Lexia Core5® Reading for Primary Schools
Core5® is a personalised literacy programme for primary schools that offers adaptive literacy support to each pupil’s needs. Building skills from phonological awareness and phonics, through to comprehension, Core5® offers real-time insights, research-proven impact and teacher resources that empowers educators to close literacy gaps and helps every child flourish as a confident reader.
Lexia Core5 Reading Efficacy Research 2025
Summarises more than 60 research studies spanning more than 15 years that constitue the evidence base for Core5. 21 of the studies about Core5 are peer-reviewed publications. Find out more here.
Phonics
Building on pupils’ knowledge of CVC words, pupils manipulate and substitute graphemes to create new words, starting with familiar words and changing one letter at a time. They then apply these decoding skills to nonsense (“alien”) words to strengthen their understanding of phoneme–grapheme correspondence. Watch demo video here.
Structural Analysis
Pupils learn the meanings of common Greek word parts and apply this knowledge to identify, build and use complex vocabulary, supporting their ability to read and understand more advanced texts. Watch demo video here.
Phonological Awareness
Pupils practise blending and segmenting phonemes to build the foundations of early reading and spelling. The activity begins with blending sounds to identify words and then progresses to breaking words into individual sounds using tokens, starting with simple two- and three-sound words and gradually increasing in complexity. Watch demo video here.
Comprehension
Pupils read multi-paragraph texts independently and answer questions that develop higher-order thinking skills, including identifying main ideas, recalling details, making inferences, analysing the author’s perspective, and summarising information from narrative and informational texts. Watch demo video here.
Vocabulary
Pupils explore subtle differences between related words, first selecting appropriate words to complete sentences and then sequencing words based on increasingly nuanced meanings, encouraging more precise and ambitious language use. Watch demo video here.
Fluency
Pupils develop automatic recognition of common words through guided instruction, word identification, sentence completion, and timed recognition activities. If additional support is needed, the programme provides targeted instruction to reinforce understanding and build reading speed and confidence. Watch demo video here.