Evaluation of Unitas: TextNow Transition Programme

INTERVENTION: Children in the intervention group will receive the TextNow Transition Programme, which includes the following two elements: 1. A literacy programme with mentor led 1:1 coaching sessions occurring 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week. This will occur at two time points: Year six of primary school (for five weeks); and at the beginning of the first year of secondary school (for ten weeks). Mentors usually are: teachers; teaching assistants; non‐teaching staff such as technicians or admin staff; parents; university students; community volunteers; or older year group pupils (usually Years 10‐13). Schools are free to timetable the sessions whenever suits them best. This could be achieved through withdrawal from lessons, during registration/tutor periods or in break/lunchtime/after school. 2. Access to the online resource ?MyChoice? will be made available to the intervention group pupils during the transition summer holidays. ?MyChoice? aims to support the pupils? independent reading. The website has news, quizzes, competitions etc., to engage the young people in fun activities to do with reading, as well as giving them access to a book store. They will have been given credits to choose books for summer holiday reading, at the beginning of the pilot and will earn credits during the five week programme in Year 6 and the ten week programme in Year 7 through their attendance. These credits can be used to buy books for reading at home and to build their own personal library. The role of the mentor is to support the three TextNow core principals of 'choose, enjoy and understand'. This could include discussion about what the child has been reading, what they enjoy reading as well as what the mentor has read. It would also involve shared reading, questioning for comprehension, practice of strategies such as skimming and scanning. Other suggested activities are visual and kinesthetic activities such as storyboarding or role‐playing. Schools delivering the programme will desi CONDITION: Improving reading outcomes ; Not Applicable PRIMARY OUTCOME: 1. Increases in assessed literacy ability. The New Group reading test will be used as a post‐test reading ability measure. http://www.gl‐assessment.co.uk/products/new‐group‐reading‐test; 2. KS2 results (standardised national school literacy assessment) will act as a pre‐test measure. SECONDARY OUTCOME: Improvement in reading attitudes ‐ Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS ? Readers and Reading: the National Report for England 2006 ?see appendix 7?) will be used as a post‐test literacy attitudes measure (reading for pleasure). KS2 results (standardised national school literacy assessment) will act as a pre‐test measure. INCLUSION CRITERIA: 1. Year 6 primary pupils making the transition to the 30 secondary schools 2. Only pupils identified not likely to achieve level 4, or likely to achieve a fragile level (4b or 4c), in English by the end of KS2 (by teacher assessment), as KS2 data will not be available before the project is implemented.