Evaluation of a literacy programme for beginning readers

What is it about?

This article reports the results from a three-year study of children in English primary schools who were taught using a literacy programme, Success for All (SFA), adapted from a whole-school approach used in the US. Children's achievement in various aspects of literacy were compared with those of children in comparable schools that did not do SFA. Sample lessons were also observed in both sets of schools to see how faithfully teachers followed the SFA approach, and whether the comparison schools were using any similar techniques.

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Why is it important?

Early literacy has been shown to be important for later educational attainment. SFA has been shown to be an effective approach in the US, and there has been some evidence of its promise in the UK. This was the first large-scale test of its effectiveness in the early years of schooling in England. The findings were that SFA schools had significantly better performance on reading familiar and "made-up" words, and directionally but not significantly better results in comprehension and fluency.