Abracadabra (ABRA): Online Reading Support
Funder
Education Endowment Foundation
Total value of project
£643,467
Project team
Dr Janet Vousden (PI), Professor Clare Wood, Dr Helen Johnson
Collaborators
London School of Economics, York Trials Unit
Duration of project
01/01/2013 - 01/01/2015
Project overview
Abracadabra (ABRA) is an online toolkit composed of phonics, fluency and comprehension activities based around a series of age-appropriate texts. The trial assessed a 20 week programme of lesson plans using the ABRA activities (referred to here as the ICT programme). The trial also assessed the impact of an offline, paper version of the same programme (referred to here at the non-ICT programme).
The study was funded by the Education Endowment Foundation and Nominet Trust as part of a funding round focusing on the use of digital technology to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children.
Project objectives
The EEF tested the ABRA online activities in a programme of 20 weeks of lesson plans, a small group literacy programme that is administered by specially trained teaching assistants and takes a balanced approach to teaching literacy involving both phonics and reading comprehension. They funded the project because it takes an evidence-based approach to literacy, and because the ABRA software is free, meaning that ongoing costs to schools would be low after the initial training for Teaching Assistants.
