Research School Network: Literacy Interventions Part 2: Delivering Interventions Implementing any intervention requires a set of key features, and each must be considered in turn.

Recommendation 7 from the EEF’s Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 guidance report is as follows:Use high-quality structured interventions to help pupils who are struggling with their literacy.

From this seemingly straightforward recommendation, a series of questions arise:

How do I know which programme to choose?
What is the best way to implement a programme?
Who should deliver any interventions?

In this series of blogs, we are going to attempt to answer these questions. Last time around, we looked at the first question. This time we look at how we should implement a programme.

While there are some specifics to literacy interventions that must be considered, implementing any intervention requires a set of key features, and each must be considered in turn. An implementation plan should be put in place and it should be treated as a process, not just as an event.

Context

According to the EEF’s A School’s Guide to Implementation, the success of any intervention is dependent on the foundations it is built on. It needs leaders who ​“actively support and manage the overall planning, resourcing, delivery, monitoring, and refinement of an implementation process”. It needs ​“an organisational climate that is conducive to change”. Without these, a good intervention may struggle to have any impact and will certainly not be sustainable. 

When we want instant fixes from literacy interventions, it can be hard to accept that building a culture for effective implementation can take some time. However, the number of literacy interventions that have been launched and then forgotten in schools is huge – we can mitigate some of the problems with implementation by creating and developing an appropriate school climate, one where literacy interventions take place as part of a well-designed approach to literacy.

Active Ingredients

When we have chosen our intervention, it is important to define the ​‘active ingredients’ of an implementation. These are the non-negotiables that must take place. By defining the key principles and sharing them widely from the outset, it is more likely that the intervention will be carried out with fidelity. It’s particularly important when buying a packaged intervention or mirroring something that has seen to be successful elsewhere. Changing context, scaling up and scaling down all require a fresh look at the active ingredients.

For example, in the evaluation of Chatterbooks, an ​‘extracurricular reading initiative that aims to increase a child’s motivation to read by providing schools with tools and resources to encourage reading for pleasure.’, it was noted that the flexibility of the original programme was an important component which necessarily had to be changed for a more formal evaluation process. In changing this ​‘active ingredient’, the program became something different.

The communication of active ingredients is important if you want the intervention to take place as intended. Without clarification, each person involved in an intervention may have their own understanding of it and approach it differently. There will be problems with sustainability beyond the initial launch.

Delivery

The initial stages of implementation are some of its most challenging. There are some foreseeable challenges, such as staff ​‘buy-in’ – clear and achievable short-term ​‘wins’ are worth planning for and capturing when the longer term benefits are harder to see. Staff turnover is a often a problem which should be planned for by making sure that the implementation is not reliant on one member of staff and that CPD and support is in place for new staff. 

Other issues may be more focused on the chosen intervention. A programme like Accelerated Reader, for example, requires a number of things which may lead to problems in delivery if not planned for: dedicated time on the timetable which may be lost; access to computers and the associated IT issues that may come; a well-stocked library with appropriate books.

There should be up-front training, supported by further training as the intervention progresses. It is often only once delivery has started that some of the opportunities for development are identified. It’s also important to have an opportunity to improve and adapt the intervention. In this evaluation report on the Perry Beeches coaching programme, which aimed to improve pupils’ reading and writing, we can see that further training was recommended by the graduate participants, which may not have been foreseen: 

It’s important that changes take into account the active ingredients. These need to remain clear so any changes should really only happen once these are fully understood so that the fidelity of the intervention remains, even when some aspects of the structure have been changed.

Sustain

So many good interventions rarely last beyond the ​‘event’ or beyond the member of staff in role, so we must plan for sustainability. If we get the other steps right, sustainability is more likely, but in some ways the sustainability of an intervention is like a new process.

We have to prepare for a change of staff. Many successful implementations are spearheaded by someone in a position to deliver it. When they leave, they take the expertise, contacts, drive and materials with them. So, plan for this. Make sure that materials are clear and specify active ingredients. Make sure that the successful running of the program does not rely on one person either and that another member of staff (at least) has a full understanding of the intervention. Other key staff will leave and others will join, so training needs to continue, especially if an increasing number of participants have not taken part in the original training.

Ask whether the intervention is appropriate now. Just as we explored the needs of the context at the start, we should ask if the context has changed. Just because comprehension was an issue with year 7 three years ago does not mean that it is the same issue with a different group of students.