AMELIORATING EARLY READING FAILURE BY INTEGRATING THE TEACHING OF READING AND PHONOLOGICAL SKILLS - THE PHONOLOGICAL LINKAGE HYPOTHESIS

We present a longitudinal intervention study of children experiencing difficulties in the early stages of learning to read. Our subjects, 7-year-old poor readers, were divided into 4 matched groups and assigned to 1 of 3 experimental teaching conditions: Reading with Phonology, Reading Alone, Phonology Alone, and a Control. Although the Phonology Alone group showed most improvement on phonological tasks, the Reading with Phonology group made most progress in reading. These results show that interventions to boost phonological skills need to be integrated with the teaching of reading if they are to be maximally effective in improving literacy skills.