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Resumen
El objetivo principal de este estudio de intervención era comprobar si con un programa de instrucción directa en conciencia fonémica con apoyo visual de letras, los niños con retraso lector mejoraban en sus procesos fonológicos y, como consecuencia, en la habilidad de descodificación. A su vez, tratamos de determinar si el efecto de la edad influía sobre la eficacia del tratamiento, habida cuenta de la evidencia empírica a favor de una explicación del retraso lector basada en la existencia de un déficit fonológico en niños de tercer curso. Se seleccionó una muestra de 34 sujetos con retraso lector distribuidos en los siguientes grupos: 1) un grupo experimental de 12 sujetos (M=8 años, 8 meses) que siguió un programa denominado entrenamiento en conciencia fonémica con apoyo visual de letras; 2) un segundo grupo experimental de 12 sujetos más jóvenes (M=7 años, 1 mes) que siguió el mismo tipo de programa que el grupo anterior y, por último, un tercer grupo de 10 sujetos denominado control (M=8 años, 7 meses) que no siguió ningún entrenamiento en habilidades lectoras. Los resultados indican que todos los grupos que reciben instrucción directa en este tipo de habilidades mejoran en comparación con el grupo control. Además, los resultados demuestran que los niños más jóvenes obtienen mayores ganancias que los niños mayores con el mismo programa de entrenamiento. Esto sugiere que la edad constituye un factor importante a tener en cuenta en el campo de la reeducación ya que el déficit fonológico se consolida con la edad comprometiendo el desarrollo de las habilidades lectoras y haciéndose más resistente a su recuperación.
Abstract
The present intervention study was designed to investigate whether the phonological processes and reading skills of children with reading delay improved after participating in a programme of direct instruction in phonemic awareness with visual letter supports. We also analysed whether chronological age represents a critical factor on the effectiveness of treatment. Here, the empirical evidence indicates that reading delay is closely associated to a phonological deficit in the students. A sample of 34 primary school children with reading delay was selected and subdivided into three different groups: 1) an experimental group with 12 children (M=8 yrs.; 8 m.) who received direct instruction in phonemic awareness using visual letter supports; 2) an experimental group with 12 younger children (M = 7 yrs.; 1 m.) who received the same type of instruction; and 3) a control group with 10 children (M=8 yrs.; 7 m.) who received no training in reading abilities. Results indicate that direct instruction improved the phonological decoding abilities of children in both experimental groups. However, this improvement was greater in the younger experimental age group. Overall the study provides evidence that chronological age is an importance factor in the field of remedial education. This is explained by the fact that a phonological deficit is consolidated with age, compromising the development of reading skills and the effectiveness of treatment
Extended Summary
The purpose of the present study has been to explore if children with learning deficit (LD) can improve their phonological and decoding abilities after participating in a direct instruction programme in phonemic awareness with visual letter support.
A number of experimental studies provide empirical evidence in favour of a bi-directional relationship between phonological awareness and reading; demonstrating that instruction in segmentation abilities contribute to a better disposition toward learning to read and write in pre-school aged children. Moreover, instruction in phonemic segmentation and synthesis abilities has been shown to positively influence learning to read in an instructed group of children in comparison to a control group. Likewise, instruction intervention programmes with pre-school children have also used letters as support material; demonstrating their positive effect on learning to read. In the field remedial education targeting the LD, various studies have included in their intervention programme direct instruction in segmentation abilities and grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules. However, the results of these studies do not show a marked improvement in the reading abilities of children with LD.
Some follow-up studies provide evidence on the importance of chronological age in consolidating a phonological deficit. In other words, older children seem to make less progress than younger children with reading delay. Some longitudinal studies indicate that this difficulty persists until adulthood, and that the effectiveness of specialized treatments is limited.
The present study tries to establish whether instruction in phonemic awareness with visual letter support improves metalinguistic and decoding abilities in children with LD, and if the effectiveness of this instruction depends on the child's age.
Two groups of 2nd and 3rd year primary school children with LD participated in the study. The children were subdivided into the following three groups: 1) an experimental group with 12 children (M=8 years, 8 months; SD=3.60) who received direct instruction in phonemic awareness with visual letter supports; 2) an experimental group with 12 younger children (M=7 years, 1 month; SD=6.25) who received the same type of instruction; and 3) a control group with 10 children (M=8 years, 7 months; SD=3.05) who received no training in reading abilities.
The intervention programme involved training the following phonemic skills: comparing phonemes in words, phoneme segmentation, synthesis and deletion of phonemes. The materials were a magnetic blackboard and letters used as visual support during twenty thirty-minutes sessions.
The results show that phonological and decoding abilities improved in the two experimental groups but not in the control group. This demonstrates that metalinguistic abilities, which are a facilitating factor in learning to read, do not emerge spontaneously in the course of development, but require an explicit and systematic instruction. Greater improvements were also observed in the younger age group; indicating that age constitutes a determining factor in the effectiveness of the treatment.
To conclude, it seems that in children with LD, a phonological deficit is consolidated over time. Remedial education becomes more difficult as the children are older. It is therefore important that once a LD has been detected, the intervention programme is implemented as early as possible in the child's schooling.