Midway through my doctorate, I remember sitting in my supervision pondering possibilities. What had once seemed like a clear five-step process had turned into a long, gloomy tunnel. I’d gathered my first data, but the results didn’t make sense, and I couldn’t see the way forward. The rhythm-based intervention had worked beautifully for some children, yet others showed only subtle changes. That puzzle became the turning point in my research.

I remember sitting there and feeling as though I’d hit a wall I couldn’t see past. I pondered the big question. What was happening?

Progress isn't necessarily linear

I began to wonder whether progress in reading fluency might not be as linear as we often assume. Perhaps rhythm was influencing something deeper, something that couldn’t be captured by speed alone.

In questioning (rather than trusting) the data, I'd presupposed that progress should be linear. For example, we often make these assumptions, such as 'practice makes progress' or 'the more the merrier'. In terms of exercise, we assume more will make you fitter and stronger.

Here, I had clear improvements for some but not all children, so this wasn’t like exercise. Rhythm didn’t appear to offer a universal benefit.

Eventually I said, “Well, maybe it’s working as a form of enrichment. Maybe it’s cultural. Maybe it’s societal. Maybe some children need to receive this at school and others have already received it at home or somewhere else.”

This tentative interpretation changed my perspective on the data. And I started to see rhythm a bit like a vitamin. If children had arrived at school with low levels of rhythmic awareness, then perhaps it could be topped up through an intervention, once they were in the school system.

When rate of reading slows, comprehension grows.

The next question disturbed me even more. Why was it that some children read more slowly after the rhythm-based intervention and some read more quickly? This was very perplexing, because if we assume that rhythm is improving reading, the efficiency of reading would surely improve and the rate of reading would become faster. This happened in the weakest readers but the stronger readers with good decoding but low comprehension scores slowed down. Even though their reading comprehension had improved to a significant extent, I felt embarrassed, as if rhythm was more of a hindrance to their reading fluency than a help.

At that time, there was nothing I could read that could help me understand the relationship between phonemic awareness, rhythm, fluency and comprehension. I was relying on the data for guidance.

Rhythm at the interface of syntax and comprehension

There was an even more puzzling moment when I had collected the next round of data comparing the effect of the rhythm-based intervention and multi-sensory phonics training. I measured the children’s awareness of alteration and rime (the first and final phonemes of a word) and their sensitivity to rhythm. These children were not decoding well enough to read connected text. They were the most vulnerable pupils in the school and had very low attendance data. The results showed that their alliteration scores had improved following multi-sensory phonics training and rime scores had improved following rhythm-based training.

At this point, the research had stopped feeling like fun. The pressure to understand what was going on haunted me night and day. Then, during a quiet walk to clear my head, the realisation struck me. What if alliteration and rime served entirely different roles in reading? Suddenly, the data made sense. The endings of words, the suffixes, were guiding syntax, while the beginnings supported word retrieval. In that instant, I saw how rhythm might operate at the interface between structure and meaning, bringing focus and flow to fluent reading.

Developing the fluency tracker

I took my audio clips of children reading aloud to a qualitative analysis class for doctoral students. We all listened. Everyone agreed that something had changed, but what? The children’s voices were more resonant and more relaxed. They were flowing more smoothly but were not faster. Everyone agreed that the change had been audible and very pronounced but they struggled to articulate the change.

So, this class inspired me to create a way to measure reading fluency. It was as if a light had finally switched on.The reading fluency tracking tool has been through many iterations and I have used my discussions with specialist reading teachers to develop it over the years. It has been used in schools since 2014 and if you’d like to see exactly how it works, I’d love to share it with you. it’s a real game changer because it pins down exactly what changes in a child’s reading when they start to read fluently.

Fluency as inclusion and why it matters for every pupil

When children can’t read fluently, confidently and with enjoyment, they can’t fully access the curriculum, and that becomes a subtle form of exclusion. The Rhythm for Reading Fluency Tracker supports schools in providing inclusive, high-quality approaches that support every learner. It’s simple to use, yet powerful in its impact, and it gives teachers, mentors and parents a shared language for talking about fluency.

Try the reading fluency tracker

If you’d like a free copy of the tracker and to join me for a short training on how to use it, you can hop onto the webinar here. It’s already helping schools transform reading fluency, and I’d love for you to experience the difference it can make.