The Fluency Blind Spot: What Ofsted Sees That We're Missing

In March 2024, Ofsted published Telling the story: the English education subject report, drawing on evidence from 50 schools across England. One finding demands urgent attention: the systematic gap between decoding accuracy and reading fluency that's affecting comprehension outcomes for thousands of pupils.

Defining the Problem

Ofsted identifies fluency as "reading with accuracy and sufficient speed in decoding" – what their 2022 Research Review describes as essential for freeing cognitive resources for comprehension. The evidence shows many schools successfully teaching accurate decoding but failing to develop the automaticity and prosody required for fluent reading.

The impact is measurable: more than 25% of pupils enter secondary school below expected reading standards, despite many having secure phonics knowledge. This isn't a decoding problem; it's a fluency problem.

The Pedagogical Disconnect

The 2024 report identifies three specific weaknesses in current practice:

Inappropriate assessment focus. Schools are using "national curriculum test and exam-style questions" as "the main, extremely limited, method of improving pupils' reading fluency and comprehension." This conflates assessment with instruction, asking pupils to demonstrate skills they haven't been taught.

Insufficient practice opportunities. Even schools that "recognise the importance of reading fluently" fail to provide adequate practice. The report notes: "pupils do not always have sufficient practice to achieve this. In these schools, teachers over-use reading comprehension questions."

Ineffective interventions. Additional support often lacks diagnostic precision. Schools provide reading interventions "a few times a week" when daily practice is required. Some interventions focus on content pupils don't know rather than consolidating known GPCs through repeated reading.

The Working Memory Framework

Ofsted's approach is grounded in cognitive science. The 2022 Research Review explicitly connects fluency to working memory capacity: "pupils need to be able to decode accurately and automatically to help make cognitive space available to consider meaning."

This explains why guided reading frequently fails. Using "the same text for teaching language comprehension and word reading fluency" creates cognitive overload for pupils still developing automaticity. They're simultaneously trying to decode, comprehend, and respond to questions – a task that exceeds available working memory for struggling readers.

Evidence-Based Approaches

The 2024 report highlights exemplar practice: schools that "continued to check that pupils had secure knowledge in phonics and frequent opportunities to practise reading accurately to automaticity up to Year 6." Key elements include:

• Systematic prosody instruction: Teacher modelling of stress and intonation patterns
• Repeated reading protocols: Multiple encounters with the same text to build automaticity
• Paired reading with accountability: Pupils reading aloud whilst partners monitor accuracy
• Vocabulary pre-teaching: Removing comprehension barriers before fluency practice
• Choral reading: Building confidence through supported oral reading

Critically, these approaches sequence fluency before comprehension, recognising that meaning-making requires available cognitive resources.

Professional Development Implications

The report identifies a significant training gap. Whilst Reception and Year 1 teachers receive extensive phonics training, Key Stage 2 staff rarely receive equivalent professional development in fluency pedagogy. The result: "teachers' weaker subject knowledge of early reading results in additional support for pupils being less effective."

Schools need systematic approaches to:

• Diagnosing fluency versus decoding difficulties
• Teaching prosody explicitly
• Implementing repeated reading programmes
• Assessing progress towards automaticity
• Training all Key Stage 2 staff in fluency instruction

Inspection Framework Implications

The School Inspection Handbook requires that "a rigorous and sequential approach to the reading curriculum develops pupils' fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading." As Ofsted's new framework launches in November 2025, this emphasis will intensify.

In a 2019 blog post about early reading inspection, Gill Jones, then Ofsted's Deputy Director for Early Education, specified clear success criteria: "if the slowest progress readers in key stage 2 can read age-appropriate unseen books with fluency, inspectors know the school has made reading its priority." This principle remains embedded in current inspection practice.

Schools need evidence of systematic fluency development between phonics programme completion and Key Stage 2 assessment. This requires:

• Clear progression frameworks showing fluency milestones
• Regular fluency assessment (not just comprehension testing)
• Targeted interventions based on diagnostic information
• Professional development for all staff teaching reading

Strategic Response

The phonics challenge has been substantially addressed through government policy, commercial programmes, and sector training. The fluency challenge requires similar systematic attention.

Schools need to ask: what's our evidence that pupils who complete phonics programmes in Year 1 develop automaticity by Year 4? If we can't demonstrate systematic fluency progression for our lowest attainers, we haven't actually solved reading – we've just created literate non-readers who can decode but can't comprehend.

As Ofsted's evidence shows, the gap between phonics success and reading proficiency isn't accidental. It's the predictable result of treating fluency as something that happens automatically rather than something that must be systematically taught.

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Got questions about fluency assessment or Ofsted requirements?

Drop me an email: simon@readingfluency.co.uk

Or find me on LinkedIn: Simon Sharp