What Works for Children with Literacy Difficulties? - Digital ...

10 Paired Reading in Kirklees
Main reference: Topping and Lindsay (1992)
Date: 1984-87
Age-range: not stated but known to be across full school age-range (Y1-11)
Type of children: Mixed-ability
N of experimental group: 2372 in 155 projects in 71 schools for main accuracy measure -
for other Ns, see below
N of control group: 446 in 37 projects for main accuracy measure - for other Ns, see below
Equivalence of groups: Method not stated, but thought to be matched groups
N of alternative intervention group: (some projects had alternative intervention groups, but
too numerous and disparate to report here)
Nature of alternative interventions: (impractical to summarise)
Length of intervention in weeks: (average) 9
Reading tests: many, including Burt, Holborn, Neale, New Macmillan Reading Analysis,
Primary, Salford, Schonell, Standard (Daniels & Diack) 1, Standard (Daniels & Diack) 12,
Widespan
Pre- and post-test average scores and s.d’s, and gains (not given in principal original
report because too numerous):
Ratio gains: accuracy comprehension
N RG N RG
all experimentals 2372 3.3 690 4.3
experimentals in control-group projects 580 3.4 170 4.6
controls in control-group projects 446 2.0 159 2.5
Effect sizes calculated using s.d. of control group gain:
accuracy comprehension
N of projects (N of subjects not given) 34 12
effect size 0.87 0.77
Also, mean effect size for published studies in the literature (12 controlled studies) is 2.12
(Topping, personal communication, 4 July 2002)
Statistical significances: all ratio gains were highly statistically significant (p