An Examination of Phonological Awareness Treatment Outcomes for Seventh-Grade Poor Readers From a Bilingual Community

TSamSwan{at}aol.com

Purpose: The goal of this study was to examine posttreatment outcomes following direct, systematic phonological awareness instruction for seventh-grade poor readers, most of whom had English as their second language.

Method: The treatment group (n=35) participated in small-group instruction sessions that emphasized phonological awareness at the phoneme level and incorporated explicit linkages to literacy. The treatment, which was administered in the participants' school setting over a 12-week period, involved approximately 45 hr of contact with a trained instructor. Postintervention performance of the treatment group was compared to performance of students from the same school and grade level who were waiting to receive phonological awareness treatment (nontreatment group, n=33).

Results: ANCOVA results for total reading scores and MANCOVA results for Phonological Awareness, Word Attack, Word Identification, Word Comprehension, and Passage Comprehension subtests indicated that group differences were significant. The posttreatment scores of the treatment group were higher for all measures.

Clinical Implications: Seventh-grade poor readers, including bilingual students who have English as their second language, can benefit from direct, systematic instruction that emphasizes phonological awareness and is linked to literacy.

KEY WORDS: bilingual students, evidence-based treatment, literacy, phonological awareness, seventh-grade poor readers

Submitted on May 31, 2004
Revised on December 5, 2004
Accepted on April 13, 2005

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. M. Schuele and D. Boudreau Phonological Awareness Intervention: Beyond the Basics Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch, January 1, 2008; 39(1): 3 - 20. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]