Peer Assisted Learning Strategies UK (PALS-UK) is a whole-class, structured peer tutoring intervention aiming to improve reading comprehension, oral reading fluency and overall reading attainment of pupils in Key Stage 2. Teachers receive one day of initial training and a half-day of top up training, after which they support pupils to participate in PALS-UK sessions for 30 – 35 minutes three times a week for 20 weeks. Pupils are paired and take part in four activities in each session: partner reading, re-tell, paragraph shrinking and prediction relay.
The PALS approach has been extensively implemented in the United States, with a number of studies reporting positive impacts. There is also wider evidence that some of the approaches used in PALS-UK, including peer tutoring and the explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies, can be effective for improving children’s attainment. The EEF previously commissioned a trial of PALS-UK, but the evaluation was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, this second trial was commissioned as part of the Department for Education’s Accelerator Fund, to provide more robust evidence of the impact of PALS in the UK context.
The evaluation found that children in PALS-UK schools made the equivalent of 2 months additional progress in reading, on average, compared to children in control schools. This result has a moderate to high security rating. There were also positive effects on children’s reading comprehension and on one of the two measures of oral reading fluency used in this evaluation. There was no evidence of an effect on the other measure of oral reading fluency or on children’s reading self-efficacy (confidence in their own reading abilities). There was weak evidence that the programme may have a small positive impact on children’s motivation to read.
Pupils eligible for free school meals made the equivalent of 1 months additional progress in reading, on average, compared to children eligible for FSM in the controls schools. This result is less secure than the findings based on all children in PALS-UK schools, and further analysis suggests that the impact of PALS-UK on children eligible for FSM was very similar to the impact for other children. There was tentative evidence that the impact of the programme may have been greater for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) than for other children, on average. However, some pupils with SEND who had lower reading levels were unable to engage with the programme and the assessments used for the evaluation.
Overall, these results suggest that PALS-UK can have a positive impact on children’s reading attainment. The EEF will explore the feasibility of conducting further research to test the impact of this programme in a larger number of schools through an effectiveness trial.