Reading intervention: A ‘conventional’ and successful approach to helping dyslexic children acquire literacy

Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DYSLEXIA 9: 140–145 (2003)Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/dys.254

& COMMENTARY

Reading Intervention: A‘Conventional’ andSuccessful Approach toHelping Dyslexic ChildrenAcquire LiteracyPeter J. Hatcher*

Department of Psychology, University of York, UK

The effectiveness of the ‘conventional’ approach to helping childrenwith dyslexia to acquire literacy has been questioned by Reynoldset al. (Dyslexia 2003). Data are presented in this reply to support theeffectiveness of Reading Intervention, a conventional approach toteaching reading delayed children. Copyright# 2003 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: reading intervention; dyslexia; at-risk; phonological awareness; phoneme;reading

Reynolds, Nicolson and Hambley (2003) suggest that ‘there is a formidableproblem in helping all children to become competent and fluent atreading’. They also state that given ‘the limited effectiveness of

conventional support methods, there [is] ... an opportunity for alternative/complementary approaches to literacy support’. I would wish to take issue withthese claims. The present paper provides evidence in support of the efficacy of‘Reading Intervention’, a programme of intervention based upon ReadingRecovery (Clay, 1985) and Sound Linkage (Hatcher, 2000a), to ameliorate readingdifficulties in children with dyslexia and other forms of reading impairment.

Initial evidence of a reading intervention programme that integratedphonological awareness training and letter knowledge within a structuredprogramme of reading was reported by Hatcher, Hulme and Ellis (1994: ChildDevelopment). In that study we examined the effectiveness of structuredprogrammes of teaching reading (without phonological awareness training),phonological awareness (without reading) and reading combined with phono-logical awareness, in contrast to ‘normal remedial provision’. The results

*Correspondence to: Peter J. Hatcher, Department of Psychology, University of York, York,Y010 5DD, UK. Tel.: 01904 434360; fax: 01904 433181; e-mail: [email protected]

(see Table 1) support our Sound Linkage hypothesis, that it is important tocombine training in phonological awareness with the teaching of reading. Themethodological rigour (high internal and external validity) of the study wasrecognized by Troia (1999) and the contribution of the research to ourunderstanding of reading development was recognized by the InternationalReading Association in 1998 through the Dina Feitelson research-award. Sincethat time the ‘Reading Intervention’ approach, for children who experience greatdifficulty in learning to read, has been used extensively in Cumbria andelsewhere. Indeed, since 1994, some 375 teachers and 80 Teaching Assistants havebeen trained to use Reading Intervention within Cumbria LEA.

Training of teachers to deliver Reading Intervention involves 3 days of in-service work, five half-day tutorials, one-to-one teaching with two reading-delayed children for 4 days a week over a 12-week period, and quality control(Hatcher, 1996). Over 900 children have been taught in this way and many othershave received Reading Intervention as a programme of Special EducationalSupport provided by the Education Service. The gains of children taught havebeen impressive. In Hatcher (2000b) the mean ratio ‘reading age gain over time’for 29 children with dyslexia (mean age 10.69, S.D. 2.62; mean reading age 6.62years, S.D. 0.78 ; mean I.Q. 95.1, S.D. 8.4) was reported to be 2.89. This means thatfor every month of teaching the children progressed by 2.89 months of readingage. The ratio gain for spelling was 2.07months.

Despite the results reported in the literature, Reading Intervention and otherconventional intervention approaches to work with dyslexic children have notbeen without their critics (Cossu, 1999; Reynolds et al., 2003). Cossu (1999) notedthat in the Hatcher, Hulme and Ellis (1994) paper we did not contrast the gainsof the group that received reading and phonological training with the twoexperimental groups that received structured reading alone or structured

Table 1. Means (and standard deviations) for the pre- and post-intervention attainmentmeasuresa of reading, spelling and arithmetic in the four groupsReprinted with permission of the Society for Research in Child Development

