The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has awarded the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), in partnership with the IFS, a contract to independently evaluate the national roll out of the Every Child a Reader Programme (ECaR). The ECaR programme is a package of early literacy interventions being implemented in primary schools aimed at children aged 5 and 6 who are struggling to learn to read. The EcaR package includes "Reading Recovery", which is an intensive intervention providing daily one-to-one reading classes by specially trained Reading Recovery teachers to children with the greatest literacy problems.

The evaluation as a whole aims to assess how well the programme is being delivered, the level of impact it has on pupils, and its value for money. IFS is involved in two main elements of this evaluation. First is the impact study, where we will lead the work using national administrative data to establish the impact of the ECaR package as a whole, and wherever possible its constituent elements, on school and pupil outcomes. The primary outcome of interest will be Key Stage 1 reading and writing attainment, but we will also consider impacts on other outcomes observable in the administrative data such as SEN statements. We are also responsible for the value for money strand of the evaluation. Here we will undertake a quantitative cost benefit analysis aiming to compare how any potential long-run benefits compare to the costs of the programme. The value for money element will be an especially important part of the evaluation as a whole, since this is a particularly intensive intervention requiring investment of a considerable up-front cost in the anticipation of large long-run returns.