The effects of two treatments on the reading/spelling skill, phonological awareness, and spelling-to-sound knowledge of good second-, average third-, and poor fourth/fifth-grade readers.

Research shows that beginning and poorer readers perform reasonably well on tasks dealing with individual letter sounds but have difficulty with integrated syllables, often because they attempt to use single letter-sound relationships instead of the surrounding letter context. This study investigated the effects of grade/ability and two treatments designed to improve reading/spelling and related skills through a focus on integrated syllables. Good 2nd-, average 3rd-, and poor 4/5th-grade readers were matched for 3rd-grade reading level and were r and omly assigned to either a "visible model" or a "word list" treatment group for 15 one-half-hour sessions. The visible model group was provided with a concrete model of the sounds in words and was taught an analytical approach to word analysis. The word list group was given no model and was taught a holistic approach to word study. Subjects were given a performance IQ test and were pre- and posttested with dependent measures of reading skill, spelling skill, phonological awareness, spelling-to-sound knowledge, and attitude. Analyses revealed a significant effect of time (pretest, posttest) for reading, spelling, phonological awareness, and spelling-to-sound knowledge (p $$.05). The treatment x time interaction was significant for a reading transfer measure and a spelling-to-sound measure (p $<$.05). The grade x time interaction was significant for only one spelling task (p =.01). This relatively short-term intervention focusing on phonic generalizations, multiletter orthographic segments, segmenting/blending activities, and interword analysis significantly impacted reading/spelling and related skills of good 2nd-, average 3rd-, and poor 4/5th-grade readers. While subjects in both treatment conditions made significant gains, subjects in the "visible model" condition significantly outperformed the "word list" group on the reading transfer and spelling-to-sound measures. The performance of the older, poorer readers closely resembled that of the average and advanced younger readers.PhDReading instructionUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162031/1/8907017.pd