Group

Reading and Reading Phonology ControlPhonology alone alone

N 32 31 30 31

BAS Word t1 5.85 (0.53) 5.90 (0.47) 5.90 (0.57) 5.96 (0.53)Reading t2 6.73 (0.85) 6.56 (0.43) 6.55 (0.69) 6.60 (0.67)Neale t1 5.10 (0.21) 5.04 (0.19) 5.18 (0.43) 5.11 (0.30)Accuracy t2 6.13 (1.00) 5.78 (0.54) 5.81 (0.90) 5.66 (0.80)

t3 6.77 (1.58) 6.22 (0.82) 6.31 (1.03) 6.25 (1.15)Neale t1 5.29 (0.30) 5.32 (0.34) 5.43 (0.50) 5.41 (0.49)Comprehension t2 6.39 (0.92) 6.00 (0.97) 5.94 (0.80) 5.88 (0.73)

t3 6.99 (1.28) 6.47 (0.94) 6.46 (1.11) 6.35 (0.97)Schonell t1 5.78 (0.59) 5.83 (0.50) 5.93 (0.56) 5.77 (0.55)Spelling t2 6.77 (0.93) 6.54 (0.55) 6.66 (0.63) 6.49 (0.74)

t3 7.19 (1.02) 6.90 (0.62) 6.99 (0.82) 6.92 (0.78)BAS t1 6.64 (0.61) 6.83 (0.64) 6.76 (0.57) 6.69 (0.66)Arithmetic t2 7.39 (0.59) 7.50 (0.51) 7.37 (0.63) 7.44 (0.57)

aFor ease of interpretation, the scores are presented as attainment ages in years.

Commentaries on Reynolds et al. 141

Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DYSLEXIA 9: 140–145 (2003)

phonological awareness alone. In response, Hatcher (2000c) presented evidenceto show that the group that received reading and phonological training madegreater progress in learning to read than the two experimental groups in additionto the group that received their normal reading support.

Reynolds et al. (2003) claim that conventional support methods have limitedeffectiveness, and that the effect sizes per hour of intervention for readingintervention are tiny. In the face of our data (Hatcher et al., 1994) it is difficult toaccept that argument. Whatever yardstick is used, whether it is the ratio ‘readingage gain over time’, effect size or the ratio ‘standardized score gain over time’,children in the group that received reading combined with training inphonological awareness made better than average progress. In Table 2 the ratiosfor ‘reading age gain over time’ are presented for the four experimental groups.These show that the group that received training in reading with phonologicalawareness made greater than average gains (the normal rate of progress wouldbe 1month of reading age gain per calendar month) during the period ofintervention (t1–t2). The range of gain was 1.42 for single word reading to 1.78 fortext reading comprehension. Although the rate of progress declined between t2and t3, particularly for the control group, it is also the case that the gains werepositive 8.54months after the intervention had finished. They were 1.26 and 1.28for text reading accuracy and comprehension and 1.06 for spelling. In contrast thecontrol group, that had received their normal remedial teaching during theperiod of intervention, was by t3 falling even further behind its peers (0.71 forreading comprehension, 0.86 for text reading accuracy and 0.86 for spelling). It isimportant to note that the gains of the group that received training in reading andphonological awareness are lower than those (Hatcher, 2000b) made by childrentaught by teachers who have received a more intensive programme of training inthe delivery of Reading Intervention and who present children with four sessionsper week over a 12-week period. However, the Hatcher et al. (1994) data havebetter internal validity because the testers (Educational Psychologists) were blindas to the teaching condition to which the children had been assigned.

Although the ratio ‘reading age gain overtime’ has the merit of being easilyunderstood it does not permit a direct comparison between groups thatsimultaneously takes account of variation of scores within groups. For that

Table 2. Reading age gains (in months per month of elapsed time since the pre-intervention time of testing) for the four groups

Reading and Reading Phonology ControlPhonology alone alone(N= 32) (N= 31) (N= 30) (N= 31)

BAS word Reading t1–t2a 1.42 1.07 1.05 1.03Neale t1–t2 1.66 1.20 1.02 0.89Accuracy t1–t3b 1.26 0.89 0.85 0.86

Neale t1–t2 1.78 1.10 0.82 0.76Comprehension t1–t3 1.28 0.86 0.77 0.71

Schonell t1–t2 1.60 1.15 1.18 1.16Spelling t1–t3 1.06 0.80 0.80 0.86

BAS Arithmetic t1–t2 1.21 1.08 0.99 1.21

aThe period of time between t1 (pre-intervention) and t2 (post-intervention) was 7.43months.bThe period of time between t1 and t3 (follow-up testing) was 15.97months.

