Summary of Phono-Graphix Research (continued)

Gains on the Segmenting Test

On the segmenting test the subject is asked to tell the tester what the individual sounds are in a spoken word. So the tester says, "What are the sounds you hear in 'frog'?" The subject is expected to say each of the four sounds in 'frog' in isolation. With credit given for each correct phoneme, there are sixty-three correct responses in all. At intake the average correct for the six-to-seven-year old group was forty-eight. At post-test the average correct for this group was sixty-one. At intake the average correct for the eight-to-nine-year old group was thirty-eight. At post-test the average correct for this group was sixty-one. At intake the average correct for the ten to sixteen year old group was forty-one. At post-test the average correct for this group was sixty-two

Gains on the Blending Test

On the blending test the subject is asked to tell the tester what word a set of isolated phonemes sounds like. So the tester says, "What word is this 'c''a''t'?" The subject is expected to be able to blend the sounds together and perceive the word 'cat'. With credit given for each correctly blended word there are fifteen possible correct answers. The six-to-seven-year old group moved from nine at intake to fifteen at post-test. The eight-to-nine-year old group moved from eleven at intake to fourteen at post-test. The ten-to-sixteen-year old group moved from twelve at intake to fourteen at post-test.

Gains on the Phoneme Manipulation Test

We designed a modified Rosner Test to measure the subjects' ability to delete phonemes from spoken words, a task that considerable research has shown to correlate to reading success. This modified version was designed as a result of research subsequent to the development of the Rosner Test which indicates that the syllable deletion items of that test are largely irrelevant and that the single phoneme deletion tasks are the most predictive.

Subjects are asked to say a word without a target sound. The tester says, "Say 'frog' without the 'r'" Phonemes are deleted from various positions within the word, 'flag' without the 'f', and 'best' without the 's', are among the items. The six-to-seven-year old group moved from four correct on this possible ten item test, to seven correct at post-test. The eight-to-nine-year old group moved from five correct to eight correct. The ten-to-sixteen-year old group moved from six correct to nine correct at post-test.

Gains on the Code Knowledge Sub-Test

Subjects were shown a cue card showing fifty letters and letter groups that represent single sounds in our language. The scores were doubled rendering a percentage score. The six-to-seven-year old group moved from forty-four percent to seventy-six percent. The eight-to-nine-year old group moved from sixty-one percent to eighty-five percent. The ten-to-sixteen-year old group moved from seventy percent to ninety percent at post-test.

Discussion of Overall Gains

Our data show that poor readers can be remediated to reading-age or beyond in twelve one-hour one-on-one sessions supported by practice sessions at home with parental supervision. Absolute gains are large even when a child is mildly mentally retarded or fits a 'learning disabled' discrepancy profile. Clients' progress in word identification and word attack was rapid and more consistent than is reported for other programs such as Alphabetic Phonics, Lindamood's ADD and Reading Recovery (Clark, 1988)