BackgroundOral language skills provide the foundation for formal education, and children may require language support over an extended period of time to maximise their education potential. Most work on language intervention, however, has focussed on the preschool or early school years. Here, we describe the development and evaluation of the Oral Language for Literacy Intervention (OLLI) programme which is designed to support children with weak language skills in the later primary school years.MethodsWe conducted a randomised control trial in 33 schools (50 classrooms). The language skills of all 8–9 year‐old children in each participating classroom (n = 1,423) were assessed using an automated app (LanguageScreen). The six children with the weakest LanguageScreen scores within each classroom (n = 296) were randomly allocated to the intervention (n = 148) or control group (n = 148). The children in the intervention group received the OLLI programme delivered in individual and small group sessions over 20 weeks. Children in the control group received their typical teaching.ResultsChildren receiving the OLLI programme made significantly larger gains than children in the control group on a preregistered latent variable reflecting standardised measures of oral language ability (d = 0.38) and on a measure of their written expression (d = 0.42).ConclusionsThese findings have important implications for improving educational attainment in children in the late primary school years. The OLLI programme is designed to be deliverable at scale and is of relatively low cost.

中文翻译：

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小学后期的口语干预是有效的：来自随机对照试验的证据


背景口语技能为正规教育奠定了基础，儿童可能需要长时间的语言支持，以最大限度地发挥他们的教育潜力。然而，大多数关于语言干预的工作都集中在学龄前或学龄前阶段。在这里，我们描述了口语促进识字干预 （OLLI） 计划的开发和评估，该计划旨在支持小学后期语言技能较弱的儿童。方法我们在 33 所学校（50 个教室）进行了一项随机对照试验。使用自动化应用程序 （LanguageScreen） 评估每个参与课堂中所有 8-9 岁儿童 （n = 1,423） 的语言技能。每个教室中 LanguageScreen 分数最弱的 6 名儿童 （n = 296） 被随机分配到干预组 （n = 148） 或对照组 （n = 148）。干预组的儿童在 20 周内接受了以个人和小组形式提供的 OLLI 计划。对照组的孩子接受了他们的典型教学。结果接受 OLLI 计划的儿童在反映口语能力标准化测量的预先注册的潜在变量 （d = 0.38） 和他们的书面表达测量 （d = 0.42） 上比对照组儿童获得显着更大的收益。结论这些发现对提高小学后期儿童的教育程度具有重要意义。OLLI 计划旨在大规模交付，并且成本相对较低。