I am a member of the Network Group for the Reading Comprehension Advocacy Network (RCAN), a joint project funded by the University of Sussex and Lancaster University, led by Jane Oakhill and Kate Cain.

What Does RCAN Do?

The main aim of the Reading Comprehension Advocacy Network is to provide strategic direction and leadership to inform, challenge and influence education policy in England, specifically in the area of primary school reading comprehension. It will provide opportunities to develop and transform policy and practice in that area. The main goal is to develop a position statement/report on the current situation in English primary schools, and to establish the priorities for further research, policy and practice. The RCAN aims to engage with both stakeholders and policy makers to share ideas and findings. This collaboration aims to drive a more coherent and research-based approach to the teaching of, and remediation of difficulties with, reading comprehension.

How Can You Help?

I am sharing this with you today because I believe that as members of LoveReading4Schools you are in a good position to help us with this enterprise by answering a short survey about your views on research, policy and education and practice in this area. The Network Group overall is looking to recruit stakeholders with a variety of backgrounds to complete this questionnaire. We want to include various sectors in this enterprise, and so are seeking to gather information and views from people in the Education sector (research, practice and, in particular, local and national policy), Industry (e.g., publishers of reading tests and reading support materials) and Charities (who might be able to support our work in varied ways: research, contacts with policy makers, materials, and consideration of special populations). I believe that your expertise would be particularly relevant as a representative of the education sector though, of course, we are also keen to foster collaborative and cooperative links between these sectors.

I would like to assure you that your involvement would not be onerous. We have prepared an online questionnaire to gather information about practice and views on what is currently happening in both the teaching of and support for reading comprehension (as opposed to word reading) and your contribution would be to complete the questionnaire online, which we estimate will take about 10 minutes. Responses will be anonymised, but we will collect information about each respondent’s specific role. The study overall has received ethical approval from the University of Sussex.

The deadline for completion of the questionnaire is Friday 2nd May 2025.

Thank you for your help with this research. If you are happy to go ahead with the survey, the link to it is on the University of Sussex website here.

Thanks,

Deborah Maclaren,

LoveReading4Kids MD