The effect of it support on the reading skills of pupils

In 2009, the municipality of Horsens initiated a three-year project to increase inclusion and professionalism through more differentiated education offers. Pupils were offered an IT support programme, which by reading aloud and word suggestions, could help them with their reading, both at school and at home. This report analyses the effect of offering 4th and 6th grade pupils (10-12 years-old) IT support in the following three core elements of reading skills: comprehension, decoding and language understanding. Generally, pupils who are offered IT support perform better than pupils who are not offered this support. In relation to comprehension of texts and decoding, results indicate that the effects of IT support are positive, whereas measurements cannot demonstrate a clear effect with regard to language understanding. IT support can potentially contribute to a higher degree of participation in class and improve the reading skills of weak pupils in particular. IT support can act as an important tool in the differentiation of teaching and provide extra support for weak pupils without the use of additional teaching resources.