriate informational, fiction, and non-fiction texts are available for students to self-select from to develop comprehension and vocabulary knowledge.

Students are presented with a range of texts at their ‘just-right’ level.
To develop fluency and stamina, they read the text using the Guided Window.
Once finished with a text, students answer ten comprehension questions.
The more texts they complete and the more questions they get right, the more it will help them to progress.

Step 3 - Creating readers for life

Engaging texts, instant feedback, and gamification features keep students motivated.

As students progress through their adaptive, personalised path:

Their fluency, stamina, comprehension, and vocabulary improve, as does motivation.
Cross-curricular subject knowledge improves due to the variety of text types and topics.
They become curious and confident readers who are more likely to read for pleasure.

Step 1 - An easy implementation

Our dedicated Reading Development Consultants and Customer Support Team provide free training and implementation support to ensure a seamless transition.

They will:

Upload class data.
Create the students’ and educators’ accounts.
Train staff on usage and reporting data.
Be in regular contact with you about your student’s progress.
Guide you to make the most of your licence.

Step 2 – Extensive reporting

In-built summative and formative assessments will provide you with high-level data for individual, class, school, and trust levels.

When students first log on to Reading Plus, they sit the baseline InSight Assessment. This summative assessment will provide you with an overview of your students’ levels of:

Vocabulary.
Fluency.
Comprehension.

You can easily attain which students require support and in which reading skill.

After completing the baseline assessment, students can begin reading on the programme. Once students read a short text, they will answer ten comprehension questions. If students read the recommended five texts per week, they are exposed to 50 comprehension questions testing their knowledge of summary, retrieval, inference, etc. These formative assessments ensure students are constantly reading age-appropriate and ability-level texts. You can also use this data to evidence progress.

Step 3 – Reduced workload

Reading Plus provides students with all they need for guided reading lessons and provides high-level data at a glance, saving you time in planning and resources.

Students work independently on Reading Plus at their just-right levels, meaning you will have:

No need to plan for guided reading lessons.
More time to do what you do best – teach.

For students requiring additional support:

Printable intervention materials are available within the programme (worksheets/lesson plans).
You can provide one-to-one or small-group interventions with peace of mind that the rest of the class is focused on Reading Plus.

Formative and summative assessment data is easy to interpret and access. Our Customer Support Team also offers progress reports for class, school, and trust levels – saving you precious time.

Step 1 – Improved results through a consistent approach

Reading Plus supports high-quality teaching as educators have a clear understanding of students' reading levels and gaps.

Reading Plus is proven to work. Over 100 research studies validate our programme’s ability to develop students’ reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

As a multi-academy trust, you will benefit from a lower cost per student.

Supporting the National Curriculum, Reading Plus aims for students to:

Read easily, fluently, and with a good understanding.
Develop the habit of reading widely and often – for pleasure and information.
Acquire a vast vocabulary.
Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.

Reading Plus achieves this through adaptive technology, high-quality and age-appropriate texts, and giving students the autonomy to control their reading journey.

Step 2 – Trust-wide reporting data

Identify students' reading levels and gaps using the Reading Plus InSight Assessment, a uniform, trust-wide assessment and data reporting tool.

In-built formative and summative assessments allow trusts to access student, class, and academy-level data at a glance.

Our Customer Support Team provides monthly reports for trusts, enabling leaders to demonstrate impact to board members and senior trust leaders. You will see:

Summative benchmark progress.
Formative progress (usage, average year-level gains, the average increase in reading speed, total number of words read, etc.).
Question-level analysis per academy.
Recommendations to encourage usage and motivation tips.

Step 3 – Unlimited free training and support

Enhanced support from our Customer Support and Marketing Teams ensures your trust makes the most of its partnership with us.

Trust-wide implementation is easy thanks to our support offering. Our Customer Support Team uploads student data, creates accounts for students and educators, and offers training sessions as needed – all at no additional cost.

Our Marketing Team have several engaging initiatives and competitions throughout the year to encourage usage, motivation, and reading for pleasure.

Understanding your students' reading gaps

Students sit a baseline assessment when they first start on Reading Plus, which places them at their just-right level on the programme.

This comprehensive in-built assessment allows teachers to see:

If students are below, at, or above year-level expectations.
Which students need additional support in fluency and/or reading comprehension.

The image shows an example Screening Report; click on each student to view their reading needs.

Learn more

Arun

Lower comprehension & vocabulary - lower reading fluency

Arun is an inefficient, relatively slow reader who struggles to read and comprehend year-level texts.

Increasing fluency and stamina

To model good reading behaviour, students will see texts presented using the patented Guided Window feature. This tool:

Keeps their eyes focused on reading the relevant material.
Utilises a moving box, set at a speed just right for them.
It is adaptive and will increase in speed as students progress.
Improves fluency and stamina.

Guided Window in action – the speed in this example is set at 185 words per minute; this is the expected level for a Year 6 student.

Giving students autonomy

Students reading below, at, or above their school level all need content and tasks that build critical thinking skills. They also need personalised instruction that:

Matches their individual learning abilities.
Prepares them for future success.
Builds and sustains their interest and motivation.
Broadens their horizons and increases their cultural capital.

Over 1,300 high-quality and age-appropriate informational, fiction, and non-fiction texts are available for students to self-select to develop comprehension and vocabulary knowledge.

Hear from Year 6 pupils Nick and Leena from Elmridge Primary School as they discuss Reading Plus.

An evidence-based programme

Reading Plus is built on decades of foundational research in:

Silent reading fluency development.
Vocabulary and comprehension improvement.
Decoding practice.
Reading stamina.
Efficiency development.

*In an efficacy study with Derby Research School and Spencer Academies Trust, students eligible for pupil premium made, on average, 97% more progress with Reading Plus than in the control schools.

Learn more

"I would 100% recommend Reading Plus to other schools based on outcomes at Ribbon, which have been incredibly positive - they stand for themselves."

Ashleigh Sheridan Headteacher, Ribbon Academy

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