How Does Toe By Toe Work?

You don’t have to be a trained educator to tutor with Toe By Toe. In fact, the manual often works better with non-professionals, as they do not come to the task with any preconceived notions. Anyone who can read fluently can teach with Toe By Toe: teachers, parents, grandparents and carers, or even a teenager could effectively coach a younger sibling.

Watch below as Frank takes us through the core principals of the Toe By Toe method and guides us in the use of the Toe By Toe manual to help teach struggling readers.

"Before I started Toe By Toe I couldn’t read. I was a failure. Now I have a cupboard full of books at home. My favourite authors are Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling. Now I am a success.”
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Kathleen Duncan, Clydebank. Kathleen was 14 when the West Dumbartonshire Literacy Initiative began to use Toe By Toe

Toe By Toe in schools

Toe by Toe has been successfully used in primary and secondary schools since its inception. The reading manual has helped hundreds of thousands of struggling readers keep up with their classmates.
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Toe By Toe and vulnerable young people

Toe By Toe has a vital role in turning vulnerable young people’s lives around and is used with young offenders and in secure children’s homes. One exceptional scheme is in operation at Orchard Lodge secure children’s home in south-east London (part of the Glen Care Group). Martin Collins, Education Development Officer at Orchard Lodge, is delivering the scheme and feels that he “has set down some very positive foundations in bettering the future of the students (he has) worked with”. This is certainly borne out by the reading age statistics he has meticulously produced.

Support assistants acting as mentors

Toe By Toe schemes in the majority of schools in the UK are run by teaching assistants. Most teachers, of course, do not have the time to give 20 minutes of individual attention to one child so most schools use TAs in the role of Toe By Toe tutor. It is important that the TA carefully follows the instructions as laid down in the manual but - as long as they do so - no formal training is required.

The teacher/senco may prefer to monitor progress carefully the first time a TA takes a child through the scheme, though the TA will very quickly see what is required. Experience helps, of course, but TAs soon begin to enjoy the process as they see the child’s confidence and ability begin to blossom.

One school which runs a particularly well organised - and highly successful - scheme along these lines is Lindley Junior School (rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted 2007-08) in Huddersfield. Organised by Ruth Shimell, SENCO at Lindley, the T.A.s work with the children for 20-minute sessions on a daily basis. There is also some support from parents at weekends but the pupils usually have five 20 minute sessions a week on weekdays. The Toe By Toe intervention at Lindley began in earnest in 2003 and impressive results are now expected for every child who goes on the scheme. In November 2007 the school reported that a total of 53 students had now finished Toe By Toe. The average time taken to finish was 17.5 months and the average improvement 37.2 months (as measured by Schonell). Truly remarkable results for struggling readers. As Ruth Shimell points out: “It is a long time since we have had any children who have left us not being able to decode at an appropriate level.” Since any literate person can act as a coach using Toe By Toe, some schools involve literally all the staff as literacy coaches.

“Toe by Toe is a fine analysis of the reading process. It is, of course, the lifetime work of Keda Cowling, a devoted teacher of children with dyslexic type difficulties. She was determined to help all children who had difficulty in learning to read and there is evidence that the programme has helped thousands of children and adults. We need to give our children help to recover from loss of education during the Covid 19 isolation period; putting Toe-by-Toe in the hands of teachers, would have been an excellent way of doing so.”
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Dr Jean Alston, Psychologist and Special Educational Needs Consultant, Cheshire, UK Oct 2021

Toe By Toe by telephone

At the age of 82, retired New Zealand teacher Keith Webster has come up with an innovative way to teach his own son how to read. Although he and his son live far apart, Keith had read about the astounding success of the scheme at Linwood College in Christchurch and decided to try distance learning using Toe By Toe over the phone. The results have more than justified the phone bill! In addition, Keith is now teaching a 69-year old to read - truly he’s an inspiration to us all…

Use of 'mini teachers' in assembly

Many schools select responsible Year 6 students to act as ‘mini teachers’ in assembly time. The class teacher can then be released to provide Toe By Toe coaching to students.