Project Outline

The Get Ready4Learning (GR4L) project was launched in September 2012 and finished in December 2015 (see figure with timeline for main intervention project (RCT) below).

Ten primary schools across Sheffield and Rotherham were involved in the project. Eight children with English as an Additional Language (EAL) and 8 children speaking English only were selected from each school to take part in the project based on their English language skills. These children were randomly allocated to either an intervention group or a waiting control group (see figure below). Children allocated to the intervention group received the 18-week GR4L programme in addition to the standard Reception curriculum (spring - summer 2013). The waiting control group received oral language intervention in Year 1 (winter 2013 – spring 2014). Schools were provided with the training, manuals and resources required to run the interventions. All children were assessed at regular intervals over the course of the project (t0 - t4) and were followed up one more time after the waiting control intervention had finished (t5; before Summer break).

Children’s language and literacy skills were assessed at each time point and a measure of nonverbal IQ was included in the pre-test battery of measures (t1). Our primary outcome measures were vocabulary knowledge, grammar, listening comprehension and narrative skills. Our secondary outcome measures were phonological awareness and literacy skills.

Language Skills

Vocabulary knowledge, or knowledge of word meanings, was tested using a picture naming task (Expressive Vocabulary). Children also completed a task in which children had to answer a question by describing what they saw in a picture i.e. “what has happened to the dog?; what has the cat just done?” (Action Picture Test - Information score).Children’s knowledge of the words taught in the intervention was assessed using both a picture naming task (Taught Vocabulary - Naming) and a task in which children were asked to give definitions for 18 of the taught words (Definitions Task). Children’s knowledge of grammar was measured using two tasks. In the Sentence Structure test children listened to a sentence and were asked to choose one of four pictures which goes with the sentence they heard. Their responses on the Action Picture Test were also scored according to the grammatical structure of their answer (Action Picture Test - Grammar score).To measure Listening Comprehension children listened to a short story and answered a set of 8 comprehension questions. Children were given a story retelling task in which they were told a story accompanied by pictures and were asked to retell the story in their own words (Narrative Production). They were asked questions about the story to gain a Narrative Comprehension score and completed a Comprehension Monitoring task in which they were asked to spot points in the story that did not make sense.

Phonological Skills

Children’s phonological awareness (the ability to reflect on and manipulate the sound structure of spoken language) was measured using sound isolation, sound blending and sound deletion tasks. A Nonword Repetition task was used to measure children’s phonological processing ability at the beginning of the intervention. Children simply heard nonsense words and were asked to repeat them back to the tester (e.g. shameen, nanarba).

Literacy Skills

To measure Letter-Sound Knowledge children were shown a set of printed letters and asked to produce the sound of each letter. Children completed a standardised version of this task and they were also asked to name the specific letters taught during the intervention. Children’s single word reading ability was assessed using the Early Word Recognition test in which they were asked to read 15 regular and 15 irregular words. To measure Reading Comprehension children were asked to read two short stories and answer 8 questions about each story. Spelling was measured by giving children pictures to name and spell.

Nonverbal IQ was measured using the Block Design test in which children arrange blocks to match a picture.