Blanchard, Pamela Snyder. (2000). Phonological awareness instruction to prevent reading failure: A study of the benefits of commercially produced phonics software to phonological awareness instruction. Reading and Communication Skills (CSO13983). ED441228.

The purpose of this study was to compare the benefits of phonological awareness instruction of two groups of students. While both groups received intensive instruction in phonological awareness, the treatment group's instruction was supplemented with the Davidson Company's Phonics computer software program. The control group participated in supplemental reading activities that included reading/language games, worksheets, independent reading, and other computer software. The researcher sought to determine if there existed a link between increased phonological awareness and the use of the Davidson Company's Phonics computer software program.

The thirty-one elementary students who participated in this study were all identified as being eligible for Special Education services in a resource room setting. The students ranged in age from seven to eleven and were enrolled in grades two through five. The range of diagnosed disabilities included language impairments, autism, and mental retardation. All students were currently receiving instruction in the Herman Method for Reversing Reading Failure and the Phonological Awareness Book. Both the treatment and the control group were evenly matched with regards to the range of academic ability and performance levels. The research was conducted by the classroom teacher over a period of eight weeks.

All students in the study were pretested with The Brigance Diagnostic Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills (CIBS) Reading and the Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation, published in The Reading Teacher (September 1995). After the pretest scores were ascertained, students were randomly assigned by four separate lotteries to either the treatment group or the control group. The lotteries were structured so that the age range and the ability level of the students would be matched.

During the course of the study students in both groups participated in instruction with the Herman Method for Reversing Reading Failure and/or Phonological Awareness Activities. Additionally, students participated in journal writing, independent reading, paired reading, small group instruction, and teacher read-alouds.

The treatment group's instruction was supplemented by the use of the software program, Phonics by the Davidson Company. The control group's instruction was supplemented by activities which included but were not limited to workbook pages, reading/language games, and listening to books on tape.

At the end of the eight weeks the students were posttested using the Brigance CIBS and the Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation.

At the conclusion of the study a t-test was used to compare the posttest scores of the treatment group and the control group. The mean score for the sixteen students in the treatment group was 164.38, while the mean score for the students in the control group was 169.93. Thus, the mean scores for both groups showed a difference of 5.56 points, which demonstrated that no statistical significance was found.

Although the results of the study showed that there was no statistical significance found between the scores of the treatment and control groups, analysis of the pre- and posttest scores indicates that students in both groups made significant gains on both the Brigance CIBS and the Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation. These results suggest that intensive instruction in phonological awareness is highly effective.

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