What is The Power of Reading?

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE)’s literacy programme, The Power of Reading, is designed to support teachers to understand the underlying interconnection between language, reading and writing. Through training and resources, primary schools are supported to develop a high-quality and cohesive English curriculum using the best-quality children’s literature to develop oracy, reading fluency, comprehension, writing and stamina and composition. This trial will be targeting teachers and pupils in Year 5.

Who is leading this project?

CLPE is a children’s literacy charity working to raise reading and writing attainment by helping Primary schools to teach literacy creatively and effectively, putting quality children’s books at the heart of all learning. The Power of Reading is delivered in person by one of CLPE’s expert Primary Advisory Teachers, alongside a practicing class teacher with experience of using the programme in their classroom.

What will this project look like in your setting?

If allocated to the intervention groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the intervention group will receive the programme being tested. ,

• Teachers participating in the programme attend four days of training over the school year, with school leaders joining the first and last day of training. These training days ensure that the teachers understand the full breadth of a literacy curriculum and show them how to use poetry, picture books, non-fiction, storytelling and drama to deepen children’s understanding as well as enjoyment of reading and writing.
• Teachers receive a set of 12 high-quality children’s books, as well as a book pack to develop their subject knowledge and literacy teaching practice. 
• Intervention schools are also provided with access to an online suite of teaching units and resources to support teachers to use the books in their classrooms. This includes detailed teaching plans to support curriculum design and the delivery of whole class teaching, aiming to ease teacher workload. Gap tasks are also designed to refine practice, trial texts and approaches, and continually assess the impact on their pupils’ and learning culture.

Intervention schools are required to contribute £300 towards the programme costs. Both intervention and control schools will be asked to complete some evaluation requirements during the project. Exact evaluation requirements will be set out in the information materials if you express an interest in this project.

Who can take part?

We are currently recruiting for Cohort 2 of the Power of Reading trial. To be eligible, your school must:

• Be a state-maintained primary, junior, middle or all-through school in England.
• Not involved in an EEF funded trial targeting pupils and teachers in Year 4 (in 2025/2026) or Year 5 (in 2026/27) including PALS-UK and Fluency Focus.
• Be able to confirm that the Year 5 teachers in the upcoming academic year have not participated in Power of Reading or Power of Pictures training within the last five years.
• Be able to provide necessary IT connectivity to enable students to participate in online questionnaires.
• Be able to release the Year 5 teacher from the intervention class randomly selected in schools with multi-form entry to all four days of training (spread over the year) in one of the four training locations (London, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham).
• Not stream Year 5 classes for literacy instruction. 

Note that Control schools will not be permitted to use PoR resources within Year 5 for the duration of the trial.

How can you register your interest?

Complete the short form at the bottom of this page.

Writing is a crucial skill and a facilitator of both personal and academic success. More research is needed to find successful approaches that align with promising evidence and address priorities in school.

The Power of Reading integrates reading and writing – a promising approach according to the EEF’s evidence review. It is also a well-known literacy programmes in the sector, having delivered to over 5,500 settings over 20 years.

The programme aligns with the EEF’s wider mission on attainment, as the programme’s structure, pedagogical principles, training content, and resources, aim to support teachers to better identify the needs of their learners through effective assessment, and tailor their teaching to meet these needs and improve engagement, as well as attainment, in literacy.

The funding for this project and evaluation is from the Department for Education’s Accelerator Fund, which aims to expand the use of evidence-based programmes.

The project will be evaluated by Manchester Metropolitan University through a randomised controlled trialAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes., assessing the programme’s impact on writing attainment, self-efficacy, writing enjoyment, and reading enjoyment. Schools have a 50% chance of being allocated to the intervention groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the intervention group will receive the programme being tested. (receiving the Power of Reading programme). Schools allocated to the control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. will continue with business as usual.

An implementation and process evaluationAn IPE is used to understand how and why an intervention has (or has not) been successful. Data is analysed to explore programme quality, reach, adaptation and differentiation, as well as setting fidelity and responsiveness to the trial design. will be conducted alongside the impact evaluation to explore how schools implement the programme and their perceptions of it.