What is Total Words?
Total Words is an efficiency-focused digital reading platform designed to rapidly increase reading skills.
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Who is it for?
​Teachers, students and parents can use Total Words for reading practice, 'catch-up reading', topic research, classroom guided reading, fast-progress individual interventions, assessing class reading behaviours and targeting reading resources to where they are needed and have an impact.
I'm a Teacher
What does the Total Words Platform do for me?
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Provides immediate data on student performance that can be used to plan individual and group programmes for progress
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Highlights words that students need to learn
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Lets you share evidence of student achievements with parents
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Lets you know where additional resources can be used most effectively and where they are not required
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Saves you valuable time by supplying learning worksheets that accompany each book for: comprehension, recall, finding details, expressing opinions, responding creatively to content.
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I'm a Parent
What does the Total Words Platform do for me?
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Lets you know what words your child can read
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Lets you celebrate your child’s daily achievements
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Lets you share interesting topic details that your children are reading
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Helps you see what it takes for your child to convert unknown words into known ones
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Helps you to be confident that you are supporting your child's learning – (parents don’t need to ‘teach’ a specific way of learning to read)
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You will see the impact of regularly reading a high number of words each day
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Total Words is on a mission
to change the way we can do reading
For students
What does the Total Words Platform do?
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Tells students how many words they have read, how many words they know and how long it takes to read each book they select
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Let’s students describe exactly what progress they have achieved in reading sessions (eg. what they have been able to do today that they could not do yesterday)
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Builds confidence by showing what progress is being made, day-by-day, week-by-week
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Keeps a record of the total number of words read each week
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Shows what effect more practices have on the number of words read, the number of new words learnt, reading speed and accuracy
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Gives access to inclusive, factual reading material (that isn't patronising), no matter what age they are
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Why 'total words'?
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The number of words read each day is the essential foundation for gaining skills
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We measure progress in the number of words read and the number of new words learnt
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Reading is meaning, not just saying words but reading and understanding the total word
How does it work?
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Read a digital book with the Total Words App and double-click any unknown words
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Get immediate feedback on word accuracy, unknown words and reading speed
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Choose to read the book again today, tomorrow, read another book or do an activity
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See progress by sharing the evidence calculated by the app
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Plan the most effective learning pathway based on individual data
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Retain skills by reading the book again 2 weeks or 3 weeks later and comparing the data
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Support is at your side all the way – adults are encouraging, not allowing any errors, telling you how you’re doing, recording progress practice-by-practice, day-by-day
How to Make Rapid Reading Progress
How to Improve Reading Accuracy
Why it works...
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Time is precious – students read as many words as possible in a session (no stumbling through sentences, students have immediate prompts for unknown words and practice correct reading).
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Progress is visible – "today I read 425 words, this week I learnt 25 new words, I can read 680 words in a day…"
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Design – our books are expertly designed to make learning effective – our texts are written specifically to give scope for reading progress.
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No delays – immediate feedback, no waiting for the expert to ‘assess’. Total Words offers a simple pragmatic, fast response to maximise the impact of each session, maximising progress.
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Learners own their progress – daily progress feeds motivation, learners set their goals and share their progress stories day-by-day.
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Data records what progress can be made… not what progress has been made "this book lets you learn 30 new words, reading 250 words a day lets you learn 20 new words this week"
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Learn to read by doing reading – data shows how many words a child needs to read each day, repeated over how many days in order to make progress.
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Practices – repeated practices, skills stabilised means ability is the end product not the starting point.
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Matching the process to the learner – data shows what works for each individual child. The impact of daily sessions is recorded and adjustments can be measured immediately "does it make a difference if this child reads two books a day, reads at school and reads the same book at home?"
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Progress makes attainment – progress today + progress tomorrow = motivated achievement.
How can schools use Total Words?
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Classroom subscriptions (a whole class has access to online reading and teachers have access to app progress data)
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Parent-school subscriptions (students can practice digital reading both at home and at school)
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SEN planning and implementing individual reading programmes
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Secondary students can manage their reading progress independently
Designed
for Learning
Through word-counts, repeated language and key-word prompts throughout, each Total Words book is purposefully written and designed by us, embedded with learning theory.
Our data shows
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Which children need a rapid progress boost
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Where are extra resources required, for how long,
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Is extra support making a difference?
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What high achievers do that slow progressors do not
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How to reduce the attainment gap in each classroom
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Reading health of the school – how much reading are children doing, can children do, should children do for progress?
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How our data compares with partner-schools
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The impact of working in partnership with parents
Before
Without Total Words
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Reading is delivered in groups with others of similar skill level.
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Children making slower progress have more repeat phonic sessions.
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Children are assigned reading books selected for ‘their level’.
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Slow progress may be addressed through additional reading sessions with a TA, depending on availability.
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Children read every 3rd, 4th, 5th page of a book depending on the number of children in their group.
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Progress is assessed by formal assessments e.g. word lists, phonic assessments.
With Total Words
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Teachers and students have immediate feedback on reading accuracy, words learnt each day, each week
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Progress is based on positive practices - reading more words, reading words correctly, reading for meaning, repeated reading of whole books
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Reading programmes are geared for maximum individual progress based on precise information – what progress each child can achieve not what they have achieved so far
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Data shows what impact each reading session is having
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Teaching assistants have specific outcomes based on robust data e.g. Alice will read a minimum of 250 words a day this week
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