A total of 46 children in Grades 2 and 3 with low word-level skills were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups that received supplemental phonics-based reading instruction. One group received intervention October through March (21.5 hours), and one group served as a control from October through March and later received intervention March through May (17.5 hours). Paraeducators trained in a standard treatment protocol provided individual instruction for 30 min per day, 4 days per week. At the March posttest, the early treatment (ET; n = 23) group outperformed the controls (late treatment, LT; n = 20) on reading accuracy and passage fluency. Across both groups, second graders outperformed third graders on these same measures. At the 3-month follow-up, the ET group showed no evidence of decline in reading accuracy, passage fluency, or words spelled; however, 3rd-grade ET students had significantly higher spelling skills compared to 2nd graders. The LT group demonstrated significant growth during their intervention in reading accuracy and spelling, but not passage fluency. When we compared the ET and LT groups on their gains per instructional hour, we found that the ET group made significantly greater gains than the LT group across all 3 measures. The results support the value of paraeducator-supplemented reading instruction for students below grade level in word identification and reading fluency.

Purpose -In the UK, universities are coming under increasing pressure from government to strengthen university-employer co-operation and engagement in areas such as student placements, graduate internships, knowledge exchange, enterprise and work-based learning. Both the Higher Education (HE) White Paper (BIS, 2011) and the Wilson Review (BIS, 2012) encourage universities to focus on this agenda, putting businesses at the heart of the system alongside students to maximise innovation, promote growth and "ensure students come out of universities equipped to excel in the workforce". (BIS, 2011, p. 39). The need for universities to engage with employers and build strong relationships to maximise mutual partnership value is integral to this work. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach -This paper examines the application of win-win principles (Covey, 1989) to employer engagement activities in HE via two case studies. Following an analysis of the results in each case study, they show that the adoption of such approaches has enhanced employer engagement, consolidated existing employer relationships and led to tangible outcomes such as new student placement opportunities. Findings -The paper suggests that HE employer engagement activities grounded in Covey's win-win principles are likely to enhance results and relationships with employers than those that omit such principles. The paper concludes by encouraging the utilisation of such principles across the spectrum of HE employer engagement activities. Originality value -The authors believe this is the first time this method of analysis has been applied to university-employer relationships.

It is a great pleasure to introduce you to the contents of this special issue, and we hope that you find these papers and case studies as interesting and informative as we have. Higher and degree apprenticeships are a key area for higher education institutions (HEIs) and in this special issue colleagues share their practice and knowledge. We open with a foreword from Professor Madeleine Atkins CBE, Chief Executive of HEFCE, followed by an informative "viewpoint" from Mandy Crawford-Lee, a UVAC Senior Associate, which really sets the scene for this issue's papers and case studies. Our first paper, "Higher technical skills learning from the experiences of English FE colleges and Australian technical and further education institutes" from King, Waters, Widdowson and Saraswat reports the outcomes of a joint study of higher technical skills undertaken by the Mixed Economy Group in England and TAFE Directors Australia. The authors propose that the development of higher technical skills is critical to innovation, productivity and social and economic prosperity, and evidence that demand for these skills is predicted to increase as digitalisation and automation supplant lower skilled jobs. The paper compares higher education (HE) policy in England and Australia, which is focussed on using applied, work-based or work-integrated models of HE with a specific focus on higher and degree apprenticeships programmes. Both countries have large public vocational education sectors with competency-based training and HE provision and well-developed apprenticeship systems. A major difference is that HE in further education (FE) colleges is well established in England and can include higher and degree apprenticeships. By comparison, HE in Australian TAFE institutes is small and largely unrecognised in their HE policy environment. Our second paper, Lambert's, "Are current accountability frameworks appropriate for degree apprenticeships?" offers an analysis of current notions of outcome-based accountability contextualised through the degree apprenticeship programme. The author suggests that although the government have positioned degree apprenticeships as a viable alternative to university, HEIs do still have a pivotal role to play in both their development and delivery. This raises questions around the accountability for their success and this paper considers whether existing outcome-based notions of accountability are appropriate, given the multi-faceted relationship involved in apprenticeship delivery, and are they indeed capable of capturing and maximising upon the value arising from the delivery relationship. The idea of accountability is a pertinent one as HEIs work through who within their institution will take responsibility for the higher and degree apprenticeships agenda? It does not easily sit in any one area as many business facing units in HEIs are discovering; it is an agenda which crosses recruitment, quality, finance, monitoring and audit, teaching and learning, employer engagement, knowledge transfer and more, and as such...