Evaluation of Catch Up® Literacy

Plain English Summary

Background and study aims
The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of the Catch Up® Literacy programme, developed to help children that find reading difficult. The programme is suitable for readers that have a reading age significantly below that of what is should be and is designed for children aged 6-14. Each child is given an appropriate book to read over a number of sessions with a trained teaching assistant or teacher. Here, the improvement in reading ability of children who have attended the Catch Up® Literacy programme will be compared to that of children who have not been enrolled in the study.

Who can participate?
Primary schools that aren’t already running Catch Up® Literacy or Catch Up® Numeracy. Schools will select up to 12 pupils whose reading age is lower than it should be.

What does the study involve?
Participating Primary schools are randomly allocated into two groups-intervention schools (schools enrolled in the Catch Up® literacy programme) and “business-as-usual” schools (that is schools where the children are taught as normal). The Catch Up® literacy programme provides training and resource packages to three members of staff from each intervention school - typically two teaching assistants (TAs) and a project coordinator. After the training, TAs deliver the Catch Up® Literacy sessions between September/October 2016 and June 2017 to selected pupils from Year 4 and Year 5 The TAs also assess these pupils at the end of each academic term to determine whether they are at their age expected levels in reading. Once the pupils reach this level, they stop doing the Catch Up® Literacy programme. Schools allocated to the control group do not receive any training and do not offer their pupils the Catch Up® Literacy programme during the study. Once the study is complete, , they are given a grant which can be used towards purchasing a programme of their choice.

What are the possible benefits and risks of participating?
Children in the intervention group receive Catch Up® Literacy support with the potential to improve their performance in literacy. There are no foreseeable risks of participating.

Where is the study run from?
Participating Primary schools from the North East region and five coastal areas-Brighton, Barrow-in-Furness, Grimsby, Hull & Immingham, Bournemouth and Plymouth will be recruited for this trial.

When is study starting and how long is it expected to run for?
May 2016 to April 2018

Who is funding the study?
Education Endowment Foundation (UK)

Who is the main contact?
Mr Simon Rutt
s.rutt@nfer.ac.uk

Trial website

Type

Scientific

Primary contact

Mr Simon Rutt

ORCID ID

Contact details

National Foundation for Educational Research
The Mere
Upton Park
Slough
SL1 2DQ
United Kingdom
+44 1753 637396
s.rutt@nfer.ac.uk

EudraCT number

ClinicalTrials.gov number

Protocol/serial number

N/A

Scientific title

Cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate Catch Up® Literacy as measured by Year 4 and Year 5 pupils' reading comprehension ability

Acronym

Study hypothesis

The purpose of this trial is to evaluate the effect of Catch Up® Literacy over ‘Business-as-Usual’ (BaU) control schools in Key Stage 2.

The primary research question is:
1. What is the impact of Catch Up® Literacy on Year 4 and Year 5 pupils’ reading comprehension skills as measured by the Hodder Group Reading Test (HGRT)?
The secondary research questions are:
2. What is the impact of Catch Up® Literacy on Year 4 and Year 5 FSM (those eligible to receive free school meals) pupils’ reading comprehension skills as measured by HGRT?
3. What is the impact of Catch Up® Literacy on Year 4 and Year 5 pupils’ reading skills as measured by the Salford Sentence Reading Test (SSRT)?
4. What is the impact of Catch Up® Literacy on Year 4 and Year 5 pupils’ attitudes towards literacy?
5. What is the impact of Catch Up® Literacy on Year 4 and Year 5 pupils’ attitudes towards school?
6. What is the impact of Catch Up® Literacy on Year 4 and Year 5 pupils’ self esteem?

