Targeted Oral Language Intervention: Lasting Gains in Language and Reading Skills

This article was featured in the BSME Newsletter 2024-25 | Edition 3

Latest research shows lasting improvements in children’s language and reading skills.

Oral language is the heart of literacy and learning. It is fundamental to a child’s educational journey, serving as the foundation for reading, comprehension, communication, and social interaction.

Students need to understand and be understood to thrive. Yet despite significant attention given to phonics and literacy in schools, more generally oral language often remains overlooked.

Evidence-based interventions that focus on enhancing vocabulary, narrative skills, and active listening are effective at closing the language gap and have been shown to be a low-cost, high-impact solution for schools.

Research recently published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry takes this further, showing that students who received oral language intervention via the NELI Programme, from OxEd and Assessments, had lasting improvements in language and reading. This peer-reviewed research showed that when tested two years after receiving the intervention, students were found to have better language skills, reading comprehension and single-word reading than the control group.

Fade-out effects, or the reduction in effect size associated with an particular intervention as time progresses, are a common concern with many educational interventions. This study determined that lasting improvements in language and literacy skills can be achieved with early intervention.

For more information and to read the full research paper, visit the OxEd website