Why do some resist phonological intervention? A Swedish longitudinal study of poor readers in grade 4

In a longitudinal intervention study, 33 Swedish poor readers in Grade 4 received phonological awareness instruction over 1 year. Three control groups were included in the study: Grade 4 controls, Grade 2 controls (both comparable in reading skill) and normal readers. The results showed that the phonological training group made the most progress in phonological awareness but did not improve their reading skills any more than the controls. However, a re-analysis of the results revealed important individual differences within the phonological training group. Some children improved their reading ability considerably, while others seemed resistant to the intervention. One critical difference between improved and resistant readers was identified. For the improved readers, both orthographic and phonological word decoding predicted text reading performance. For the resistant readers, only orthographic decoding skills predicted text reading before, during and after the intervention, in spite of a steady increase in phonological awareness.