Literacy progress of young children

This study by the Institute of Education followed up the impact on children’s literacy in London schools a year or more after intervention had been received. In the 2005-6 school year literacy progress was compared of the lowest achieving children in 42 schools serving disadvantaged urban areas. The children, aged around 6 years, who received Reading Recovery in their schools were compared with those in schools which provided them with a range of other interventions.

Key points:
- Those children who received Reading Recovery achieved significant gains in all assessments compared with those who did not.
- At the end of the year the literacy achievement of children who had received Reading Recovery (RR) was in line with their chronological age. The comparison group was 14 months behind with an average Reading Age of 5 years 5 months.
- At the end of Year 2 the children who had received RR in Year 1 were achieving within or above their chronological age band on all measures and were still around a year ahead of the comparison children in schools where RR was not available.
- The RR children had an average word reading age of 7y 9m, compared to 6yr 9m for the comparison children. The gender gap that was noticeable amongst low attaining comparison children, with boys lagging behind girls, was not evident in RR schools, where there was no gender gap.
- Writing achievement showed a significant difference between RR and comparison children