Improving Literacy in the Transition Period: A Review of the Existing Evidence on What Works

Abstract

Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. ABSTRACT Background: The transition from primary to secondary schools in England is marked by a concern over potential learning loss, and the realisation that a small number of students have not reached an expected or threshold level of literacy. The latter can then impact on progress in all areas of the secondary curriculum, and is reflected in subsequent qualifications. Very similar issues arise worldwide. In England, money has been made available via the Pupil Premium and the Catch-up schemes to deal with this. Several ameliorative strategies have been suggested and implemented, and several of these have claimed success even though the evidence for many is unclear. This paper presents the results of a review of all the available international evaluation evidence, to distinguish between those approaches that work, or might work and those that clearly do not. Method:The review began with a search for all possible studies worldwide, focusing on those intervention programmes that have been rigorously evaluated. Results: Forty-three studies met the barest minimum of design and quality standards for programme evaluation. The most promising single intervention programme was 'Response to Intervention' but even here the evidence was unclear. Conclusion:Overall, these studies suggest that interventions to improve literacy for older children need to start earlier in the primary school years than current policy proposals in England intend. Successful interventions tended to be those that are clear and simple. They include teacher development at the outset, using new learning materials, and Original Research ArticleBritish Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science, 4(6): 739-754, 2014 740 providing ongoing support focusing on those students clearly below the expected levels in literacy. However, there is still a range of interventions that could be effective but have not yet been tested. Large scale randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of these interventions could be conducted to establish their effects.

Correlates of externalising and internalising problems in children with dyslexia: An analysis of data from clinical casefiles

“…Therefore, dyslexia-specific interventions, which target these same socio-emotional skills but are explicitly framed around the experience of reading difficulties and consider the literacy skills of participants in the design of program materials, should also be developed and trialled. This may be particularly important in the context of stressful periods, such as the transition from primary to secondary school (Bailey & Baines, 2012;Eissa, 2010;Maguire & Yu, 2015;See & Gorard, 2014). Little research has examined the impact of interventions aiming to improve psychosocial health in children with dyslexia specifically.…”

An evaluation of the ‘Switch‐on Reading’ literacy catch‐up programme

“…Some reading interventions appear to be effective, at least for some struggling readers, but some do not (Hatcher et al ., ; Cantrell et al ., ). A prior review of existing evidence in this area for the EEF showed that one‐to‐one structured support was an area of promise (See and Gorard, ).…”

What works and what fails? Evidence from seven popular literacy ‘catch-up’ schemes for the transition to secondary school in England

“…This paper looks at a body of evidence on a range of literacy interventions which have been evaluated, some of which show promise of positive results. Some reading interventions appear to be effective, at least for some struggling readers, but some do not or have not been tested properly (See and Gorard 2014). Specifically, this paper reports summary evidence on seven of the most promising or widely used interventions that could be used either when pupils are getting ready to leave primary school (in Year 6), or during the holiday between primary and secondary school, or when they first arrive in secondary school (Year 7).…”