Education Endowment Foundation

Talk for Literacy

Talk for Literacy is a speaking and listening intervention that comprises two programmes: the Vocabulary Enrichment Intervention Programme (VEIP) and the Narrative Intervention Programme (NIP). Teaching assistants delivered the intervention to small groups of pupils

Talk for Literacy

Greenford High School

L

Language and literacy

grade promising project

Testing the impact of three speaking and listening interventions on literacy.

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Project Info

Independent Evaluator

NFER

Schools

3

Grant

£148,110

Themes

L

Language and literacy

EEF Summary

There is good evidence for the positive impact of oral language interventions, and for the positive impact of TA-led structured interventions. The EEF funded this trial to see if these speaking and listening programmes could improve reading attainment.

Pupils that received Talk for Literacy made the equivalent of three months’ additional progress in reading. There was an even larger impact for pupils eligible for free school meals – although the small number of pupils make this result less secure than the overall finding.

Talk for Literacy appears to be a promising approach for improving reading outcomes. The EEF continues to evaluate oral language approaches. 

Research Results

Evaluation Conclusions

1. The speaking and listening intervention had a moderate impact on overall reading ability but this was not statistically significant (although was on the border of being so).

2. The intervention had a significant impact on pupils’ ability in passage comprehension; an effect size of 0.25, equivalent to approximately 3 months of additional progress compared to control pupils.

3. The intervention had no significant impact on pupils’ ability to complete written sentences or accurately recall spoken sentences.

4. The reasonably fast pace of delivery and necessarily selective approach to the programme materials (given the time available) may have limited the intervention’s impact.