Reading-Gap
About the project
A research project focused on reading in secondary schools.
Examining how reading difficulties are understood and addressed, and how reading affects pupils’ access to learning as they move through secondary education.
Why this work is being done
There is a substantial body of research and guidance on reading and literacy, including at secondary age. Much of this work focuses on early identification and intervention, particularly around transition into Year 7.
What is less well understood is what happens after that point. As pupils move through secondary school, reading difficulties may change in form or become harder to detect. Some pupils make gains in specific skills, while wider gaps in access to learning may persist or widen.
In later secondary years, it is often unclear how schools know whether reading remains a barrier to learning, how reading is assessed beyond initial screening and intervention, and what signals are relied on when difficulties are less visible.
This project exists to examine those questions more carefully.
Research approach
The research is based on commissioned conversations with secondary practitioners, alongside surveys and interviews. The work is exploratory and formative. It is intended to build a clearer picture of practice, and to inform further research.
Find out more below about participating.
Scope and boundaries
The project focuses on reading in secondary schools in the UK. Conversations are used to understand practice, including uncertainty, trade-offs, and partial success. The work is not designed to judge or compare schools.
For that reason, contributions are anonymised and reported in aggregate. Individual schools, trusts, and practitioners are not identified. This is intended to support open and candid discussion, rather than polished or performative accounts.
Who we are
This project is initiated and funded by David Blake and Julie Kilcoyne, long term UK and US education entrepreneurs, who are active in investment, start-ups and non-profits.
Their immediate objective is to contribute to the educational community a better understanding of the challenges faced by struggling readers as they progress through secondary.
In due course, this project might evolve into more formal and extensive research, lead to the development of programmes or products to address specific needs, or create partnerships with other educational organisations.
In the short term, we will be sharing our initial findings with participants at the end of this phase of research.