Searching for an effective intervention : Intense phonic-based reading instruction in primary school for children in reading difficulties

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of an intervention that focuses on phonics, decoding, reading speed and phonological awareness for 8-9 year old children in reading difficulties. Participants were selected on the basis of screening test results in grade one (decoding and reading comprehension). The participants were divided into two groups, an intervention group (A1, n=10 children) and a control group (A2, n=10). A1 received 30 minutes of intense reading instruction every day for six weeks from special educational needs teachers on top of their usual classroom based reading instruction. The control group received only their usual classroom-based reading instruction. Both groups completed a pre-intervention test and a post-intervention test to determine the effect of the intervention. Both groups were tested for decoding, phonological awareness, letter/sound connection, RAN and reading speed. The results show that both groups increased their reading ability with A1 showing the bigger gain. The intervention had significant effect after six weeks training on decoding words and non-words, and a tendency to significance for reading speed. The findings highlight the importance of early structural phonological training to accomplish and strengthen children’s reading speed and decoding ability, especially for children in reading difficulties