Ethics approval

National Foundation for Educational Research Code of Practice Committee, 28/07/2016

Study design

Multi-centre cluster randomised controlled trial

Primary study design

Interventional

Secondary study design

Cluster randomised trial

Trial setting

Schools

Trial type

Quality of life

Patient information sheet

Condition

Literacy

Intervention

Catch Up® will recruit 150 primary schools where eight pupils from Year 4 and Year 5 will be nominated to take part in the trial. Schools will be randomly allocated into the intervention group or business-as-usual control group. For all nominated pupils, key stage 1 results will be used as baseline measure and Hodder Group Reading Test will be used as Primary outcome measure with analysis taking place in July 2017.

Intervention group:
Catch Up® Literacy is a structured one-to-one intervention for learners from the age of six to thirteen who are struggling to learn to read. The intervention involves two individual 15-minute sessions per week delivered by teaching assistants, teachers or mentors. The intervention adopts a combination of segmenting, blending phonemes and memorising letter names of high frequency sight words. It is targeted to the needs of individual learners, identified through a bank of formative assessments. A member of staff within each intervention school will manage Catch Up® Literacy while the intervention will be delivered by trained teaching assistants. Catch Up® provides a four-part training programme for managers and classroom assistants, alongside ongoing support from the Catch Up® trainer. It is intended that managers attend all four parts of the training, while classroom assistants attend two. There are four stages of Catch Up® Literacy: assessments for learning, which are used to set targets and identify the appropriate starting points for pupils; selecting an appropriate book for the learner to read; delivery of two individual (one-to-one) sessions per week, each lasting 15 minutes; and ongoing monitoring, through which assessments for learning are revisited and targets are reviewed.

Business-as-usual (BaU) control group:
Schools allocated to BaU control group will not receive any training and will not deliver Catch Up® Literacy during the trial. Following end-point testing in summer 2017, these BaU control group schools will receive a grant of £790 which can be used towards purchasing a programme of their choice.

Intervention type

Other

Phase

Drug names

Primary outcome measure

Reading comprehension ability as measured by Hodder Group Reading test (HGRT)

Secondary outcome measures

1. Reading comprehension skills of Year 4 and Year 5 FSM (those eligible to receive free school meals) pupils as measured by HGRT
2. Reading skills of Year 4 and Year 5 pupils as measured by the Salford Sentence Reading Test (SSRT) and attitudes towards literacy
3. Attitudes towards school and self esteem of Year 4 and Year 5 pupils as measured by pupil surveys

All these outcomes will be measured alongside the primary outcome measure in end of June/early July 2017.

Overall trial start date

12/05/2016

Overall trial end date

30/04/2018

Reason abandoned (if study stopped)

Participant inclusion criteria

Primary schools that aren’t already running Catch Up® Literacy or Catch Up® Numeracy will be eligible to take part in the trial. Schools will select up to 12 pupils whose reading age is below their chronological age.

Participant type

Other

Age group

Child

Gender

Both

Target number of participants

On an average 8 pupils from Year 4 and Year 5 from 150 Primary schools, approximately 1200 pupils.

Participant exclusion criteria

Primary schools that are already running Catch Up® Literacy or Catch Up® Numeracy.

Recruitment start date

01/06/2016

Recruitment end date

04/10/2016

Countries of recruitment

United Kingdom

Trial participating centre

National Foundation for Educational Research
The Mere Upton Park
Slough
SL1 2DQ
United Kingdom

Trial participating centre

Keystone Innovation Centre
Catch Up Croxton Road
Thetford
IP24 1JD
United Kingdom

Organisation

Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)

Sponsor details

9th Floor
Millbank Tower
21 – 24 Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP
United Kingdom
+44 207 802 1676
info@eefoundation.org.uk

Sponsor type

Government

Website

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/

Funder type

Charity

Funder name

Education Endowment Foundation

Alternative name(s)

Funding Body Type

Funding Body Subtype

Location

Publication and dissemination plan

Not provided at time of registration

Intention to publish date

31/10/2018

Participant level data

Stored in repository

Basic results (scientific)

Publication list

Publication citations

16/10/2018: The intention to publish date was changed from 30/04/2018 to 31/10/2018.