Reviews
“We’ve been using TRUGS here at Chiddingstone Church of England Primary School in Kent for two years now and it has become a very effective intervention. We have purchased boxes 1,2 and 3 as well as the tricky words boxes 1 and 2 and the box zero for early years foundation stage. At Chiddingstone we identify the pupils who are falling behind in their reading skills and use TRUGS on our provision mapping for these pupils for a 6 week period, three times a week.
The great thing about TRUGS is that our parents love it too and many have invested in TRUGS at home so they can reinforce the work we are doing with their children at school.
The three main boxes of TRUGS consist of 5 stages in each box, so 15 stages in all. We use box one for the year one and two pupils, box two for years three and four and box three for years five and six. Box zero is great for foundation stage pupils to reinforce their phase two phonics work and support any pupils who are falling behind.
TRUGS is fun as well as challenging and provides an ideal intervention for small groups of pupils to boost their understanding and confidence with decoding words. The four games in each stage also promote good turn taking, language and memory skills.
TRUGS is good value for money as it can also be used to extend the skills of our gifted and talented pupils.
I would thoroughly recommend TRUGS knowing the fun that all our pupils have with this great phonic intervention.”
- Gill Howard, SENco, Chiddingstone Church of England Primary School
“I just want to email you and say how much Trugs is contributing to my work as a private dyslexia tutor based in Ivybridge in the South Hams, so not far from yourself! I am getting so much mileage out of the 3 boxes that I have invested in that it is a working lifetime’s journey of discovery! The boxes makes my sessions all the happier because all my kids love them. Although it was a major investment for me (I bought the full boxes as I had used them in my previous job before I took the leap into tutoring) it has been well worth it!”
- Mandy Archer, Tutor
“As my research project shows, TRUGs clearly work to engage pupils (of all reading abilities) in reading. The reason I think TRUGs is so successful is the game element - all children love the competitiveness. They are suitable not only for emerging or struggling readers, but also for those children who are gifted readers, in that they are an excellent tool in developing vocabulary.
I also advocate the use of TRUGs in classrooms when guided reading is taking place; this is a daily activity and invariably a teacher will have 4 to 5 groups to cater for. With only one TA it is only possible to have two adult guided groups, therefore, you need to have vauable reading activities and TRUGs fit s this requirement. I have often come across teahers using ‘holding’ activities which are of low learning value as it can be sometimes difficult to find actvities that the children can do independently.
We have also developed some TRUGs leaders in the school, where gifted/more able readers, can still play the game with developing readers, as they have the knowledge that the other children are reading the word correctly. This works wonders - the more able children love the responsibility of ‘leading’ the group while the less able still have a chance to ‘beat’ or win a game against a more able reader - genius!
The Tricky Words boxes are ideal for struggling readers but also brilliant for Reception - this is why I believe TRUGs is an excellent resource to use across the Primary age range. It is not possible to learn Tricky Words phonetically, therefore it is just practice and repetitive exposure to the words that enable children to learn them. I think that is why you had so many orders from our Reception and Year 1 parents.
I would totally endorse TRUGs as a remarkable learning resource - there is nothing else quite like it (not that I’ve come across anyway).”
- Claire Henning. St John’s Primary School
“At last! We have an extremely effective and thoroughly enjoyable means of teaching children to read. In all honesty, pupils are fully engaged in learning to read – without knowing so. A second-to-none phonics resource.”
- Mr G Lucas, Deputy Head YGG Llyn y Forwyn
“Reading is a key priority for the school, and a proportion of our Pupil Premium funding has been allocated to raise standards in this area. The school has adopted the Read, Write Inc (Ruth Miskin, 2006) approach to teaching phonics which has had huge impact on standards, however on hearing about the trugs resource, we were keen to trial this multi sensory approach to phonics teaching.
A small trial was conducted to test the impact of trugs. Two groups of six pupils were selected based on their scores in a recent phonics assessment. These groups consisted of the lowest scoring Year 3 pupils. The experimental group was given three twenty minute ‘trug’ sessions per week for 18 weeks, in addition to their daily fifteen minute Read, Write Inc (Ruth Miskin, 2006) sessions.
The other six pupils acted as a control group, and only took part in daily fifteen minute Read, Write Inc (Ruth Miskin, 2006) sessions.
The pupils very quickly became engaged by the resource, and looked forward to their next session. Many of the parents bought the resource to use at home, because they recognized the impact that trugs had had on their child’s reading. The games also strengthen the children’s ability to recall facts, and improved their social and communication skills. This was particularly evident for pupils with Autism who took part in the trial. Our school also has a high proportion of pupils with English as an additional language (40%); and the resource proved to be very effective at supporting these pupils who are still developing their understanding of the English language.
Importantly, the miscue analysis resources ensured that the school could carefully measure and track pupil progress in a manageable and time efficient manner.
Results indicated that reading accuracy improved in the experimental group. The mean entry score for the experimental group was 81/300 and the mean exit score was 146/300, showing an average improvement of 65.
The resource is now used systematically throughout the school as a reading intervention and continues to have a positive impact.”
- Ellie Rees, Deputy Head and SENCO |
