Commentary: A contribution to evidence‐informed education policy – reflections on Strong, Torgerson, Torgerson, and Hulme (2011)

On the basis of their meta-analysis, Strong, Torgerson, Torgerson, and Hulme (2011) conclude that There is no evidence from this review that Fast ForWord is effective as a treatment for children's reading or expressive or receptive vocabulary weaknesses. This commentary will consider whether this is an accurate and fair conclusion and, if so, the implications for education policy. The meta-analysis is based on a systematic review of the literature that follows the current guidelines on best practice for such reviews. The search and selection of studies for inclusion and data extraction were based on a pre-defined protocol. This is a transparent process and it is open to replication. There can be no doubt that accurate values were obtained for effect size of Fast ForWord against untreated controls or against treated controls. These effect sizes were small and not significantly different from zero for any of the four outcome measures selected. Using the methods adopted, the conclusions from the paper are accurate, but are they fair? Adapted from the source document.