UIL is a partner in the EU-funded research project Ensuring Early Acquisition of Literacy: Study on Parental Support, which is coordinated by the National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy (NRDC), Institute of Education, University of London. Other project partners are the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE, also from the UK); the Mother-Child Education Foundation (ACEV), Turkey; and the Romanian educational research and programme consultancy Learn & Vision. The overall objectives are to support the work of the European Commission and Member States by providing policy advice and information on early literacy development, and by highlighting examples of good practice.

The specific objectives of this project are to:

• give an overview of programmes that aim to assist parents of disadvantaged families to support their children’s reading in the early years and to draw conclusions and make recommendations based on the analysis of good practice;
• provide the European Commission and decision-makers in Member States with practical information and analysis to support future policy proposals and developments.

On 16 and 17 September 2010, an expert seminar in London analysed good practice from Germany, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Turkey and the UK and made policy recommendations that will feed into the ongoing research study. 

The project started in December 2009 and will end in February 2011.