The impact of phonemic processing instruction on the reading achievement of reading-disabled children.
It is hypothesized that a phonemic processing deficit is a primary causal factor in the reading problems of many children with developmental dyslexia. An instructional model which emphasizes phonics instruction as a key in the treatment of children with reading disorders is presented. Procedures for the application of this model in a parent-involvement clinic program are described. Results from two typical children from the clinic sample who had received treatment for more than a year are presented. One Fourth-Grade child, who began the program with a 1 1/2-year reading deficit, was reading grade-appropriate material and scoring about 1 year above grade-norms on a standardized test after 14 months of clinic treatment. The second child began the treatment program as a Sixth Grader who was virtually a non-reader. After 1 1/2 years of intervention, this child had attained a Third-Grade reading level, but was still nearly 4 years behind in reading. The pretest error responses to individual words made by both children are reviewed to demonstrate the underlying phonetic deficiency--an apparent difficulty with vowel sound correspondence. Averaged reading achievement results from 13 children who had received 3 months of instruction in an experimental study in which the instructional model is being used are presented. Results indicate a dramatic change in the children's rate of reading achievement during treatment. The children were divided into three groups on the basis of a measure of the transfer of phonic skills: normal transfer, poor transfer which improved dramatically in the first 3 months of treatment, and poor transfer which failed to improve. Analysis of the achievement data of these three groups indicates that the second group improved more rapidly than did the other two groups. It is suggested that further analyses of phonic transfer data may prove to be very instructive concerning the causes and treatment of developmental dyslexia.
D000124:Achievement; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000188:drug therapy; D002648:Child; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008774:Methylphenidate / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010700:Phonetics; D011897:Random Allocation; D011932:Reading; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods; D014163:Transfer, Psychology
D008774:Methylphenidate