Publication :

Morphological awareness intervention : does severity play a role in spelling/reading improvement?

Children with written language difficulties are characterized by low morphological awareness (MA) skills. Intervention studies show significant improvement in reading/spelling skills following MA training. However, no data are available on the effect of this intervention when taking into account the degree of severity of the children's difficulties. Objective: To document MA intervention's impacts on reading/writing skills based on the severity of the difficulties experienced by second grade French-speaking children. Thirty-seven children participated in this randomized intervention study with pre/post intervention measures. Children were classified in two groups according to the severity of their difficulties at T1. Significant improvement in standardized tests of reading/spelling and learning retention were found, especially for children with severe difficulties. An overall improvement was obtained for 75% of the children with a severe profile with an improvement to a mild-to-moderate profile immediately and six months after the end of the intervention. These results highlight the importance of intervening as early as 2nd grade and of targeting MA in children with reading/spelling difficulties to maximize their literacy acquisition.