Scholastic Reading Audit – 2021 Update

Posted on 26 July 2021

Four years ago, Scholastic published the Scholastic Reading Audit, a pedagogic, independent, and free tool, designed to challenge and support schools in the teaching and leading of reading. This was more successful than we ever hoped with nearly one thousand schools completing the audit and working with Scholastic to review and improve the teaching of reading in their school.

We have spent a lot of time this year updating the Reading Audit with our editor, Rachel Clarke, to ensure that it supports the latest government guidance on the teaching of reading (including the newly published Reading Framework and the new list of validated systematic synthetic phonics programmes), and it is as comprehensive and up-to-date as we can make it. As a result of the review, we will be launching the revised Audit in September. As always, it will be completely free of charge, and all of the writing and editing process is independent.

As part of the update, we have worked with a number of schools, and feedback has been very positive. One Reading Lead said:

I think the audit is great, really thorough, and I think it was brilliant how the skills for reading were broken down (phonics, oracy, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension etc.). It was especially helpful to review oracy and fluency (and even vocabulary to some extent) as these are regularly missed and many don’t necessarily explicitly teach these skills even though they are fundamental to the teaching of reading!

I’ve also just had a read through the DfE’s new report ‘The Reading Framework: Teaching the foundations of literacy’ and the audit clearly links to the key sections within that report. The report highlights the importance of reading for pleasure, so I think that it is amazing that it is also included within the audit.

I also noticed that the audit linked to the Ofsted framework including the intent, implementation and the impact of reading, alongside what aspects you teach, how do you do it, which resources you use, and how you know that it’s working – linking it back to the different types of assessment used.

I really do think it was fab and would be something that is valuable for all schools to complete.

Our revised Reading Audit looks at:

• Oracy
• Phonics and early reading
• Vocabulary
• Fluency
• Comprehension (including four key strategies for explicitly teaching reading comprehension)
• Assessment
• Interventions for striving readers and readers working at greater depth
• Whole class and independent reading
• Home readers and family engagement
• Libraries and book events
• Teacher training & CPD

As with our previous audit, schools will also be given a ‘Reading Charter’ certificate if they fulfil the requirements that we have written in conjunction with the Institute of Education, University College London; you will also have access to the ‘Daily Reading Lesson’ when it is published in January 2022, a high impact reading model we’re developing to help schools make the most of every minute in the classroom, with as little impact on workload as possible.

There is nothing like the Scholastic Reading Audit out there – it is like gold dust. It allowed me to step outside of my school and Trust roles and be more strategic. The audit directly informed my subject improvement plan and reading is at the heart of our curriculum.

Individual schools will be able to take the new Reading Audit from September. Find out more