Unlocking literacy: How NGRT and YARC transformed reading across Westcountry Schools Trust

Our schools serve diverse demographics with different literacy needs. While we've implemented phonics programmes for struggling readers, we needed to identify and understand why some students were still falling through the cracks despite our existing efforts.

We both came across NGRT and YARC in different contexts. I used NGRT in a previous school and had seen its potential. Rebecca used YARC as part of the Herts for Learning (HFL) fluency intervention programme, which she had been delivering across primary and secondary schools with great success.

It wasn’t long before we realised that these two tools, when used together, could form the backbone of a powerful assessment pathway.

NGRT gave us the breadth. It allowed us to assess entire year groups (Years 7, 8 and 9) twice a year, providing a robust, standardised view of reading ability. We loved the adaptive nature of the online version and the depth of data it provided. The SAS (Standard Age Score) and stanines gave us a much clearer picture than reading ages ever could. But NGRT alone wasn’t enough. We needed to dig deeper – and that’s where YARC came in.

YARC gave us the depth. It allowed us to explore the why behind the data. When NGRT flagged a student as below average, we followed up with a phonics check. If decoding wasn’t the issue, we used YARC to uncover the real barriers - whether fluency, comprehension or something else entirely.

As we often say, NGRT gives us the red flags. YARC gives us the smoking gun.

Together, NGRT and YARC helped us build a structured, evidence-based assessment pathway. NGRT identified the students who needed extra help, and YARC told us what was going on. From there, we could direct students to the right intervention – for example, a programme for phonics teaching or fluency training for comprehension.

The fluency intervention, based on the HFL model, is an eight-week programme delivered in small groups. It is structured, consistent and incredibly effective. Students are assessed with YARC at the start and end, and the results speak for themselves.

What really impressed us was the consistency with the assessment results. NGRT and YARC are very different assessments – NGRT is conducted online independently while YARC is a one-to-one, paper-based assessment. Yet they told the same story, and that triangulation gave us real confidence that we weren’t just seeing test gains but were seeing genuine, lasting improvements in reading.

Students who were flagged with a low SAS on NGRT were then assessed with YARC and many of these did the fluency intervention. We’re both a little data-obsessed, and the numbers didn’t disappoint. Across our pilot, we saw an average gain of +10.6 SAS points on YARC and +9.6 on NGRT. These are significant improvements, especially over such a short intervention period.

Beyond the data, feedback from our schools was just as powerful.

• Teachers reported students growing in confidence, not just as readers but as people. Some began visiting the library for the first time, whereas others started volunteering to read aloud in class.
• Students who started with comprehension scores in the high 80s were finishing the programme with scores of 102, 105 and even 110.
• The average gain in Key Stage 3 was 14 standardised points. That’s not just progress—that’s transformation.

Thanks to the success of our pilot, we’re now scaling up fluency training across our schools. It’s become the second pillar of our reading intervention assessment pathway, alongside phonics, and we’re doing so with confidence because we’ve seen the impact.

We’re excited about what’s next. The fluency intervention is currently part of an Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) effectiveness trial in primary schools, and we’re optimistic that the results will echo what we’ve seen in our settings.