To be able to use SevenPlus you will need to attend one of our workshops or complete the online training.

Yes we can sell a printed version for NZ$85.

SevenPlus is sold with an individual license. Teachers must purchase their own copy.

You will be sent the file with the purchasers name watermarked on each page.

SevenPlus is based upon the most up to date theory and practice of how reading needs to be taught. If we are to accelerate those children who are behind and for whom conventional approaches have not been adequate then there has to be a difference in the teaching. Most of the procedures in SevenPlus would be recognisable to a trained teacher, however we have made some crucial changes to text selection, and how the teaching procedures are employed.

Selection and grouping of pupils are extremely important if SevenPlus is to help make the gains needed.

Selection of pupils: During the extensive trials of SevenPlus we identified those children for whom the procedures would most likely be successful. Children need to have a fluent working knowledge of basic phonics and be able to easily blend letter sounds. There may be a few graphemes that are not known and these will be taught during the lessons. The students need to be reading at least at a six and a half year level, the equivalent of Reading Recovery level 16-17 or Orange moving to Turquoise on the colour wheel. The upper limit is less fixed and depends more upon the wider need of the child. SevenPlus has been used successfully with pupils in Year 9.

Grouping: It makes sense that a teacher will group pupils together with the same or similar needs. This means that they will be reading at the same level of difficulty. The success of SevenPlus is very sensitive to all children having similar decoding ability.

Yes. Finding suitable texts for older readers who are well behind can be a nightmare for teachers. What teacher hasn’t handed out a text only for children to say: “I’ve read this before!” or “This looks boring!” Often children will say something looks boring when the text appears too difficult or too long. SevenPlus has original texts for you that are crafted perfectly for the teaching. The texts are very inexpensive and available online as PDFs. They are called StoryBytes and InfoBytes and can be purchased at sharpreading.com. We also show you how you can use texts that are already in your school in a way that is novel and interesting for the children.

SevenPlus is taught in the classroom as part of the reading programme. As an intervention at Tier Two, it replaces the normal guided reading for a short period of time. The skills learned are learned within the context of real reading. SevenPlus is not sub-skills teaching that you hope will be transferred to text! The weak link with some interventions is the transition back to the normal programme. There is a very minimal transition with SevenPlus simply because the texts, the teaching and the skills learned dovetail so well with what the child will need day to day in the classroom.

There is no known intervention, programme, treatment, pedagogy or approach that will work successfully for all children all of the time. SevenPlus will probably be less successful with extremely high needs children with attention, behaviour, working memory or sensory acuity issues. The degree of success will also vary with the external factors that affect learning.

If you are an accredited teacher you will be able to be trained in SevenPlus and implement it in the classroom. The training workshop will teach you, step by step, all the skills you need. We can offer ongoing support should you need it. SevenPlus is currently being used successfully by new and very experienced teachers.

An ideal number is four but SevenPlus has been used with up to seven children in the group. Sometimes it is appropriate for teaching to be one to one if the pupil has very high needs or is the only pupil in the class who is behind in reading.

There are four main areas of reading skills: decoding (including phonological awareness), vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. SevenPlus works specifically to improve decoding skills and develop vocabulary and fluency. If those three areas are developed, improved comprehension will follow.

One of the features of SevenPlus is that it is intensive teaching using short pieces of text. The children will need other opportunities to practice their reading. We see this happening in the classroom and at home.