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RILL Whole Class - information for parents and carers

What is the purpose of the study? 

This study is part of the work of CAL:ON Cymru, a national centre designed to improve children’s literacy based at Bangor University and funded by the Welsh Government. 

 

Many children in Wales, as in other countries, find reading and writing difficult. To help address this, researchers at Bangor University have developed the RILL Whole Class programme in collaboration with teachers. 

 

The programme provides a 20-week series of lessons to help children in Years 3 and 4 develop key reading and writing skills. It is available in both Welsh and English.

 

The RILL Whole Class Programme is delivered by teachers or teaching assistants as part of normal classroom teaching. It includes four short lessons per week (totalling up to 90 minutes) and is designed to be fun and engaging. 

 

Each session includes activities focused on: 

  1. Words and a story of the day
  2. Sound games
  3. Reading and Spelling games
  4. Narrative (story writing) 

 

These activities help children build the essential skills for reading and writing success, such as: 

  • Recognising letters and sounds
  • Understanding spelling patterns
  • Building vocabulary
  • Developing spoken language and storytelling 

 

All lessons are completed in class with their usual teacher or TA—no extra work is required at home.

All Year 3 and 4 pupils will take part in short literacy and language assessments before and after the RILL lessons. These are done using the ReadingScreen and LanguageScreen apps (developed by OxEd & Assessment). 

Half of the schools taking part in this study will start the RILL programme straight away. The other schools will continue with the usual curriculum for the same period and will receive the RILL programme after the first group has finished. 

This approach allows the research team to compare progress between the two school groups (classes) and find out how effective RILL is in supporting literacy development. 

Researchers will check in with the schools and attend online or in-person sessions periodically to ensure fidelity of the programme and gain feedback. 

 

  • Opportunities to take part in structured, engaging literacy activities
  • Additional practice in areas such as reading, writing, spelling, and storytelling
  • Activities designed to support the development of early literacy and language skills
  • A chance to participate in a programme that schools and educators have found promising

 

Assessments are short, child-friendly activities carried out by school staff using a tablet or computer. They assess language skills and reading skills. 

At the end of the programme, the research team will provide the school with a summary report showing overall progress across the class. This report will not include any individual pupil results. 

 

Please note: these assessments are not diagnostic and will not be used to label or identify literacy difficulties. 

 

Confidentiality and data protection 

  • Your child’s information will be kept strictly confidential.
  • All data will be anonymised (names removed and replaced with codes).
  • Data will be stored securely on Bangor University’s password-protected network.
  • Only the RILL research team will have access to the data.
  • Occasionally, authorised Bangor University staff may check the data for auditing purposes.
  • An anonymised version of the results may be shared in a secure research database so that other scientists can confirm the findings—but no one will be able to identify individual children. 

 

GDPR Statement The Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulations allow individuals control over their personal data and how it is used. Under GDPR, Bangor University is the data controller for personal data collected and processed for this study. The lawful basis for data collection is ‘public task’. Further information about individuals’ rights is available here: https://www.bangor.ac.uk/governance-and-compliance/dataprotection/index.php.en 

 

Withdrawing from the study 

  • Your child’s school has agreed to use RILL whole class as part of its usual classroom activity and literacy strategy.
  • However, you may withdraw your child from the research component of RILL Whole Class. This means that we would not measure their reading ability before and after the programme.
  • If you decide to withdraw your child after data collection has taken place, you may do so up until the point at which the data is anonymised. 

 

Funding and ethical approval 

This study is conducted by Prof. Manon Jones and her team at Bangor University and is funded by the Welsh Government. 

It has been approved by Bangor University Research Ethics Committee (Project ID: ID prosiect: 2026-1211-3).

 

If you have any general queries about CAL:ON or its projects: 

Email: calonysgol@bangor.ac.uk 

 

If you have any queries about this specific project: 

Email: RILLproject@bangor.ac.uk