P.J. Hatcher142


purpose effect size is the preferred statistic and is the one more commonly usedin research (see e.g. Ehri et al., 2001). Effect size indicates the amount of additionalgain for every standard deviation gain in the comparison group. In Table 3, theeffect sizes for the group that received training in reading with phonologicalawareness, measured in units of a calendar year, are presented relative to each ofthe other groups. The numbers indicate the additional amount of progress thatwas made in a year compared to the comparison groups. For example, between t1and t2 for each year of progress made by the control group the group thatreceived training in reading with phonological awareness made 1.76 yearsprogress in reading comprehension. Compared to each of the other groups, apartfrom the Reading alone group, they made at least 0.5 additional years progress inreading comprehension. This is a significant amount in practical terms(Cronbach, 1990). The gains for text reading accuracy were more modest butduring the period of intervention the Reading with Phonological awarenessgroup gained 1.53 years in comparison to a year of gain by the Control group thathad received normal remedial provision.

An obvious point to be made from Tables 2 and 3 is that had the children beenfollowed up for a fourth time of testing it is possible that their gains may havebecome non-significant. Irrespective of the likelihood of this, it is not claimed thatdyslexic children can be turned into normal readers after 40 x 30-min sessions ofReading Intervention. For some children a successful programme of interventionis likely to take much longer. Assuming that there is linear growth over time(allowing for growth spurts and periods of consolidation) it is possible toestimate the number of additional sessions it would have taken the Reading withPhonology group to reach a normal level of reading (mean standardized score of90). After converting T-scores to standardized scores, with a mean of 100 and astandard deviation of 15, the children in this group made t1–t2 gains of 6.24standardized score points on the BAS word-reading test. They progressed from amean SS of 75.58 at t1 to a mean of 81.82 at t2. Over the time of the intervention(20 h) they made gains of 0.31 SS points per hour. A further 26.39 h, or 53 sessions,would have been required for them to achieve a mean SS of 90. That rate ofprogress, 0.31 SS points per hour of intervention, compares favourably with therange (0.13–0.23) reported (Torgesen et al., 2001) for other programmes of intenseand explicit one-on-one intervention.

Table 3. Text reading effect sizesa for the group that received training in Reading withPhonological awareness (N= 32) in relation to the two experimental groups Reading alone,Phonology alone and to the Control group

Comparison group Reading with phonology

Text accuracy Text comprehension

(t1–t2) (t1–t3) (t1–t2) t1–(t3)

Reading alone (N= 31) 0.38 0.41 0.44 0.50Phonology alone (N= 30) 0.42 0.41 0.69 0.56Control (N= 31) 0.53 0.39 0.76 0.68

aThe effect sizes were calculated by dividing the difference between the t1 and t2, or tl and t3, gains of the ‘Readingand phonology’ and comparison group (see Table 1) by the pooled standard deviation of the two groups at t2.



By each of the yardsticks employed, our data (Hatcher et al., 1994) providesupport for the effectiveness of the Reading Intervention programme. Morerecently, we have completed a large-scale longitudinal study, involving 410children, in which a modified programme of Reading Intervention was used byclass teachers in the first 2 years of children’s schooling (Hatcher, Hulme, &Snowling, in press). Although the programme had no significant impact on theprogress of children considered not to be at risk of reading delay it had asignificant effect on the lower third of children ranked on a composite measure ofphonological awareness, letter identification and listening vocabulary (i.e. ‘atrisk’ of dyslexia). We found that the programme was beneficial to children whowould otherwise exhibit a linear fall in standardized reading scores over time.The results of our intervention programme are encouraging but we believe thatfor Reading Intervention to be most effective it is necessary to work with at-riskchildren in small groups or on a one-to-one basis.

