{"id":2149,"date":"2023-09-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/education\/blog\/2023\/09\/19\/how-one-school-uses-reading-progress-to-improve-student-outcomes\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T11:38:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T18:38:38","slug":"how-one-school-uses-reading-progress-to-improve-student-outcomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/education\/blog\/2023\/09\/how-one-school-uses-reading-progress-to-improve-student-outcomes\/","title":{"rendered":"How one school uses Reading Progress to improve student outcomes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At Microsoft Education, we are proud to showcase how <\/em>our technology solutions<\/em><\/a> can lead to remarkable improvements in student outcomes. With a thoughtfully researched approach, Sarah Buist, Head of Digital Strategy, and Tom Harman, Modern Foreign Language Teacher and Digital Leader from The Royal Grammar School Newcastle, UK, studied the impact of using <\/em>Microsoft Teams<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>Reading Progress<\/em><\/a> with students. Join us as we explore this inspiring story of real-life educators where innovation seamlessly aligns with intention, fostering a brighter future in education.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any intervention made as an educator to your classroom practice should aim to improve student outcomes. Introducing technology is no different. However, how do you know that the intervention has succeeded?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision was made two years ago to issue Surface devices to each pupil and teaching staff in the senior school at the Royal Grammar School Newcastle and to increase the use of technology in the classroom<\/a>. I was determined that if the benefits of technology were really going to be harnessed, interventions needed to be delivered with a thoughtful approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had done a lot of research and reading about small individual classroom inquiries, and I decided that our digital leaders in school should take a considered and measured approach when introducing new technology in the classroom. Tom Harman, one of our digital leading team decided to complete a classroom study using Microsoft Teams and Reading Progress with two of his Spanish classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using Reading Progress for teaching students an additional language provided our educators with information about errors in oral reading, including mispronunciation, omissions, repetitions, insertions, and self-corrections as well as phonological errors. The data produced was used to improve student reading in many ways\u2014it allowed us to identify common mispronounced words and other patterns, which then enabled more effective adaptive teaching to respond to the class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A teacher reviews Education Insights while students sit at their desks in a classroom.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he saw the transformational potential of Reading Progress, he was quick to introduce it to most of his classes and to those of his colleagues. This intervention was something that Tom was going to do any way, just this time we wanted to measure the impact it was having.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom decided to complete a small-scale randomised trial, with two teaching sets of similar ability and age students, with the primary aim to improve reading fluency in Spanish over an eight-week period, by using weekly homework reading assignments using Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"GIF.<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Student experience of opening a Reading Progress assignment and using Reading Coach in Microsoft Teams.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom partnered with What Worked Education<\/a>, an organisation that helps educators perform small scale classroom trials, to create an unbiased study and measurable methodology for his inquiry. Once the eight-week study was completed, they helped to analyse and test the significance of the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what we learned from our Reading Progress trial:<\/p>\n\n\n\n