The Reading Instruction Policy Rope: A One-Pager

The Reading Instruction Policy Rope (Pamela Snow; 2025) 

 As 2025 draws to a close, I thought it might be helpful to put into one place, a compilation of ideas arising from queries I’ve responded to throughout the year from policymakers, school and literacy leaders, and classroom teachers.

With the help of ChatGPT*, I’ve borrowed from Hollis Scarborough’s Reading Rope analogy to produce The Reading Instruction Policy Rope above. 
*Image only; the accompanying text is mine.

In the table below, I’ll summarise some key points, in the hope that this can genuinely work as a one-page discussion document and conversation starter. Links and further readings can be found in earlier blogposts on this site.

Input	What this means
Highly knowledgeable teachers on exit from Initial Teacher Education programs - learning and behaviour/wellbeing	Universities need to respect the testable evidence (different from opinions and preferences) on how children learn biologically secondary knowledge and skills, including reading and writing, and the focusing of attention and ability to self-regulate.  The continued privileging of some version of problem / student / discovery-led pedagogy means universities risk being the unicorns left on the shore, while everyone else is on the boat. Unicorns may have been the “loveliest of all” (according to the 1960s Irish Rovers song), but we need less lovely and more academic rigour.
Discerning professional learning practices, aligning with robust, evolving evidence	Teachers are mandated to spend a specified number of hours on professional learning (PL) each year. This is expensive and, in some cases, disruptive to school scheduling.  To be a good use of resources (time, money and mental effort), PL should be selected carefully and scrutinised for alignment with the school’s pedagogical position. It should result in ongoing teacher learning and refinement of practice. Coaching is likely to be a valuable added investment.
Sector and school leaders equipped with strong theoretical foundations on learning and behaviour/wellbeing	Change is most likely to happen when everyone is in the boat, rowing in the same direction. Teaching and learning is everyone’s business, including that of school leaders. It is not something to be delegated in set-and-forget mode and “ticked off” in annual compliance checks. Practice-based evidence tells us that schools that are seeing academic gains are also seeing uplifts in student wellbeing. Leaders need to pay attention to this evidence.
Privileging of leadership, teamwork, communication and change management skills across all seniority levels	Managing change is difficult. People will be invested in current practice, for a range of reasons, and this needs to be approached with empathy, sensitivity, respect, curiosity and purpose.  All stakeholders can improve their listening skills and become better at sharing their views in constructive ways.  Everyone's true north must be student outcomes.
Practice guidelines that support adoption AND de-implementation of teaching and intervention practices	Improved practice is not simply a matter of adding new approaches. It also entails de-implementation of non-aligned methods that are sometimes rusted on to the extent that they are second nature and not even recognised as dispensable.  Asking teachers to adopt new practices without ongoing auditing and refinement is a recipe for teacher overload, burnout and change fatigue. This in turn produces high teacher turn-over, often in the first five years of practice. Scientific evidence is self-correcting over time, so practice guidelines should be living documents.

Have I overlooked anything? If so please let me know, and I’ll consider adding extra input strands and/or extra outcomes (the former dependent on ChatGPT’s willingness to update the image).

© Pamela Snow (2025)