ABRACADABRA aids Indigenous and non-Indigenous early literacy in Australia: Evidence from a multisite randomized controlled trial

A cluster randomized control field trial of the ABRACADABRA web-based reading technology: replication and extension of basic findings

“…The results indicated that ABRA produced statistically significant effects on measures of letter-sound knowledge. This specific pattern of effects of ABRA on letter knowledge replicates patterns reported in four previous researcher-led internal validity trial studies of ABRA ( Comaskey et al, 2009 ; Savage et al, 2009 ; Wolgemuth et al, 2011 , 2013 ). The results of the present study also replicate the findings reported in the only existing external validity cluster RCT trial of ABRA ( Savage et al, 2013 ).…”

“…The students received the ABRA intervention in small groups for an average of 13 h per child delivered by trained research assistants (RAs) while integrating ABRA into the regular reading classes. In the third within-class RCT evaluating ABRA, 300 students, including numerous aboriginal children in the Northern Territories in Australia with English as an Additional Language were taught by specially trained teachers who delivered ABRA as a pull-out program in schools for 40 min four times a week for 16 weeks ( Wolgemuth et al, 2013 ). Results of this study found that the students who received the ABRA interventions showed significant advantages in phonological awareness and grapheme-to-phoneme knowledge.…”

Dyslexia and ICTs, Assessment and Early Intervention in Kindergarten

“…The results showed that children can benefit of such programs which are easy and fun to use and give immediate feedback [19]. Wolgemuth et al (2013) confirmed that programs using ICT can help teachers boost literacy skills in their early aged students. He and his team applied an intervention program named ABRA (ABRACADABRA) with the help of specially educated teachers, using school's existing technology.…”

“…A number of assessment and intervention tools has been presented, such as games [23] and computer programs [11], [17], [20], [21], aiming at evaluating and reinforcing children's emerging literacy, phonological awareness, and learning capacities. It turns out that computer-based tools benefit both students and teachers.…”

“…Before the execution of ABRA the level of early reading ability, early literacy skills and reading and math skills of each child who participated was assessed through computer-based or not tools (such as GRADE K, PIPS-BLA and APFOR). The results showed that, after the implementation of ABRA, phonological awareness and phoneme-grapheme correspondence of all students was improved and the effects on indigenous student's early literacy skills were encouraging [20]. Shamir & Korat (2007) developed and implemented an educational e-book that intended to foster kindergartener's emergent literacy through activities that children would find amusing.…”