Since then, the National Literacy Strategy and its Literacy Support intervention programmes have been introduced. A revised edition was therefore needed to take account of the new context, and in 2002 the Department for Education and Skills commissioned me to write it. My brief was to update the information, and to extend the coverage to Years 5 and 6 and to spelling and writing, which were not covered in the first edition. The overall question still is, what schemes are available to help children avoid falling behind in literacy or catch up if they do, and how effective are the schemes?

It was known that several new schemes had been devised since 1998, and were in use in various LEAs. LEA advisers responsible for primary literacy were contacted and asked for information. Simultaneously, the devisers of various initiatives, including some devised as the basis for formal university-led experiments, were also contacted, and a search was made of the recent research literature.

About 40 schemes were investigated in all, and 12 of these have been added. (The rest proved to be exclusively secondary or not to have data from which an impact measure could be calculated - see below.) Seven approaches from the first edition were dropped - these were no longer available or had been seen as less effective.

The restriction to schemes used and evaluated in the UK is mainly intended to circumvent the objection 'How do we know that it will work here?'

Most of the schemes covered are' Wave Three' initiatives within the current structure of the National Literacy Strategy in England, though some are also in use as Wave Two initiatives, and a few are 'preventive' measures, aimed at preventing young children not making adequate progress in the first place. [An explanation of waves appears at the end of this article.]

The research report now covers 25 schemes. Most are general schemes for improving reading (and in some cases spelling). The reading approaches analysed include: Reading Recovery; the 1984 version of DISTAR; THRASS; the original Parental Involvement in Reading project in Haringey; the Paired Reading approach in Kirklees; the Basic Skills Agency's Family Literacy Demonstration Programmes and Family Literacy for New Groups initiative; Integrated Learning Systems; Reading Intervention in Cumbria; Phonological Awareness Training; other phonological approaches within larger projects; several experiments on self-esteem and reading in Somerset, 1970-84; The Catch Up Project; Better Reading Partnerships in five Leas; the Knowsley Reading Project; and Phono-GraphixT. Many of the schemes for improving reading are partnership schemes, involving better readers helping poorer ones. Several focus on the phonological aspect of reading, including phonics.

Two of the schemes included now deal specifically with spelling: Cued Spelling (a counterpart to Paired Reading), and Individual Styles in Learning to Spell. There is information on spelling improvement within 10 others. Just one rigorously researched approach, Paired Writing (another counterpart to Paired Reading), tackles writing overall - the 'compositional' aspect. Three schemes rely on the use of ICT - but the messages here are mixed, since the largest scheme had little effect, while the smallest had a strong effect.

Each of the schemes has a separate descriptive entry. Because eight of the studies covered more than one approach, I was able to make quantitative comparisons of 38 approaches in all. Most of the studies measured children's literacy just at the beginning and end of an initiative, but in 10 studies there was a follow-up some time after the intervention had ended.

The studies varied widely in scale. Three of the schemes (Better Reading Partnerships, Paired Reading, The Catch Up Project) have been tried out with large numbers of children, running into the thousands, nine others with samples between 100 and 1000, and the rest with numbers down to 15.

All the schemes, large and small, were analysed in a common framework. To be included, their evaluation reports had to provide quantitative data showing the progress made by the children in the initiative, plus the information needed to calculate an impact measure. Impact measures were of two kinds: (1) ratio gains - the amount of progress in reading age or spelling age, in months, divided by the time in months during which the gains were made; (2) effect sizes - the difference in the amount of progress made by the children in the initiative and children in a control group, divided by the standard deviation of the control group's average pre-test score. Impact measures are crucial because they allow the effectiveness of different schemes to be compared.

The intention is to make clear and analytic information on these schemes available in order to inform practice and choices of approach. Those choices should be guided not only by the evidence assembled and analysed in the report, but also by careful matching of the needs of an individual school or even class to the specifics of particular schemes.

Conclusions

• Ordinary teaching ('no intervention') does not enable children with literacy difficulties to catch up, thus reinforcing the case for early intervention.
• Schemes for children who struggle with spelling work best when highly structured.
• There was little evidence on writing, but the Paired Writing approach has definite potential.
• Work on phonological skills for reading should be embedded within a broad approach - most approaches which concentrated heavily on phonological aspects showed little impact.
• Children's reading comprehension skills can be improved if directly targeted - but the research evidence from the UK for this conclusion is still surprisingly small.
• Working on children's self-esteem and reading in parallel has definite potential - this is the message of the Somerset experiments.
• Where reading partners are available and can be given appropriate training and support, partnership approaches can be very effective. The partners need to be given a clear approach to follow, otherwise both they and their 'tutees' get confused.
• ICT approaches only work if they are precisely targeted - if children are left to find their own way through computer packages this has little effect.
• Large-scale schemes such as Reading Recovery and Family Literacy, though expensive, can give good value for money. There is some evidence from High/Scope in the USA that every dollar spent on early intervention saves seven dollars on social remediation later.
• Some children with severe literacy difficulties need extra help to catch up, in the form of skilled, intensive, one-to-one tuition - some of the schemes analysed here which targeted children with severe difficulties had little impact.
• Interventions longer than one term do not necessarily produce proportionally greater benefits - several of the longer-term interventions analysed had only moderate to weak impact.
• Good impact - sufficient to double the standard rate of progress - can be achieved, and it is reasonable to expect it. The following 18 schemes all provided evidence of impact of this order in at least one study: Better Reading Partnerships, The Catch Up Project, Cued Spelling, Family Literacy, Inference Training, Interactive Assessment and Teaching, Multi-sensory Teaching System for Reading, Paired Reading, Parental Involvement, Phono-Graphix , Reading Intervention, Reading Recovery, Reciprocal Teaching (for reading accuracy), Somerset, THRASS (for reading, though less reliably for spelling), AcceleRead, AcceleWrite, Reader's Intelligent Teaching Assistant, and Paired Writing.
• Most of the schemes which incorporated follow-up studies showed that the children maintained their gains.

The three waves
The National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies assume three 'waves' of support for pupils as described below. The SEN Code of Practice (2001) describes a 'graduated response' to identifying and meeting special educational needs which may be mapped onto the NLS/NNS three waves as shown.

Wave One
The effective inclusion of all pupils in a literacy hour and daily mathematics lesson (Quality First
Teaching). Pupils may be at any point on the 'graduated response', as defined by the SEN Code of
Practice (2001) i.e. the usual differentiated curriculum, School Action or School Action Plus.

Wave Two
Small group intervention, such as early literacy support and booster classes (or equivalent LEA or school-based programmes), for pupils who can be expected to 'catch up' with their peers as a result of the intervention. These pupils do not have special educational needs related specifically to learning difficulties in literacy or mathematics but may already be on School Action or School Action Plus where they have special educational needs such as emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Wave Three
Specific targeted intervention for pupils identified as requiring SEN support. Pupils at Wave 3 may have particular needs related specifically to mathematics or literacy, or needs associated with other barriers to their learning. Provision at Wave Three is likely to draw on specialist advice and may involve the adjustment of learning objectives and teaching styles, and/or individual support. It aims to reduce gaps in attainment and facilitate greater access to Waves One or Two.