Performance of children at risk for reading difficulties submitted to an intervention program.

Nathane Sanches Marques Silva,Patrícia Abreu Pinheiro Crenitte

doi:10.1590/2317-1782/20162015274

Nathane Sanches Marques Silva, Patrícia Abreu Pinheiro Crenitte

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/20162015274

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Abstract

To assess the applicability of an intervention program to children at risk for reading disabilities. This experimental study compared 10 children at risk for reading difficulty submitted to a phonological decoding intervention program (study group) with 10 other children at risk for reading difficulty not submitted to the program (control group). The intervention program was based on two international studies. It comprised 24 sessions: the first 12 sessions were conducted with groups of two to three children, whereas the others were performed individually. The sessions lasted 50 minutes and were held twice a week. Statistical analysis was conducted using the Student's t-test and the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test. Children at risk for reading difficulties submitted to the phonological decoding intervention program showed statistically significant improvement at post-assessment in the performance of the following skills: letter naming; phoneme-grapheme relationship; phonological awareness; phonological working memory for non-words; phonological working memory for digits in direct order; alphabet recognition in sequence; writing under dictation of words and pseudowords; reading of words and pseudowords. The phonological decoding intervention program showed applicability to improve the prerequisite skills of reading and writing of children at risk for reading disabilities.

Highlights

National and international researchers have reported that the performance of different abilities is a predictor of the acquisition and development of reading and writing
Participants were divided into two groups of 10 children: study group (SG) and control group (CG)
Results show that participants of the Study Group (SG) improved their phonological awareness after participation in the intervention program, considering that significant difference was observed in the total assessment and subtests with respect to analysis; sentence and word segmentation; addition, subtraction and substitution of syllables and phonemes; syllabic reversal; and articulation image

Summary

Introduction

National and international researchers have reported that the performance of different abilities is a predictor of the acquisition and development of reading and writing. The second profile consists of children who present difficulties typical of the first profile, but with apparently appropriate language development until they are faced with the requirement for segmentation of words into smaller units, thereby presenting difficulties at the beginning of the literacy process, those regarding letter knowledge and sound-letter (phoneme‐grapheme) association These children present phonological disorder history and family history with respect to reading difficulties, have non-verbal intelligence scores below, appropriate or above average, and show no primary auditory, visual and motor impairment. The third profile refers to children with insufficient experience in preschool, which results in global difficulties in pre-academic skills, with or without phonological disorder history and with history of inadequate exposure to oral language and literacy These children present non-verbal intelligence scores below, appropriate or above average and absence of primary auditory, visual and motor disabilities[4]

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