Prior to implementing Sounds-Write in 2016, phonics attainment in Year 1 at Selby Primary School in North Yorkshire (UK) was at or above the national average, but little progress was made by the weaker readers by the end of Key Stage 2. Emma Darwin, Phonics Lead at the school, presents data for a Year 4 cohort who have been taught using…

In this case study, Charlotte MacKechnie reports on improvements in reading and spelling for all children at Angel Oak Academy in South East London following the adoption of Sounds-Write. They use a three-teacher model to support small-group and one-to-one 'keep up' interventions to ensure children are not left behind in their phonics learning.…

Kendall Hammond, Associate Principal at Nollamara Primary and Intensive English School in Perth, explains how their commitment to explicit direct instruction made Sounds-Write a natural choice for the teaching of reading and spelling in a school where three-quarters of students have English as an additional language. [For the complete volume,…

Identifying and supporting students in early elementary grades with low literacy achievement is critical to help them achieve grade-level proficiency and stay on track academically. "Reading Recovery"® is an intervention that provides one-on-one tutoring to students in grade 1 with low literacy achievement. This supplemental program aims…

In this case study, Sarah Horner and Jane Orr from the Bloomfield Learning Centre, a specialist literacy clinic run as a charity and serving the poorest parts of London, report on how Sounds-Write helped a student regain his self-confidence and motivation for learning, after difficulties in reading had led to behaviour problems and a dislike of…

Parent-Child Reading Program (PRP) was an intervention program designed by Ms. Dai, who was a Chinese teacher at Future School in China, to promote reading literacy among elementary students. Program participants included the teacher in the PRP (Ms. Dai) and the parents of students who participated in the program. The goal of this program was to…

Identifying and supporting students in early elementary grades with low literacy achievement is critical to help them achieve grade-level proficiency and stay on track academically. "Reading Recovery"® is an intervention that provides one-on-one tutoring to students in grade 1 with low literacy achievement. This supplemental program aims…

One of the challenges for the successful implementation of extensive reading (ER) programmes, especially in Asian contexts, stems from curricular factors where class time is often prioritised for tasks requiring the presence of a teacher. This paper investigates the role of extensive reading online (ERO), an alternative approach to traditional ER,…

In Uganda and other low-resource settings, too few children are learning to read in the early grades. In response, countries have embarked on reading reform programs, often with external support. Unfortunately, rigorous evidence of these programs' impact remains limited. This article presents the causal impact on reading outcomes of the US Agency…

Sounds-Write is a systematic synthetic phonics approach that has been successfully used to teach students to read and spell for the last two decades. This volume brings together twelve case studies -- written by practitioners -- of implementation of the Sounds-Write programme in different settings and geographical contexts (Europe, US, Australia).…

Living Book--Augmenting Reading for Life, a three-year EU-funded Erasmus + project (September 2016-August 2019), exploited the affordances of augmented reality (AR) and other emerging technologies in order to address the underachievement of European youth in reading skills. The program developed an innovative approach that empowers teachers from…

The Good Behaviour Game (GBG) is a universal behaviour management intervention that aims to to improve pupil behaviour with the following core elements: classroom rules, team membership, monitoring of behaviour, and positive reinforcement (rewards). While it is primarily used with children in primary schools, it can also be implemented in early…

Peer tutoring is a structured process of co-operative learning, supported by social interdependence theory shown to have cognitive and affective level benefits. During a RCT, this study explores teacher perceptions (n=62) of effects of co-operative learning, including implementation issues, using a mixed methods approach during a 16-week peer…

It is imperative that students learn to read in the early grades, yet many fail to do so in developing countries. Early grade reading interventions have emerged as a common means to attempt to address this problem. This paper presents a definition of early grade reading interventions as interventions that employ a combination of five components:…

This report presents the results of the diagnostic study conducted between October 2013 and December 2014, as part of an ambitious capacity-building project targeting the increase of children's literacy levels across three West African countries. The project "Improving Learning Outcomes in Early Grade Reading: Integration of Curriculum,…