Summary.The four purposes of this paper were: (a) to provide further evaluative data on the Corrective Reading programme; (b) to carry out action‐research with the aim of organisational change in the host secondary school; (c) to demonstrate within‐school evaluation; and (d) to experiment with an alternative role to that of casework for an educational psychologist.Some of the Direct Instruction and the Corrective Reading programme literature was reviewed. A model of evaluation incorporating a planned‐change model of innovation provides the framework of the paper. The Corrective Reading programme was used with an experimental group of first‐year secondary‐aged children (N = 11) with reading problems, and compared with the school's own remedial provision with a comparison group of similar children (N = 8). In 5 months of teaching the experimental group, on average, gained 1.8 years in reading whilst the comparison group gained 0.2 years. The experimental group also maintained good school behaviour and improved attendance, more so than the comparison group.This paper exemplifies the co‐operation between psychologist and school in evaluating current and proposed new practice. Such a role for a psychologist is likely to generate more organisational definitions and solutions of school problems than is usual