Results from an innovative project designed to lift reading and writing skills have been hugely successful, Education Minister Chris Carter says.

The $3.8 million-a-year Literacy Professional Development Project, begun in 2004, now involves almost 7000 students up to Year 8 at 127 schools.

The latest evaluation measured whether the second group of students to go through the programme had improved their reading and writing to the same extent as the first group did. It found:

� the improvement for Students in Years 4-6 in LPDP schools was twice that of the average student.

� The bottom 20 percent of students began catching up to the average level of achievement, making double the progress of other students.

� Pasifika students made more progress than average in both reading and writing.

� Boys in all year groups showed greater than average improvement, and are catching up to girls.

�The fact this project is showing these kinds of results is very, very pleasing,� Chris Carter said.

�That such significant gains are being made by students at risk of the lowest achievement levels is exactly what we hoped to see.�

The Literacy Professional Development Project involves a professional development facilitator going into each school to �teach the teachers� how best to use the tools proven to be most effective in raising literacy skills.

Schools are involved in the project for two years and focus on either reading or writing. Students are assessed at the beginning, mid-way and end of the project using nationally-accepted assessment tools including asTTle (Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning).