You know that reading fluency is not performance. It's coherence.

Rhythm-based CPD is for Reading Leads and SENDCOs who suspect that words-per-minute isn't telling the full story. When reading sounds fluent on the surface, but comprehension doesn't fully land, progress can look good on paper, but feel fragile in practice. This isn't a motivation problem. It's coherence problem. When real-time precision is weak, decoding and comprehension cannot cohere, even when phonics teaching is strong.

Rhythm for Reading helps you:

Identify early signs of fragile anticipation
Track fluency as coherence, rather than pace.
Strengthen coherence, fluency and comprehension in just 10 minutes a week.

“Children that were reluctant to pick up a book, reluctant to read, reluctant to do anything around reading see themselves as readers want to read and start enjoying reading!

Lower Key Stage 2 Phase Lead Teacher

Explore the Phonemic Awareness Discussion paper

When fluency sounds right, but understanding doesn't follow.

Most fluency frameworks focus on speed, accuracy and expression. Some include punctuation. These are surface indicators.

Fluent reading depends on something deeper: the alignment in real-time of decoding with comprehension. When this alignment is unstable:

Comprehension can only happen after reading aloud.
Attention is intermittent or sparse.
Prosody is either rehearsed or sounds mechanical.
Gains in fluency are difficult to sustain.

If we only measure reading as a performance, we miss the deeper mechanism.

Explore the Fluency Tracker

A RHYTHM-BASED APPROACH

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How the Model Builds Coherence

Rhythm for Reading strengthens fluency by stabilizing timing and anticipation. In just 10 minutes a week, children begin to:

⦿ Decode with greater ease and less cognitive strain.

⦿ Find a flowing and steady pace.

⦿ Develop natural phrasing and prosody.

⦿ Sustain attention and read for longer.

As coherence improves, fluency becomes self-reinforcing.

Develop shared pace and timing in the sessions

The techniques for building attention and fluency are demonstrated in the video lessons. Teachers co-teach with the video resources each week for the first ten weeks, following a carefully sequenced set of activities that has been researched and refined in schools since 2013. The Rhythm for Reading Roadmap provides a clear curriculum for each year group.

On-going teacher support

This is structured implementation, not one-off CPD.

⦿ 30 weeks of professional development

⦿ weekly 30-minute co-teaching sessions

⦿coaching check-inc for accountability

⦿ a shared framework

The programme is embedded sustainably way, with short coaching calls keep everything on track. No overwhelm. No unnecessary extras. Each call draws on the session planners and reflection tool, helping teachers stay focused on progress and impact.

Evidence-based session plans

Aims and objectives of lessons are pre-built into the session planners, so teachers can focus on delivery and progress. Teachers track progress in:

⦿ Staying in time as a group

⦿ Coordinating rhythm-based actions

⦿ Reading with ease and fluency

This helps to identify next steps and adjust the level of challenge as needed.

Notice subtle changes in fluency, prosody & engagement.

Rhythm for Reading Online CPD is grounded in evidence with fluency at its core. The Reading Fluency Tracker is a simple companion tool that supports careful observation of prosody, engagement and emerging fluency over time. It records tricky words, three levels of fluency and attitudes to reading. Children can add own their comments too. Best of all, it only takes two minutes to complete.

Access the fluency webinar

Teachers see results fast, with changes that are difficult to quantify, but easy to recognise, and describe real progress in reading (no extra prep required).

"All the students who took part in the project are now reading more fluently"

Special Children Magazine.

Reading should feel easier and it can. In just minutes a week, this reading intervention helps children reset their focus, regulate their attention, and discover the joy of reading. Teachers begin to notice changes in confidence, flow and ease (often sooner than expected).