Delivering phonological and phonics training within whole-class teaching.

BACKGROUND

Early, intensive phonological awareness and phonics training is widely held to be beneficial for children with poor phonological awareness. However, most studies have delivered this training separately from children's normal whole-class reading lessons.

AIMS

We examined whether integrating this training into whole class, mixed-ability reading lessons could impact on children with poor phonological awareness, whilst also benefiting normally developing readers.

SAMPLE

Teachers delivered the training within a broad reading programme to whole classes of children from Reception to the end of Year 1 (N=251). A comparison group of children received standard teaching methods (N=213).

METHOD

Children's literacy was assessed at the beginning of Reception, and then at the end of each year until 1 year post-intervention.

RESULTS

The strategy significantly impacted on reading performance for normally developing readers and those with poor phonological awareness, vastly reducing the incidence of reading difficulties from 20% in comparison schools to 5% in intervention schools.

CONCLUSIONS

Phonological and phonics training is highly effective for children with poor phonological awareness, even when incorporated into whole-class teaching.