Foreword

A few years ago, non-primary school teachers or those not teaching English rarely considered teaching children to read as their responsibility. So it is heartening to see, according to the data in this report, that almost all teachers in international schools, regardless of subject or the type of school they teach in, feel they have a personal responsibility to help weak readers improve.

Teachers understand that children who struggle with reading are going to find it difficult to progress personally and academically. But they also increasingly appreciate that if these students are to keep up with the content they teach, they will have to help them with any gaps in reading ability as well as subject knowledge.

Wanting to help and knowing how to help are two different things, however. We cannot expect every teacher to know instinctively how children learn to read or the best ways to support them. To teach children how to read is a skill. And like any other skill it requires study and practice.

Nor can teachers be expected to understand the reading needs of their students if they aren’t given accurate, up-to-date information about each of them. Almost all respondents to our survey said it would be valuable or very valuable to know which students in their class are struggling readers. Moreover, teachers need to know how best to support weak readers and why they are having problems. Are students struggling because they haven’t properly learnt some component of reading, or is there a cognitive explanation like dyslexia?

This is particularly true when it comes to teaching EAL students – whose needs and outcomes can be extremely diverse depending on the level of proficiency, first language, parental English ability and so on. International schools recognise this and are adept at providing as much reading support as possible to students whose first language isn’t English.

But some types of support are more effective than others. In-class, quality teaching for most pupils is preferable to withdrawing them for reading catch-up lessons, which can add to pressure on a packed curriculum and deprives weaker readers of the ability to learn from more proficient peers. So providing teachers with the right tools for in-classroom support, helping children to help themselves and enabling parents to help them too are key.

The findings in this report clearly reflect teachers’ understanding of the crucial role reading skills play in a student’s academic progression. Just as revealing is how determined teachers are to personally ensure that students acquire them.