What's the purpose of Chapter One?
The purpose of Chapter One is to provide one-to-one reading support for children in years 1-3 who need it most. We target children facing disadvantage, but realise this takes many forms (not just children in receipt of pupil premium). So we leave the selection of children up to our teachers.

Why can children in years 4-6 not be part of the programme?
The text content is aimed at KS1, with some Year 3 children also participating. Older children can find the story content, reading levels and themes unsuitable for their age-group.

How does Chapter One align with an SSP?
Chapter One uses colour banded reading levels to support children to practise and improve their reading fluency and comprehension. Our levelled, sequenced, decodable texts are designed to complement any Department for Education approved systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP) scheme.

When a school begins the programme, we provide teachers with our teacher manual which details the grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and common exception words present within each colour band. This ensures that teachers are able to choose a colour level which does not contain GPCs or common exception words that a pupil is unfamiliar with.

Our Chapter One schools successfully use our programme alongside many different schemes, including Read, Write Inc, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised and Sounds Write.

Our SSP progression does not match Chapter One's - how do I make sure children aren't reading books with sounds they don't know?
Our teacher manual makes it easy for a teacher to identify a suitable reading level, based on a pupil’s GPC acquisition. If a pupil is only secure in some of the GPCs within one colour-band, then the previous colour-band should be chosen.

This approach is supported by the The DfE Reading Framework Guidance 2023 which states: ‘Decodable’ books and texts that children read should run alongside or a little behind the teaching of the GPCs, so that they always feel a sense of achievement when they are asked to read such books.’

How does Chapter One align with the DfE Reading Framework?
The DfE Reading Framework Guidance 2023 states that:

‘Pupils need to keep up with their peers rather than be helped to catch up later. Where pupils make insufficient progress, extra efforts should be made to provide them with extra practice and support from the beginning.’

It is this extra practice and support that weekly online reading sessions between a pupil and a Chapter One volunteer can provide.

How is Chapter One's approach supported by research?
External research demonstrates that consistent support over a longer period of time is effective (Slavin et al, 2011) as children and adults have time to build relationships and share their experiences (The Mercers’ Company Report, 2023). Furthermore, research shows that children need to read with as many trusted people as possible and such ‘reading influencers’ play a vital role in supporting children to develop positive attitudes and behaviours towards reading (Book Trust, 2022).

What is Ofsted's view of Chapter One?
Ofsted will not reference specific programmes in their reports however, we monitor their feedback on early reading in our Chapter One schools. In all Chapter One schools, the feedback on the teaching of reading has been positive, regardless of the SSP that the school is using.

Do volunteers read aloud to the children?
The main aim of every Chapter One online reading session is for the child to build their reading confidence and enjoyment by reading aloud themselves. However, if a pupil is under-confident or reluctant, volunteers will ‘flip’ the session and read aloud to pupils if it is appropriate.

Wouldn't it be better if volunteers could be face to face, or use video, to read with the pupils?
For safeguarding purposes, we have chosen to only use an audio connection for sessions. Some children even find it easier to not see the adult that they are speaking to. Also, school internet connections often find it hard to support video.

The online nature of the programme, and the fact that volunteers don’t have to travel, means that we can recruit more volunteers and support more children per class.

There are opportunities for the child and adult to meet during the year. These include the Programme Manager-facilitated meet and greet in the autumn and the end-of-year celebration in the summer term.

Why do we arrange meet and greet events?
Our volunteers are central to our offer and a meet and greet event provides both value to our partners plus an enjoyable experience for both volunteers and children. Teachers also get to put a face to the names of volunteers who message them about children's progress. It's a win all round!

Feedback from an online reading volunteer:"It was wonderful to see the little ones on camera. Ms XXX made me feel very valued as well with the background she provided and the lovely picture that my reader drew. It really does feel like I am helping to empower a child through the process of reading and building confidence."

How do Chapter One sessions develop oracy?
Chapter One reading sessions provide children with a safe space to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with an adult through spoken language. The volunteers encourage and support pupils to speak and engage, even if they are apprehensive to begin with.

How do Chapter One sessions develop prosody and expression?
A volunteer will read aloud to their pupil and model how to read with expression and prosody. They will also give specific and useful feedback to children and help them to develop these skills in their own reading.

How do the stories in the Chapter One platform encourage comprehension?
Certain stories include questions to scaffold comprehension-style conversations around the text. We supply further guidance for volunteers on how they can model, scaffold and support the development of comprehension skills when reading any text within the platform.

How do the stories in the Chapter One platform encourage fluency?
The Mercers Reading for Pleasure Report ‘Approaches to Reading and Writing for Pleasure’ outlines key approaches that are effective in inspiring and encouraging children and young people to read for pleasure. These include:

1. Developing a positive sense of themselves as readers through social interaction
   Our trained volunteers provide a trusted adult who will support and encourage pupils regardless of their initial ability. Once they begin reading regularly, their feeling of autonomy (feeling in control of one’s behaviour) and relatedness (a sense of belonging to other people) develops and they see reading as a positive activity that they choose to do.

2. Dedicated time and space to read alongside a range of accessible texts
   The Chapter One laptop is set up at the start and remains in situ for the duration of the academic year. This creates the dedicated space required where children can enjoy our texts and develop reading competence (gain mastery of skills). The schedule is created from the beginning so that volunteers can book in a weekly session and these are often at the same time, creating routine for pupils.

3. Adults sharing their own positive reading experiences
   Our volunteers are trained and encouraged to convey their own passion for reading and the excitement that stories provide.
   

What's the point of the other activities in the platform - like the flashcards and games?
They provide reinforcement activities where pupils can practice reading common exception words in isolation. They also provide an ‘ice-breaker’ to a session or a plenary to end a session.