Nursery World - Intervention helps readers keep up

Four-and five-year-olds from deprived areas in Renfrewshire are developing reading skills at the same pace as children from more advantaged areas thanks to an early intervention initiative. Bob Rutherford, Renfrewshire council's principal psychologist, said the evaluation of the Renfrewshire Early Intervention Language Project showed that children are making statistically significant progress in the development of reading skills. The more intervention the 2,000 children in the study received, the greater their achievements.

Bob Rutherford, Renfrewshire council's principal psychologist, said the evaluation of the Renfrewshire Early Intervention Language Project showed that children are making statistically significant progress in the development of reading skills. The more intervention the 2,000 children in the study received, the greater their achievements.

Knowledge of letters was found to be the biggest single predictor of future reading success, followed by understanding the concept of print, word matching, awareness of beginning and end sounds of words, auditory discrimination and expressive language skills.

Mr Rutherford said, 'Baseline assessment has also confirmed what is intuitively known by all early years staff - that there is a huge variation in emerging literacy skills on entry to P1.

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