Ifeoma Adeyemi

Ifeoma works with pupils who read fluently enough but cannot tell you what the page was about. Her lessons sit with reading comprehension, inference and the quiet work of holding a story in your head while you turn the page. She chooses texts by interest first and reading level second, so a pupil who loves sharks, space or detective stories will meet a page that feels worth the effort.

A typical session starts with her reading aloud for a few minutes, then handing over. She asks a pupil to pause and say what they think is coming next, and why. Highlighters get used for evidence, not for decoration. With older pupils she moves on to summarising a paragraph in one sentence, then two, then picking out the phrase that carries the writer's point of view. Writing grows out of that same reading.

Ifeoma keeps a running list of what each pupil has read with her, so nothing gets repeated and nothing gets abandoned halfway. She also shares what she notices with parents in the progress report, including which kinds of text are still hard and which have started to click.