Education through Language and Literacy (ELaL) is a research and development programme. Within the framework of the programme, the language support, language skills assessment and reading support activities introduced for children and young people in Germany’s federal states will be scientifically reviewed with respect to their effectiveness and efficiency, and then further improved.

More than 600 schools and nursery schools in all of Germany’s federal states are taking part in the ELaL programme. They have formed over 100 networks with a view to implementing and further developing coordinated literacy education and language support measures over the next few years. It is hoped that the chosen measures will allow children to be given effective support in the core language and literacy skills throughout their education, from the time they start school until the time they complete secondary education. Some of the implemented measures will be evaluated in order to determine which concepts are particularly effective in supporting children and young people in their linguistic development. In addition, the programme supports the professionalisation of the participating educators and teachers.

A consortium of supporting organizations is responsible for the scientific design and supervision of the programme. It comprises the Mercator Institute for Literacy and Language Education in cooperation with the Intercultural Education working group at the University of Cologne, the German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF) in Frankfurt am Main and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in cooperation with the Institute for Quality Development in Education (IQB).