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Rationale for the Research
Introduction
This report summarises the findings of a two-year longitudinal evaluation of the effectiveness of two different interventions designed to help six-year-olds who have made a slow start in their reading.1 The two interventions studied, both delivered in a one-to-one setting, were Reading Recovery and a specifically phonological and less intensive programme (Phonological Training). Almost 400 children from seven local authorities participated in the evaluation: Bexley, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Surrey, Wandsworth and Westminster. These authorities offer a diverse sample of children in terms of socioeconomic status and home circumstance. However, inner-city children are overrepresented in terms of the national picture.
The case for early intervention
The importance of investigating ways of helping young children who are struggling with reading is to some degree self-evident. Reading problems in childhood can cause distress to children and their parents, having an impact on children's self-esteem. As children progress through the primary year, reading difficulties will affect their ability to participate in many classroom activities, limiting their progress not only in English but in other subject areas.
Traditionally, children have not been offered additional help with reading problems until they have been in the school system for several years. However, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that intervention should be offered at an earlier stage if it is to be effective. The reluctance to intervene at an early stage stems largely from the belief that it is not possible to identify children who are going to have intractable problems with reading until they have had several years schooling. However, assessments using pre-reading tasks such as letter recognition, and examination of children's concepts about print2, or phonological awareness, can discriminate well between children^ five and six years and are also highly predictive of their subsequent progress in reading.
The consequences of reading problems for children's learning
The negative consequences of reading problems are likely to increase with time. Early reading problems can initiate a causal chain of effects. Very quickly, poorer readers encounter less text than their peers. By the time children reach middle primary years it has been estimated that the least motivated children might read 100,000 word a year, while the average reader might encounter 1,000,000 words of...