Some secondary pupils find it harder to understand vocabulary, make inferences and use evidence from what they read. Confirm that word-reading accuracy is sufficiently secure for comprehension to be addressed separately. Pupils with substantial decoding or fluency difficulties may require different or additional provision.

Identify the common barrier

Use short texts and classroom evidence to distinguish between difficulty with:

• essential vocabulary and subject terminology;

• retrieving explicit information;

• connecting ideas across a text;

• making an inference;

• selecting evidence;

• monitoring and repairing misunderstanding.

Pupils should work together only when their principal target and text demands are sufficiently similar.

Plan the provision

Specify the target, baseline, text types, session frequency, staff member, review date and exit criteria. A typical pattern is four to six pupils, two or three sessions of about 30 minutes a week. How long it runs depends on the pupils' level of need, so decide where it fits and when you'll review progress (many schools review after six to eight weeks). Use age-respectful English and curriculum texts. Teach one strategy explicitly before combining several.

A useful teaching sequence is:

1. pre-teach the small number of words needed to access the text;

2. state the reading purpose;

3. model how to identify a claim, inference or answer;

4. model how to select the sentence or detail that supports it;

5. practise together with prompts;

6. apply the process to a new paragraph or text;

7. review how the reader checked their understanding.

Do not reduce inference to guessing or use generic question-answer practice without teaching the thinking involved.

Adapt within a shared target

Pupils may need different vocabulary support, text length or levels of prompting. Keep the target consistent but reconsider group placement if the underlying barriers differ. A pupil can appropriately qualify for more than one intervention when distinct needs require distinct teaching.

Monitor component skills

Track vocabulary knowledge, literal understanding, inference, use of evidence and transfer into subject lessons separately. Use unfamiliar passages at review points. Ask subject teachers whether pupils are applying the strategy to real curriculum reading.

Programme and resource options

• FFT Reciprocal Reading (paid) is a structured KS2 and KS3 programme teaching prediction, clarification, questioning and summarising, with groups of four to eight at least twice a week for 20 to 30 minutes (school packages from £750 plus VAT in October 2026). In its first EEF trial, the targeted version was used with Years 5 and 6 and gave about two months' extra progress in reading comprehension, so the evidence for Key Stage 3 is less direct. Check whether the group requires this full combination of strategies.

• Lexia PowerUp Literacy (paid) includes vocabulary and comprehension alongside word study, as an adaptive online programme with printable resources for adult-led follow-up. Cost is on request. It should complement explicit adult teaching, not replace it.

• EEF: Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools provides free guidance on disciplinary literacy and reading in subject areas.

Check age range, training, dosage, cost and evidence against the group's assessed need.

Talamo has no commercial relationship with any of the organisations named here. We suggest them only because we think they could be useful to schools.