Welcome

This website is intended to help you weigh up the choices between interventions. It went live on 26th October 2011 and was most recently updated on 19th February 2013.

All the schemes featured here are targeted directly on literacy – no indirect methods are listed. In particular, programmes based on movement exercises are not included. 

The only schemes included are those which are readily available and have been quantitatively evaluated in the UK, and for which at least one reasonable impact measure has been calculated, where ‘reasonable’ implies that the scheme has been shown in at least one study to double pupils’ normal rate of progress.

On the pages where individual schemes are described you will find brief statements about their effectiveness, with ratings of ‘useful’, ‘substantial’ or ‘remarkable’. For an explanation of these ratings, and for the impact measures which underlie them, see Greg Brooks’s report: What works for children and young people with literacy difficulties? especially the Tables in the appendix.

Where no rating is given for a particular age range or skill area, this means either that there is no evidence or that the impact was too small to warrant inclusion.

Under each scheme the heading ‘Type of children’ refers to those in the quantitative evaluation, and not necessarily those for whom the scheme is intended.