This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A University of Alberta literacy expert has completed the largest reading intervention in Canadian history, tripling the rate of progress for most participants after just five months. Preliminary results show that about half of the children in the program require no further intervention.
The program was delivered to 1,000 struggling second-grade readers in five provinces, four times a week for 30 minutes each session. For about 80% of the participants, results demonstrate an improvement equal to a year and a half beyond what would be expected from normal maturation, says Dr. George Georgiou, a professor in the U of A's Faculty of Education.
"We had parents who said, 'I owe you my child's life—the progress is just fantastic,'" Georgiou says. One parent told him their child had become a voracious reader: "I have to sometimes tell my child to stop reading because we need to eat or go out—he is always with a book in his hands." Conducted in collaboration with Dr. Robert Savage of York University, the intervention was implemented in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.
In Alberta, 56 schools participated across seven school divisions, as well as a Suzuki charter school and one from Alexander First Nation. The program is focused on phonological awareness, phonics, irregular word reading and shared book reading. Georgiou has been tracking the reading performance of students in Alberta since 2008, when he introduced an intervention program of evidence-based teaching practices.
In 2022, he used his program to help a group of elementary students bounce back to pre-pandemic levels after their reading ability declined in the early days of COVID-19. Alberta Education also has recognized the need for strong reading intervention. In 2023, it provided more than $5 million to screen and provide intervention for students in kindergarten through third grade.
The provincial government recently announced it will expand literacy to fifth grade starting next September. The reasons some children struggle to read can be complicated and unclear, Georgiou says. About 5% to 10% have learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
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