Increasing Word-Reading Speed in Poor Readers: No Additional Benefits of Explicit Letter-Cluster Training

Abstract

The present study examined whether explicit training of letter-clusters leads to more gains in word-reading speed than training of the separate letters of the same clusters. Ninety-nine poor reading second-grade children were randomly assigned to a cluster-training, a parallel letter-training, or a no-training condition. The cluster-training condition showed superior short-term and long-term improvement on rapid naming of trained and untrained letter clusters, whereas the letter-training condition showed superior short-term improvement on rapid naming of trained letters. In addition, compared with the no-training condition, the cluster and letter training showed the same superior short-term and long-term improvement on trained words and pseudowords. However, both training conditions showed only marginally more short-term improvement for untrained pseudowords and only marginally more long-term improvement on a word reading-fluency task. Apparently, improvement of rapid naming of letter clusters does not, or barely, result in improvement of untrained words and pseudowords.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was funded by NWO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [Dutch Foundation for Scientific Research]), project number 400-03-404. The article is based on the fifth chapter of the doctoral dissertation of the first author.

We would like to thank Michael Heineman, Inge Tijssen, Daphne Maas, Evalijn Draijer, and Kim Nouwen for their help in developing the training and collecting the data.