The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published findings from their independent evaluation of Peer Assisted Learning Strategies UK (PALS-UK), which is a programme delivered by academics at Nottingham Trent University and the University of Birmingham.
It aims to raise reading skills by developing pupils’ oral reading fluency, their reading comprehension, as well as their motivation to read. Pupils work in pairs to complete structured reading activities.
The independent evaluation of PALS-UK – led by Manchester Metropolitan University and funded through the Department for Education’s Accelerator Fund – involved 4,800 year 5 pupils across 114 schools, with half delivering the PALS-UK programme.
The analysis found that pupils in primary schools using the PALS-UK programme made, on average, two months’ additional progress in reading compared to pupils in the schools who did not. The EEF has given the findings a security rating of “moderate to high”, meaning there is “a good level of confidence in this result”.
PALS was originally developed by academics from Vanderbilt University and the new evaluation comes after previous evaluations conducted in a US context. The EEF said that it is exploring funding a larger trial of the programme.
Commenting on the findings, Emily Yeomans, co-chief executive of the EEF, said: “The PALS-UK evaluation shows incredible promise. Peer learning strategies have long been an important approach in teaching, with mixed results depending on the specific intervention. To see such an uplift in reading skills for pupils as part of this programme is incredibly exciting and this evaluation allows us to have confidence in this programme’s potential as a tool to boost reading levels in schools across England, skills that are vital to a young person’s overall education. Now our attention turns to building on this knowledge to better understand how this intervention could work in practice for schools on a larger scale.”
Dr Emma Vardy from Nottingham Trent University, who co-delivered the PALS-UK programme, added: “We have been developing PALS for the UK context for 10 years and we are thrilled to see the positive impact. Thank you to the schools, teachers and pupils who have helped shape PALS-UK to be a transformative programme for reading comprehension, oral reading fluency and reading cultures in primary schools. We are looking forward to the next steps for the programme.”
Professor Helen Breadmore from University of Birmingham, who also delivered the programme, continued: “Peer Assisted Learning Strategies are used widely in the US with reports of positive results on pupils’ reading skills. Most trials have been small up until this point, so our project and these findings are a massive step forward. We’re delighted that not only did teachers and pupils like this approach to paired reading, but it also had a real impact on their reading outcomes.”
- Download the full research findings via https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/pals-uk-accelerator-fund