“Literacy Lift-Off”: an experimental evaluation of a reading recovery programme on literacy skills and reading self-concept

Worldwide, considerable emphasis is currently being placed on the provision of appropriate classroom-based preventative interventions and in-class literacy support, in preference to withdrawal methods of educational support. Many schools in Ireland are currently implementing Literacy Lift-Off in their classrooms. Literacy Lift-Off is an adaption of the well-known Reading Recovery programme. The current study aims to establish whether Literacy Lift-Off improves students’ literacy skills. It further seeks to determine what impact Literacy Lift-Off has on students’ reading self-concept levels. Ninety-two students aged between five years and six years six months (52 boys, 40 girls) attending four Senior Infant classes were recruited for this study. Two class groups were randomly chosen to act as an intervention cohort (n = 47) and two class groups were randomly chosen to act as a wait-list control cohort (n = 45). This experimental study evaluated the Literacy Lift-Off intervention on students’ letter identification, word attack skills, word reading, and reading self-concept beliefs. Intervention students were compared with control students who did not receive the Literacy Lift-Off intervention at pre-test and post-test levels. Results showed that while both groups showed significant change on all dependent variables from pre-intervention to post-intervention, those in the experimental group showed significantly more improvement on word attack skills, word reading and reading self-concept beliefs. This study showed that a whole-class reading recovery programme can be effective in improving literacy skills and reading self-concept.