Greg Brooks

The University of Sheffield | Sheffield

The report of the European Union High Level Group of Experts on Literacy presents a clear statement of their vision for the future of literacy in our continent. The first part of the statement is: ‘All citizens of Europe shall be literate, so as to achieve their aspirations as individuals, family members, workers and citizens.’ How is this vision t...

The project explored the amount of progression from adult literacy, language (= ESOL) and numeracy (ALLN) Skills for Life provision which did not count towards the national qualification targets to provision which did count towards those targets. The project aimed to provide both some quantitative facts about the amount of such progression, and som...

This article draws together the existing evidence which indicates that young offenders coming to the attention of the criminal justice system are very much below national reading levels. It then reviews the effectiveness of initiatives designed to improve the literacy skills of this group. The article then presents the results of an evaluation of T...

Background: Incentives have been proposed as a method to improve attendance in adult literacy classes. In the UK, several areas have piloted the use of incentives to promote attendance at adult literacy classes. To date no rigorous evaluation of this policy has been undertaken. This paper describes (as far as we are aware) the only UK‐based randomi...

Colleges and universities that provide both further and higher education are a key component of government policies to expand participation in English undergraduate education. The opportunities for access and progression made available by these organisations are regarded as central. At the same time, the division of further and higher education int...

This article presents the findings of the Birth to School Study (BTSS) a longitudinal evaluation of the Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP); a family‐focused intervention aimed at promoting early literacy, numeracy and self‐esteem in a community at risk of educational underachievement. The main aim of the study was to investigate the effects o...

BACKGROUND: computer software is widely used to support literacy learning. There are few randomised trials to support its effectiveness. Therefore, there is an urgent need to rigorously evaluate computer software that supports literacy learning. METHODS: we undertook a pragmatic randomised controlled trial among pupils aged 11-12 within a sin...

Recent research shows that deaf children's reading achievement is poor. It is suggested that the reason for this is their lack of an adequate‘first language’, and some support for this idea is found in recent American studies of early manual communication. A recent theory that the deaf have access to a‘phonological’ code is examined and rejected. F...

This paper reports a systematic review of the quasi-experimental literature in the field of adult literacy and numeracy, published between 1980 and 2002. We included 27 controlled trials (CTs) that evaluated strategies and pedagogies designed to increase adult literacy and numeracy: 18 CTs with no effect sizes (incomplete data) and 9 CTs with full...

1. Introduction: Children of the Digital Age Part 1: Changing Childhood Cultures 2. New textual landscapes, information and early literacy 3. Ritual, performance and identity construction: Young children's engagement with popular cultural and media texts 4. Veronica: An asset model of becoming literate 5. Bilingual children's uses of popular cultur...

This paper reports a systematic review of the trial literature in the field of adult literacy and numeracy. The review was undertaken to investigate the effectiveness of teaching strategies and pedagogies designed to increase adult literacy and numeracy. The objectives were to search for and locate, synthesise and quality appraise all the randomise...

The Boots Books for Babies project was a partnership between The Boots Company, Nottingham City Council, Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottinghamshire Health Visitors.The project’s stated aims were to deliver book packs to the parents or carers of babies attending hearing checks at local health centres, via the health visitor, usually at aroun...

Despite criticisms, interest in the results of international literacy surveys continues, and three such surveys have taken place in the last three years. This paper is an attempt to show just a few of the lessons that can be learnt from the results of such surveys, using data from Britain as illustrations.

Research on adult basic skills in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the English-speaking world was reviewed. The review focused on the following aspects of adult basic skills education: the scale of need and impact of poor basic skills; learner characteristics; motivation, attendance, dropping out, and progression; provision and programs; tutors...

The progress made by adults in dedicated mainstream basic skills provision in England and Wales and factors associated with students' progress were examined. Of the 2,135 students from 71 colleges of further education and local education authorities who took the reading pretest, 1,224 (57%) took the reading posttest. Writing scripts were received f...

Greg Brooks outlines the results of a significant piece of research undertaken by the National Foundation for Educational Research on schemes for promoting skills among ‘slow readers’. The findings will provide little comfort for the ‘phonological awareness only’ school of thought. He confirms the view most teachers would support that phonological...

This book presents 5 working papers which were produced in the course of a study undertaken in 1991 to obtain information on how the 92 universities, polytechnics and colleges in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland which offer initial teacher training courses prepare students to teach reading in primary and secondary schools. The five papers are:...