Early intervention to prevent long-term literacy difficulties: the case of Catch Up Literacy

Journal article

Problem: Recent research indicates that about 17% of school leavers have significant literacy problems, a proportion that has not changed significantly in the last 20 years. Literacy problems are associated with increased risk of poverty, unemployment, criminal conviction, and ill-health. Most adults with literacy problems had difficulties in reading from the early stages of schooling onwards.Purpose of study: The purpose of the study was the evaluation of an intervention for children with reading difficulties. Catch Up Literacy is a structured one-to-one literacy intervention for learners from 6 to 13 who are struggling to learn to read. It involves all aspects of the reading process: word recognition processes and text comprehension processes. It is targeted to the needs of individual learners, identified through a bank of formative assessments, and involves two individual 15-minute sessions per week.

Authors: Holmes, W; Reid, D; Dowker, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Volume: 46
• Pages: 4498-4503
• Publication date: 2012-01-01
• DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.06.284
• ISSN: 1877-0428
• Language: English
• Keywords: Catch Up Literacy; literacy; intervention; struggling readers; reading difficulties