Plain English Summary
Background and study aims
The study evaluates the effectiveness of the Raising Early Achievement in Literacy (REAL) programme. It is an intervention that seeks to support children’s early literacy and language by working with parents and practitioners to improve children’s home learning environment. REAL is a programme originally developed and delivered by the University of Sheffield. The programme trains practitioners (such as nursery staff) to support children and families, conduct home visits and provide events to improve children’s home learning environment and literacy
What does the study involve?
Children will be randomly allocated to one of two groups. In the intervention group, families will receive visits of Early Year practitioners who will advise them on developing a home learning environment. Children in the control group, will continue using current best practice.
All children will take a literacy test at the start and end of the school year. We will compare levels of literacy attainment for the treatment and control group
What are the possible benefits and risks of participating?
REAL is designed to improve literacy attainment for early years children. There are no potential risks
Where is the study run from?
National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) (UK)
When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for?
The study started in March 2019 and will finish in October 2021
Who is funding the study?
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (UK)
Who is the main contact?
More information can be found at:
Home learning environment support to improve early literacy skills of 3- to 5-year-old children: A randomised controlled efficacy trial of the REAL programme
1. The REAL programme would improve children's home learning environment
2. The REAL programme would raise children's early literacy skills
3. The REAL programme would improve children's emergent writing skills
Approval pending, NatCen Ethics Review Committee (35 Northampton Square, London EC1V 0AX; +44 (0)207 250 1866; firstname.lastname@example.org), ref: n/a
Two-arm multi-site child-level randomised controlled efficacy trial
Primary study design
Secondary study design
Randomised controlled trial
Patient information sheet
Not available in web format, please use contact details to request a participant information sheet
This is a two-arm multi-site child-level randomised controlled efficacy trial of REAL on the early literacy development of children aged 3 to 5 years old. Nurseries agreeing to participate in the trial will identify 8 to 16 children eligible to receive the intervention. Within each participating nursery, families of eligible children that agree to participate in the trial will be allocated to one of the two groups using blocked randomisation by nursery. The allocation ratio between treatment and control within each nursery will be a 1:1 ratio. Analysts will be blinded to the identity of nurseries and families at the time of randomisation. Early Years assessors will be blinded to treatment allocation when administering the assessment.
The intervention is the Raising Early Achievement in Literacy (REAL) programme, which has been designed by the National Children's Bureau (NCB). The programme aims to help practitioners (usually nursery teacher or reception teachers) to build parents' knowledge and confidence in creating a home learning environment that supports and encourages their children's early literacy and development.
At each nursery setting, practitioners will identify 8-16 children who they think will benefit from the intervention. Of these, around eight children and their parents/carers at each setting will be selected at random to receive the intervention. The families of children in the control group will receive a business as usual approach to teaching literacy. The intervention group will receive at least eight home visits from a trained practitioners. Practitioners have the option to conduct an additional two visits up to a maximum of 10 home visits. Each visit lasts up to one hour.
The REAL Programme will be delivered over four school terms, starting when the children are in the Spring term of the nursery year and concluding when they are in the Spring term of Reception year at primary school. The practitioner will continue to conduct home visits with families during the Reception year as part of the intervention, unless the child moves to another school outside of the local area.
Primary outcome measure
Early literacy development as measured by the Preschool Early Literacy Indicators (PELI) assessment. To be collected at baseline (Sept-Oct 2019) and endline (Feb-March 2021)
Secondary outcome measures
1. Emergent writing skills measured by the Sheffield Early Literacy Development Profile (SELDP)
2. Children's home learning environment measured by a 12-item instrument proposed by Niklas et al (2014)
Both to be collected at baseline (Sept-Oct 2019), and endline (Feb-March 2021)
Overall trial start date
Overall trial end date
Reason abandoned (if study stopped)
Participant inclusion criteria
The following eligibility criteria apply to nurseries:
1. Type of nursery: Only school-based nurseries will be eligible to take part.
2. Prior REAL involvement: nurseries and practitioners should not have any prior exposure to The REAL programme.
3. Availability: the school’s Early Years coordinator, in conjunction with the school headteacher, will identify one practitioner to undertake training and be able to commit a half day per week to focus on programme delivery (should the nursery be assigned to receive the intervention). All nurseries also need to have identified a key point of contact to support evaluation activities.
The following eligibility criteria apply to children:
1. Aged 3-4 in August 2019.
2. Children needing additional support in early literacy based on practitioners' prior knowledge of the child and of the child’s parent(s)/carers.
Practitioners will be asked to keep a record of the criteria they use to identify eligible children. After this information is collected, nurseries’ response patterns will be analysed.
Target number of participants
The proposed target recruitment sample is 62 nurseries with 16 children per nursery. A maximum of 992 children will engage in the trial across all nurseries
Participant exclusion criteria
Does not meet inclusion criteria
Recruitment start date
Recruitment end date
Countries of recruitment
Trial participating centre
NatCen Social Research
35 Northampton Square
Education Endowment Foundation
Funding Body Type
private sector organisation
Funding Body Subtype
Trusts, charities, foundations (both publically funded and privately funded)
Results and Publications
Publication and dissemination plan
A protocol will be published on the Education Endowment Foundation website in Autumn 2019 (https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/the-real-programme/). A Statistical Analysis Plan will be published on the same website in Spring 2020. A final report will be published in Autumn 2021.
IPD sharing statement:
The datasets analysed in this study will be stored in a non-publicly available repository; the Fischer Family Trust (FFT) archive (https://fft.org.uk/). The dataset will be at individual level (i.e. one row per pupil), including information on the treatment they receive and the outcomes of testing (at baseline and follow-up). Data will be obtained and held under the legal basis of legitimate interests with individuals able to express objections to data processing until the data is archived. The data will be archived for an indefinite period for archiving, historical or scientific research purposes, with access criteria determined by the Fischer Family Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). Data will be available in a pseudo-anonymised format so that future analysis incorporating data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) could be facilitated
Intention to publish date
Participant level data
Stored in repository
Basic results (scientific)