Review of Early Reading

The DfES has published criteria to help schools and early years settings judge how well teaching programmes meet the characteristics of high quality phonic work as defined in the Review of Early Reading. Schools and early years settings are strongly encouraged to consider these criteria when making decisions about the type of commercial programme they choose. The criteria are not prioritised in any way and expectations are that a good support programme meets all the criteria.

To ensure that this process is as easy and useful as possible for schools and settings publishers of commercial programmes have evaluated their own programmes against the criteria and completed a self-assessment form.

The form is in two parts:

Part 1
This ‘snapshot’ assessment provides information about what the programme offers and demonstrates how the programme fares overall against the criteria.

Part 2
Further detailed information about the programme meets each of the criteria.

Schools and early years settings should have relevant information in order to make informed choices about the support required.

We are aware that schools and early years settings may have a large number of self-assessments to consider, therefore information we have provided is succinct and focused on the criteria in a form that is easy to read and understand.