Helping Children Become Fluent, Confident Readers: Our Support for SHINE’s Fixing Fluency Programme

The David Brown Foundation is incredibly proud to have supported SHINE’s Fixing Fluency programme over the past year – an innovative teacher-led project helping children across the North of England become more fluent, confident readers.

Created by teacher Jessica Mellor, a winner of SHINE’s 2024 Let Teachers SHINE competition, Fixing Fluency was developed after Jessica recognised an important challenge in primary education: many children reach the later years of primary school able to decode words, but without the fluency, expression and confidence needed to fully understand and enjoy what they are reading.

After two years of implementation across 18 participating schools, the findings are hugely encouraging.

Teachers report improvements in pupils’ reading behaviours and confidence, while an impressive 90% of school leaders said teachers had become more confident in explicitly teaching reading fluency.

For the David Brown Foundation, supporting a programme created by a teacher, for teachers and their pupils, feels particularly special.

What is Fixing Fluency?

Fixing Fluency is a whole-class reading programme designed to help pupils develop the pace, expression and understanding required to become confident readers.

The programme draws on evidence-informed approaches including repeated reading, explicit teacher modelling and high-quality feedback. Through regular structured practice, children don't simply learn how to read the words on a page. They learn how to use expression, rhythm, punctuation and pace to bring those words to life.

At the same time, the programme gives teachers practical resources and professional development to increase their own confidence in teaching reading fluency – an area in which many teachers report receiving relatively little formal training.

The result is an approach designed to create sustainable change within the classroom, strengthening both pupils' skills and teachers' ability to continue developing them.

Encouraging Results Across 18 Schools

Feedback from participating schools suggests Fixing Fluency is having an impact on much more than reading ability alone.

Teachers reported improvements in children's expression, pace, prosody, use of punctuation and overall confidence when reading aloud.

Pupils also became better at assessing their own reading and providing constructive feedback to their classmates.

One teacher described the change simply:

“Fixing Fluency has really taught my class how to be a reader.”

Another reported:

“They identify their own personal areas for development.”

Perhaps one of the most encouraging findings was the change in children's willingness to read in front of others.

Teachers saw children becoming more enthusiastic about reading aloud and increasingly confident about performing in front of their classmates.

As one teacher explained:

“The passion to read and show what they've learnt is amazing.”

Another commented:

“Children have definitely developed their confidence in reading out loud in front of their peers.”

Building Teacher Confidence Too

One of the reasons the David Brown Foundation was particularly excited to support this work is that its impact extends beyond an individual group of pupils.

By developing teachers' knowledge and confidence, the programme has the potential to influence the education of many more children over time. Following the programme, 90% of leaders indicated that teachers were more confident in explicitly teaching reading fluency.

Teachers reported greater confidence in modelling fluent reading, teaching prosody – the rhythm, stress and intonation of speech – selecting appropriate teaching strategies and giving pupils meaningful feedback on their reading.

Schools were also able to deliver the programme with a high degree of fidelity, despite the practical challenge of incorporating daily fluency practice into already busy school timetables.

This is particularly important to us.

David was an inspirational teacher who dedicated his career to improving education and supporting both his pupils and his colleagues. He understood that when you invest in teachers, the impact can extend far beyond one classroom or one academic year.

Supporting projects that empower exceptional teachers to develop ideas capable of improving outcomes for thousands of children feels like a very fitting continuation of that legacy.

Confidence Beyond the Reading Lesson

The benefits reported by schools weren't confined to literacy lessons.

Teachers found that the skills and confidence children developed through Fixing Fluency began appearing elsewhere in school life.

Improvements were reported in oracy, public speaking and children's willingness to read aloud across other curriculum subjects.

One teacher summarised the wider impact:

“Confidence has transferred across the curriculum.”

Schools also found particularly encouraging results when children experienced Fixing Fluency across both Year 4 and Year 5.

Rather than simply repeating the same learning, pupils were able to build on routines they already understood. Teachers reported greater independence, stronger vocabulary and better transfer of reading skills across the curriculum. By Year 5, teachers could also progress more quickly because pupils were already familiar with the core approach.

Looking to the Future

The evaluation has provided valuable insight into how Fixing Fluency could develop further.

Ideas include expanding the range of reading materials, providing additional support for mixed-age classes, developing scaffolded texts for children who need greater support and potentially extending the programme throughout Key Stage 2.

There is also longer-term potential to explore how the approach could be adapted for secondary education.

While Jessica appropriately describes conclusions about improvements in reading fluency itself as “tentative”, the consistency of feedback from teachers across participating schools provides encouraging evidence that children are becoming more confident and developing stronger reading behaviours.

The next stage is about learning from that evidence, refining the programme and exploring how it could eventually reach many more teachers and pupils.

Supporting Teachers. Transforming Opportunities.

At the David Brown Foundation, our mission is to help young people thrive in education.

But achieving that isn't only about supporting children directly.

It also means supporting the teachers standing in front of them every day – giving talented educators the resources, confidence and opportunity to develop ideas that can transform learning.

That is why our partnership with SHINE and our support for Fixing Fluency means so much to us.

A confident reader isn't simply a child who can read aloud well. Reading underpins learning across the curriculum. It can give children confidence to participate, communicate their ideas, explore new subjects and ultimately access more opportunities throughout their education.

We are immensely proud to have played a part in supporting Fixing Fluency over the past year and to see the impact being reported by teachers and schools. Most importantly, we're excited about what could come next.

As SHINE and Jessica continue developing the programme, we hope many more children will have the opportunity to discover not only how to read, but the confidence to see themselves as readers.