Some of the sections are too long for my students to remember

Section lengths will differ depending on the student's reading ability 

As a reminder students will be reading books pitched at their appropriate level and the section lengths they are reading will also differ, relative to their reading age. For pupils with a low reading age, the section lengths can be as short as 50-100 words, giving them a regular check-in point and the chance to experience success. Whereas for pupils with a high reading age, they can be approximately 1000-1500 words long. It is also worth noting that novice readers will see fewer questions at each check than those with higher reading ages. 

If a student has read carefully the checks should be easy to pass 

The checks are carefully-designed basic, fact-retrieval questions about the most important events, characters and themes from the section the student has just read. They occur at frequent, natural breaks in the text and so should feel like an extension of the story, causing minimal disruption to the student's reading flow. 

It is important to remind your students, as ever, to make sure they are reading carefully and actively to ensure they can pass their checks and earn the maximum SRP available. 

We remove the text to support students to become better readers 

For a pupil to learn to read attentively, fully - and perhaps at a slower rate than they might be used to - we remove the pages they have just read so that they have to rely on the depth of their reading rather than on skimming the text for answers. Answering the questions without being able to look back for answers helps the student process any new information from the text. At first, it can take a reader a while to learn to read more carefully for a sustained period, which is why we award SRP for careful and thorough reading rather than how much a student has read. Again, it is worth reminding your students that there is nothing to be gained by rushing, skim-reading and that they should complete their reading in an environment with minimal distractions. 

We aim, over time, to teach our learners to build strong reading habits, and to develop sustained relationships with whole books instead of skimming back over extracts and passages for eye-catching details in response to comprehension questions. 

If you would like more advice on how to support struggling students, we have lots of help in our article: Supporting students who are struggling