None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
A number of studies have examined the impact of the MiniLit program on the reading ability of students participating in the program. Although these previous studies have shown promising benefits in terms of effect sizes on children’s reading (d = 1.1 to 1.8), results are derived from differences between pre- and post-training scores. In addition, there has been limited efficacy and effectiveness studies that compare children who complete MiniLit to those who receive “business as usual” classroom teaching or alternative RTI Tier 2 interventions. The current evidence for MiniLit consists of studies performed by the developer, including a small within-school, wait-list randomised controlled trial of the MiniLit program demonstrating its positive impact (5-8). Therefore, these promising findings now need to be evaluated in a large scale RCT to determine the impact of the program on student outcomes when scaled to system-level implementation. In addition, it is important to evaluate the process indicators that can predict the outcomes of the intervention, as well as the implementation cost-benefit. The overarching question of this project is whether the MiniLit intervention, offered to Year 1 students identified as being in the bottom 25% of readers, improves student reading and literacy outcomes 12 months post-randomisation? The primary research aim of this project is: 1To determine, for Year 1 students in the bottom 25% of readers, whether students who receive MiniLit have better reading outcomes at 12 months post-randomisation, compared to those who have usual classroom teaching We therefore hypothesise that students who receive the MiniLit intervention will have better mean reading ability scores on the Australian Edition of the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension - Passage Reading (YARC – PR) at 12 months post-randomisation, compared to students who receive ‘business as usual’. The secondary aims are: 1. To determine student reading outcomes in both intervention and control groups 6 months (short term) post-randomisation. 2. To determine the proportion of students with ‘low reading ability’ in both intervention and control (‘business as usual’) groups at 6 and 12 months post-randomisation 3. To determine the implementation enablers and barriers that are predictive of program success and sustainability 4. To determine the cost per student, and cost-effectiveness of the intervention
Interventions
MiniLit Intervention (http://www.multilit.com/programs/minilit-program/). It is classified as a Tier 2 intervention according to the Response To Intervention framework.
The reading intervention involves up to 80 unique lessons delivered by a trained intervention deliverer in face-to-face groups of up to 4 students. The intervention is delivered during school hours, on school property. The intervention deliverer is required to attend a 2-day training session and to have completed at least high s
MiniLit Intervention (http://www.multilit.com/programs/minilit-program/). It is classified as a Tier 2 intervention according to the Response To Intervention framework. The reading intervention involves up to 80 unique lessons delivered by a trained intervention deliverer in face-to-face groups of up to 4 students. The intervention is delivered during school hours, on school property. The intervention deliverer is required to attend a 2-day training session and to have completed at least high school. The starting point for each group is determined by a pre-assessment that assesses the child's reading ability, matched to the content and difficulty of the unique lessons. The program takes around 20 weeks to complete, with four lessons of up to 60 minutes per week, and includes regular curriculum-based measures to monitor the progress of the students. Each lesson comprises three main components: 1. Sounds and Words Activities 2. Text Reading 3. Story Book Reading The resources required as part of the MiniLit intervention, are: 1. Introductory DVD (11 mins) 2. Teacher manual (78 pages) 3. Handbook (four handbooks covering 4 x 20 lessons, 1050 pages) 4. Sounds and words books (five copies of 78 pages each) 5. Presentation cards (7 different types, totalling 900 cards) 6. Student workbooks (2 x five copies of 84 pages each. Note: separate booklets are required for each student undertaking the program. 7. Testing and lesson records (2 x one copy of 88 page) Program fidelity will be measured as part of the process evaluation by the research team. This will include the number of unique lessons completed, length of each lesson, number of lessons repeated as well as start and end lesson. This will be collected by examining the lesson plans of the MiniLit intervention deliverers.
Sponsors
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
6 Years to 7 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Being in the bottom 25th percentile of readers at the start of Year 1 of primary school. Defined using the Wheldall Assessment of Reading Lists and it's published cut points.
Exclusion criteria
Students with severe disabilities (e.g. cerebal palsy, vision/hearing impairments) that do not allow them to participate in the intervention. Students with Language Background Other Than English (LBOTE) whose English Language abilities does not allow them to participate in the intervention.
Outcome results
None listed