You know the sound of September baselines you've heard the flat voices, their guessed words and you've seen their disappointed faces. Their reading comprehension has never really developed.

But October is different. It's an exciting time. October is the destination month for reading transformation. It's when rhythm strengthens the executive functions that underpin fluency and comprehension, and pupils begin to believe they are destined for greater things.

September: The Exposure Month

September always reveals the challenges of the new academic year. Among the pupils returning after the summer, are those with poor focus and engagement, gaps in vocabulary and recall and weaknesses in phonemic awareness. Some struggle to settle into reading routines, while others mask fragility with bravado by substituting speed for security, and by rushing through the words without connecting with meaning. Falling further behind year after year is as traumatic as it sounds.

Leaders feel the extremes of September: the optimism of new beginnings and sharpened pencils of pupils eager to learn, weighed against the heaviness of pupils already showing they cannot yet hold meaning in mind. Baseline data confirms what teachers already know: comprehension is weak when children's reading is fast but not fluent, or slow but not secure.

October: The Destination Month

By October, things can sound very different.

Imagine a Year 5 pupil who, in September, raced through a paragraph with barely a breath, unable to answer the simplest question about what they had just read. Three weeks later, their pace has slowed, because expression has emerged. Pauses now fall into place, grammar shapes intonation, and comprehension has unlocked their potential, not just to read but to access the key stage two curriculum.

A Year 3 pupil had stumbled so slowly in September that the story disintegrated syllable by syllable. By October, rhythm steadied their pace and built momentum between the words. For the first time, they carried the thread of meaning across sentences and were able to relate to the text. For me, the joy of doing this work comes from seeing the sheer relief in their eyes.

These are the October destinations: pupils hearing themselves as readers, teachers hearing comprehension take root, leaders hearing transformation in real time.

What October Destinations Look Like

Destinations are not only about test scores or levels of attainment. They are about the audible, visible changes in classrooms that prove that implausible levels of progress are possible.

• Eyes that no longer flick upwards in distraction, but remain anchored to the text.

• Voices that rise and fall with expression, no longer flat or faltering.

• Teachers who smile, hearing the shift they have been waiting for.

• Leaders who can report to governors, with confidence, that interventions are already making a difference.

October is the month when the intangible becomes tangible and when leaders harvest the first fruits of their strategic choices.

Why October Matters for Leaders

As the season of parents' consultation evenings begins, accountability is already in the air. October is when leaders and SENDCos are asked, “What has changed since September?” And for good reason, because if a child begins the year well, they are more likely to make expected progress going forward. As staff teams look for evidence that their hard work is already bearing fruit, parents begin to ask how the year ahead will unfold.

This is what really matters. When the most vulnerable child in each class is cared for, all the children know that they are in a safe and caring learning environment. When leaders can leverage interventions that deliver progress quickly, visibly, and credibly (no silver bullets) using proven methods, reading can feel different within weeks, not months and years.

October provides the perfect window to illustrate all of this: the early baseline has been taken, but there is still time before half term to demonstrate accelerated progress.

Rhythm as the Pathway to October Destinations

Rhythm changes reading because it works directly with the three core executive functions: inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility.

• It sharpens inhibitory control, enabling attention to the onset of the smallest sounds, so pupils stop guessing at words.

• It steadies working memory, allowing accommodation and assimilation, which generate capacity for meaning to 'land'.

• Its elasticity and cognitive flexibility support prosody and the flexible timing needed for expression, so reading is always natural and engages the deeper structures of language, within varied lengths and shapes of phrases.

The result is that pupils who were either reading for speed or struggling with decoding in September find a balanced pace by October. Rhythm brings them into the 'comfort zone' of fluency, where comprehension flows spontaneously.

✨ Ten minutes a week. Three sessions to hear the difference. One term to measure the gains.

From Concern to Confidence

September brings concern: there's the fear that the attainment gap is widening amid the pressure to secure outcomes, and uncertainty about which levers to pull. But October offers the chance to replace concern with confidence. To lead staff teams into a shared sense of possibility, and to show all the children that their destiny is not fixed by September’s data (or any other starting point for that matter).

Every October, I see reluctant readers transform. Their voices change, their confidence grows, and their belief in themselves as learners begins to bloom. October is not just another month in the calendar — it is a destination. A marker of what is possible when rhythm unlocks untapped processes that make fluency and comprehension real.

Reflection for Leaders

So the question for leaders this month is not only: What did you hear in September’s baselines?

It is also: What destination will you set for October?

Because pupils who believe they are destined for greater things by half term are pupils who will carry that belief into the rest of the year.

An Invitation

Rhythm for Reading strengthens executive functions and fluency in just ten minutes a week. Change is audible within three sessions, and measurable within a single term.

If you would like October to be a destination month for your pupils, I invite you to join this year’s 30-week Rhythm for Reading CPD. Registration closes soon, and places are limited to ensure close support for each cohort.

👉 Register here.