The Early Literacy Project: Final milestone report

Abstract

The main purpose of this longitudinal research project was to provide professional learning and development (PLD) workshops and associated materials for teachers of New Entrant/Year 1 students, and to assess the impact of the workshops on the literacy learning outcomes of students in Year 1 and beyond. The workshops focussed on providing teachers with the knowledge and skills to adopt explicit and systematic word-decoding teaching strategies in their literacy instruction. Effective word decoding skills are a necessary requirement for success in learning to read. The project commenced in February 2015 and concluded in July 2017. A total of 729 students from 39 schools in the lower North Island participated in the project. Schools were randomly allocated to either an “intervention” group or a “comparison” group. Attrition, the withdrawal of one school, and incomplete data reduced the number of students included in the various analyses. Teachers who had some involvement with students in the project, either as a participating project teacher, a comparison school teacher, or as a classroom teacher in following years, numbered 288.