“Brooks’s What Works for literacy difficulties?” is a 247 report by Greg Brooks, Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Sheffield. In the sixth edition of this research report (Nov 2020) it reviews literacy intervention schemes that have been devised to help struggling readers and writers ages 5 to 18, and is intended to inform schools’ and other providers’ choices among such schemes. Over 50 literacy interventions are presented in the report, including some specifically for children with Special Educational Needs or dyslexia / SpLD, along with a summary of the evidence. More exactly, the report addresses the following questions:

What intervention schemes are there which have been used in the UK in an attempt to boost the reading, spelling or overall writing attainment of lower-achieving pupils between the ages of 5 and 18, and have been quantitatively evaluated here?

What are those schemes like, and how effective are they?