Findings of a school based study to understand the efficacy of Sounds English Phonics
St John's Green Primary School, Essex
A year’s improvement in reading age in just twenty school days.
A study was conducted by Zaprendo in St John’s Green School, Essex, United Kingdom with a sample size of 61 children in Grade 3, aged between 8-9 years old for a 30 day period commencing the 11th of April, 2016. The University of Surrey analysed and reviewed the data.
One group used Sounds English Phonics in the classroom during the school day and were scheduled to spend 15 minutes a day using the app over 20 school days (a 30-day period), within their scheduled standard literacy class.
A control group did not use Sounds English Phonics but continued with their regular literacy activities. Both groups were tested at the beginning of the study and at the end of the study using the BURT reading age test. Students in the Sounds English Phonics group were also tested for retention one month after the end of the study.
The University of Surrey calculated that Sounds English Phonics was 2.8 times more effective at improving reading than the standard programme within the study period of 30 days.
Not only did the majority of students using Sounds English Phonics gain more than a year in reading age, but the average gain amongst this test group was also 11 months within a 20 school day period. Every student in the test group improved their reading age.
Additionally, 42% of children in the test group learnt all 92 written sounds within 15 school days and 100% learnt all 92 in 20 school days.
By comparison, in the control group, only 3% of children improved by more than one year in reading age, the mean gain was just four months and 17% of children failed to register improvement.
Sounds English Phonics improved the test group children’s reading age by a significantly higher number of months than the control group.
This improvement for the Sounds English Phonics class was recorded for all boys and girls, including Special Educational Needs (SEN), Phonological Processing Disorder (PP) and English as an Additional Language (EAL) students.