With this objective in mind we are currently involved in a project inpartnership with North Yorkshire Education Authority, UK, in which we havemodified the Reading with Phonology programme for use by TeachingAssistants. Each teaching assistant is working with six Year-1 children whohave been judged to be at risk of reading delay.

The reading component of the programme is being administered one to onewith children for 20min every other day. On alternate days, the six children meetas a group, for 20min, to work on letter identification, phonological awarenessand writing. At this stage, we have no data to report, but comments from theteaching assistants are not dissimilar to those made by teachers in Cumbria whohave been trained to provide Reading Intervention. The teaching assistants havealready commented that class teachers have noted positive changes in thechildren’s reading, self-concept and general behaviour. The teaching assistantshave also reported growing self-confidence, and confidence in their ability toteach reading.

Based upon the Hatcher et al. (1994) data and our research findings since then,it would seem unduly pessimistic to opt for alternative treatments for dyslexia.There is, after all, plenty of evidence that a conventional approach does work,provided that it is delivered regularly, on an individualized or small group basisand for a sufficient period of time. Other theories may be complementary but itremains to be proven (Snowling & Hulme, 2003) that they get at the causes ofreading delay.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Margaret Snowling for her helpful comments on an earlierversion of this paper, and for the comments of the two reviewers.

References

Clay, M. (1985). The early detection of reading difficulties (3rd ed.). Tadworth, Surrey:Heinemann.

Cossu, G. (1999). Biological constraints on literacy acquisition. Reading and Writing, Aninterdisciplinary Journal, 11, 213–237.

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Cronbach, L. J. (1990). Essentials of psychological testing (5th ed.) New York: Harper & Row.

Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Willows, D. M., Schuster, B. V., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z., & Shanahan, T.(2001). Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read: Evidence from theNational Reading Panel’s meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 250–287.

Hatcher, P. J. (1996). Practising sound links in Reading Intervention with the school-agechild. In M. Snowling, & J. Stackhouse (Eds.), Dyslexia, speech and language: A practitioner’shandbook (pp. 146–170). London: Whurr.

Hatcher, P. J. (2000a). Sound linkage: An integrated programme for overcoming readingdifficulties (2nd ed.). London: Whurr.

Hatcher, P. J. (2000b). Sound Links in reading and spelling with discrepancy-defineddyslexics and children with moderate learning difficulties. Reading and Writing: AnInterdisciplinary Journal, 13, 257–272.

Hatcher, P. J. (2000c). Reading intervention need not be negligible: Response to Cossu(1999). Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 13, 349–355.

Hatcher, P. J., Hulme, C., & Ellis, A. W. (1994). Ameliorating early reading failure byintegrating the teaching of reading and phonological skills: The phonological linkagehypothesis. Child Development, 65, 41–57.

Hatcher, P. J., Hulme, C, & Snowling, M. J. (in press). Explicit phoneme training combinedwith phonic reading instruction helps young children at risk of reading failure. Journal ofChild Psychology and Psychiatry.

Reynolds, D., Nicolson, R.I., & Hambly (2003). Evaluation of an exercise-based treatmentfor children with reading difficulties. Dyslexia, 9, 48–71.

Snowling, M. J., & Hulme, C. (2003). There is no evidence that DDAT is effective as atreatment for dyslexia-related disorders: A critique of Reynolds, Nicolson & Hambly.Dyslexia, 9, 127–133.

Torgesen, J.K., Alexander, A.W., Wagner, R.K., Rashotte, C.A., Voeller, K.K.S., & Conway, T.(2001) Intensive remedial instruction for children with severe reading disabilities:Immediate and long-term outcomes from two instructional approaches. Journal of LearningDisabilities, 34, 33–58.

Troia, G.A. (1999). Phonological awareness intervention research: A critical review of theexperimental methodology. Reading Research Quarterly, 34, 28–52.



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Reading intervention: A ‘conventional’ and successful approach to helping dyslexic children acquire literacy