The Press Association published an article focusing on the results of the latest complete projects from Sutton Trust’s sister charity, The Education Endowment Foundation.

An online programme that recommends books to children based on their ability and interests can boost a youngster’s reading age by an extra three months, research has found.

It suggests that the scheme can benefit poorer pupils the most, improving their reading age by almost half a year.

The Accelerated Reader initiative involved 349 pupils in the first year of secondary school who had not achieved a Level 4 – the expected standard – in their English national curriculum tests at the end of primary school.

The internet-based programme screened the youngsters taking part according to their reading ability and then suggested books that matched their reading age and their interests. Pupils took computerised quizzes on the books they read and earned points according to difficulty.

The results of the trial, published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), found that pupils’ reading age increased by an additional three months in just 22 weeks.

Read the full article here.

View the latest EEF reports here.

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