Effects of a phonics intervention in a randomized controlled study in Swedish second-grade students at risk of reading difficulties

Teaching phoneme awareness to children at risk for early reading difficulties has been recognized as successful in several studies. In this randomized controlled trial (RCT)-study, we add to this research by optimizing core procedural as well as teaching components in a phonics-directed intervention and extend the RCT reading intervention research into a semi-transparent language context. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a novel Swedish intensive phonics program. This randomized controlled pre-test and post-test intervention study targeted second-grade students with early reading difficulties. Students were identified by a repeated screening procedure and allocated to intervention (n = 34) and control (n = 34) conditions. A 9-week intensive phonics-based program was administrated one-to-one, by special education teachers in Swedish mainstream elementary schools. Results show an improvement in the intervention group, compared with the controls on all outcome measures. Findings indicate that the supplementary phonics program, delivered with high intensity, can significantly increase word reading skills and reading comprehension in second-grade students with early reading difficulties.