New Report Reveals Success of Every Child a Reader Programme
08 January 2010
Government moves to give one-to-one tuition to the children who have the severest learning difficulties will be boosted by the latest research published today (Friday January 8th) into the continuing success of the Every Child a Reader programme three years after the tuition stopped.
Researchers from the Institute of Education, London, have monitored the long term effectiveness of the £10m programme under which six-year-old children who had the greatest reading problems were given on-to-one tuition by specially trained Reading Recovery teachers for half an hour a day over four to five months in 2005.
In today's report (The Impact of Reading Recovery three years after intervention) Jane Hurry and Andrew Holliman have monitored the progress of nearly 250 of these very disadvantaged children. They conclude that the long term effects are still being felt in 2009.
The 'Reading Recovery' children, now aged nine, are reading and writing significantly better than similar children who did not have the benefit of the tuition. However, in maths, where neither they nor their control groups had had any one-one-one tuition, they are experiencing the same level of difficulties.
There were fears that the effects of the Reading Recovery programme, which within a an average of just 40 hours of one-to-one help astonishingly brought most of the six year olds back to their chronological reading age, might be lost in the passage of time, as the children come from the most disadvantaged homes. Half of them are on Free School Meals. Many have other problems associated with general cognitive abilities, language, behaviour and home environment.
The latest research was able to follow up 73 children who had the one-to-one tuition and found that three years later they were still keeping up with the expected levels for their age in reading. It was possible to compare their progress with 120 other similar children in similar schools who had not had the benefit of the intensive tuition programme and a further 48 children who, although they did not have the benefits of the programme, indirectly benefited from being in schools where the programme was taking place.
The Reading Recovery children in school Year 4 had reached an average of Level 3b in reading (on track for Level 4 at the end of Key Stage 2) and Level 2a in writing. They were ahead of the 120 comparison children by just under half a National Curriculum level in reading and by a third of a level in writing. The 48 comparison children in Every Child a Reader schools were in the middle suggesting that there may be some 'wash-over effect' (see table below) due to the presence of the highly skilled literacy expert in the school. There were no significant group differences in maths.
The researchers also found that Reading Recovery children were significantly less likely to be identified as having special educational needs at the end of Year 3.
Jean Gross, former Director of the Every Child a Chance Trust, now beginning her job as England's first Communication Champion for Children, said: "It is fantastic to see the long term positive effect of Reading Recovery. These are very vulnerable children, with all sorts of ongoing difficulties in and out of school, so the immediate impact of the programme might easily have disappeared over three years. It hasn't, and the children now have a real chance in life."
Table: Mean National Curriculum Assessments levels and point score equivalents at the end of Year 4, by group
Group N Reading Writing Maths
Comparison children 120 NC level 2a 2b 2a
mean point score 18.21 16.43 18.39
Reading Recovery children 73 NC level 3b 2a 2a
mean point score 20.14 18.75 18.92
Comparison children in Reading Recovery schools 48 NC level 3c 2a 2a
mean point score 19.21 18.75 17.46
Notes for Editors
Further information from Tim Devlin Press Officer for the Every Child a Chance Trust on 07939 544 487 and Diane Hofkins, Institute of Education Press Officer on 0207 612 6050.
The Impact of Reading Recovery three years after intervention by Jane Hurry and Andrew Holliman is on (www.everychildachancetrust.org and put in web sites) and is also attached with this release.
Institute of Education
The Institute of Education is a college of the University of London, specialising in teaching, research and consultancy in education and related areas of social science and professional practice. The Institute conducts over one-third of the educational research in the UK and last year's Research Assessment Exercise judged that 35 per cent of the work it had submitted was "world leading", while much of the remainder was of international significance.
Every Child a Chance Trust
The Every Child a Chance Trust aims to unlock the educational potential of socially disadvantaged children through the development and promotion of evidence-based, early intervention programmes. The Trust was established in 2007. It grew out of the outstandingly successful Every Child a Reader project, which showed that with the right intervention it is possible to tackle the literacy difficulties which blight many children's lives. The charity has now developed a similar programme for numeracy, Every Child Counts, which is being piloted with funding from the business sector, charities and government. www.everychildachancetrust.org
Every Child a Reader was set up in 2005 at a cost of £10m over three years to help reduce the number of children in England who leave primary school each year barely able to read or write. This is estimated at 35,000 or 6% of the total age group and 9% of boys aged 10-11. www.everychildareader.org.uk
About half the cost came from the DCSF with the rest being donated by other sponsors including the KPMG Foundation, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, SHINE, the Indigo Trust, JJ Charitable Trust, the Mercers' Company and Man Group plc Charitable Trust.
The programme is now being rolled out nationally by government.
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