Early identification and remediation of phonological-processing deficits in first-grade children at risk for reading disabilities.

The present study assessed 486 first-quarter first graders on their reading and phonological-processing skills and intelligence. Based on this assessment, and using the classification data from Hurford et al.'s (1993) study, 99 children were identified as being at risk for reading difficulties: 53 children at risk for reading disabilities (RD) and 46 children at risk for becoming "garden-variety" poor readers (GV). Half of the RD and GV groups received the phonological-processing intervention. Posttraining assessment indicated that the training procedure not only was effective in increasing the phonological-processing skills of the trained participants, but also increased their reading ability. Both of the RD and GV trained groups benefited from the training. Analyses also indicated that the initial screening device was somewhat less accurate in the present study in identifying at-risk children than in our previous studies (85% vs. approximately 98%, respectively). The results of the present study indicate that it is possible to identify children at risk for reading difficulties and to significantly improve their phonological-processing and reading abilities.