South Africa's education system has been characterized by various curriculum changes since 1997 given that basic education is a priority of this government and policies have specifically been aimed at improving the overall standard of education in the country. Despite these curriculum changes, the findings of tests such as the Progress in…

The Summer Active Reading Programme aimed to improve reading skills and particularly comprehension by raising children's engagement in, and enjoyment of, reading at the transition from primary school to secondary school. The programme was delivered by Booktrust, an independent charity that aims to change lives through engaging people with reading.…

Children's reading skill development is influenced by availability of reading materials, reading habits and opportunity to read. Save the Children's Literacy Boost data have replicated this finding across numerous developing contexts. Meanwhile international large-scale reading assessments do not capture detail on current home literacy. The…

Literacy skills acquired during the first years of schooling have been recognised as the key to students' learning success. However, despite the continuing efforts by the New Zealand government and teachers there is still a large proportion of students who struggle to become literate. To address this issue the Ministry of Education funded selected…

For the past 15 years, the New Zealand government has initiated major efforts to reduce persistently large inequities in achievement outcomes in literacy education, including the development of a national literacy strategy. The aim of this study was to provide an analysis of the factors that have contributed to the failure of this strategy and…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a program that offered sustained strategic reading instruction on reading abilities of third and fourth graders. The study was conducted among 1,469 children from 40 schools in the Netherlands. Schools were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. Multilevel…