In a randomized control study, Head Start teachers were assigned to either an intervention group that received intensive, ongoing professional development (PD) or to a comparison group that received the "business as usual" PD provided by Head Start. The PD intervention provided teachers with conceptual knowledge and instructional…

Twenty preschoolers with impairments in both morphosyntax and phonology were assigned to an intervention of two 12-week blocks beginning with either a block of phonology first (n=10) or a block of morphosyntax first (n=10). Both interventions were effective. The morphosyntax first sequence led to slightly better overall morphosyntactic…

Examines the relation between the development of phonological processing skills and the effectiveness of Reading Recovery (RR) in a whole language instructional context. Finds that: RR and poor reader comparison groups had deficiencies in phonological-processing skills before participation; participation in the program did not reduce these…

Elementary students (n=105) with problems in word recognition were given computer-assisted instruction involving either only reading words in context, or reading words in context and completing exercises involving individual words (to increase their phonological awareness). The latter group showed significant gains on tests of phoneme awareness…

Six preschoolers with moderate to severe disorders in both language and phonology received intervention that differentially focused on language, phonology, or both domains. Treatment that directly focused on phonology or treatment that involved a combination of a direct focus on phonology and an indirect focus on language resulted in the largest…

A study of 36 children (ages 3-5) compared traditional and phonological treatment of 36 children with multiple articulation disorders. Results found that the response of children in the traditional therapy group was substantially inferior; the children in the phonological therapy group showed more improvement with fewer therapy sessions. (CR)

Trains 94 first graders using a structured phonological reading method emphasizing English phonology and phoneme/grapheme correspondence. Compares to a control group who received a whole-language-plus-phonics approach. Notes that children in all groups improved their phonological awareness by the same amount. Concludes that phonological awareness…

The lexical variables of word frequency and neighborhood density were hypothesized to facilitate sound change to varying degrees. Twelve children with functional phonological delays participated in an alternating-treatments experiment to promote sound change. Results indicated word frequency was most facilitative in sound change, whereas dense…

Background: We evaluate the effectiveness of three theoretically motivated programmes for the teaching of reading to four-year-old children. Method: Four hundred and ten children, of pre-kindergarten age, in 20 UK Reception-year classrooms were divided into four matched groups and randomly assigned to one of three experimental teaching conditions,…