A Randomized Controlled Trial of three theoretically motivated interventions for children with reading comprehension difficulties

Lead Research Organisation: University of York
Department Name: Psychology

Abstract

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Description The key findings were that interventions targeting both oral language skills and metacognitive skills involved in reading comprehension brought about significant gains in reading comprehension in 9-10 year-olds selected because they were 'poor comprehenders'. An adaptation of the programme for children in secondary school showed much weaker effects.
Exploitation Route We have written a book to be used by teachers to disseminate the findings to practitioners:
'Developing Reading Comprehension' by Paula Clarke, Emma Truelove, Charles Hulme and Margaret Snowling (Wiley, 2013)
We have recently completed a field trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach with children in secondary school (Year 7). This was funded by Education Endowment Foundation whose evaluation report is here https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/reach/ and we have written the following paper based on it.Clarke, P.J., Paul, S-A., Smith, G., Snowling, M., & Hulme, C. (2017) Reading intervention for poor readers at the transition to secondary school. Scientific Studies of Reading http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2017.1318393
Sectors Education
URL https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/reach/
 
Description As per our original proposal, we held 4 seminars focusing on different aspects of reading comprehension. The invited experts differed only slightly from those proposed. The presentations in each seminar spanned theory and practice; there was an interactive poster session in which early career researchers presented their work and a discussion session bringing out practical implications. Topics were as follows: 1: Theoretical, empirical and educational perspectives on reading comprehension 2: Language skills and reading comprehension. 3: Working memory and text comprehension. 4: Interventions to promote reading comprehension. 5. The participants. Each seminar was attended by researchers, practitioners, graduate students, teachers , teacher educators, and policy makers from local authorities as well as from the National Primary Strategy and DCSF. We also welcomed a small number of researchers from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Brazil, India. The breakdown was roughly similar for each meeting: 50% academic researcher; 25% graduate students; 12% early career researcher; 12% practitioner/policy maker. There was a range of disciplines; psychology, education, speech and language therapy, educational psychology, computer science, educational policy. 6. Level of demand. We had 40-48 delegates at each seminar and we always had a waiting list
First Year Of Impact 2008
Sector Education
Impact Types Societal
 
Description Education endowment Foundation - Projects
Amount £525,000 (GBP)
Organisation Education Endowment Foundation 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2012 
End 12/2014
 
Description Chile Language and Reading Intervention (CLARA) 
Organisation University of Santiago, Chile
Country Chile 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Clarke has become an advisor with ESRC-Newton funded project to develop and intervention in Chile using principles from the current trial (Snowling and Hulme are Co-Is of the Chilean project)
Collaborator Contribution Co-investigators in new trial
Impact speech-language pathology, genetics, psychology, education
Start Year 2016