Royal Holloway University Visit

It was wonderful to welcome Professor Kathy Rastle and Dr Anastasiya Lopukhina from Royal Holloway (University of London) to school today, to talk about the results of their research study carried out in school last year!

Their work focused on whether or not subtitles supported children with learning to read. 

Many pupils from our school took part in the research, watching a film and having their eye movements monitored by a tracker, to see if they used the subtitles.

The research found that as pupils developed phonic proficiency, they were more likely to refer to the subtitles. Pupils in Year 1 and 2 used the subtitles less, mainly focusing on the images, and the use of subtitles steadily increased as children aged. This shows us how important our phonics and decoding skills are for reading for understanding and meaning.

They also told us more about Royal Holloway and different Universities, and subjects that can be studied as part of Higher Education. They also spoke about their role as scientists and researchers and their work on learning about the brain in relation to reading. It was very informative and interesting! Thank you to Kathy and Anastasiya for taking the time to journey down from London to share the results of your research with us.