Read Write Inc. (Fresh Start)

Overview

This is Ruth Miskin’s phonics programme for children aged 9 and above (Years 5 and 6 in primary and Years 7 and 8 in secondary). Pupils learn the English alphabetic code: the 150+ graphemes that represent 44 speech sounds. They experience success from the very beginning. Lively stories and non-fiction texts are both age appropriate and closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and ‘tricky’ words and as pupils re-read the texts, their fluency increases.

Evaluation Summary

In 2013 the Education Endowment Foundation commissioned an independent RCT evaluation of this scheme from Durham University, as part of its suite of 24 RCTs investigating how to boost literacy at primary/secondary transition. The RCT involved 212 Y7 pupils in 10 schools who received Read Write Inc. Fresh Start for one hour, three times a week, for 22 weeks. A waiting-list control group of 221 pupils received the intervention after that. There was a modest benefit for the intervention group, but this must be interpreted with caution given that (a) the groups’ scores were significantly different at pre-test (had the schools interfered in the randomisation?), (b) the effect size reported by the evaluators had been calculated by an erroneous method.

Two smaller studies, at KS3, come from one secondary school in Leicester (2003-2005) and another in Cornwall (2006-2007). Data were gathered on 63 and 27 pupils respectively. The results showed between substantial and remarkable improvement in reading comprehension.