In Reception class, 'Jack' was diagnosed as at risk of literacy difficulties. He had severe problems with all aspects of reading, spelling and phonological awareness. A 15-week daily intervention in Year 1 with a small group of other children made no improvement. A second intervention was carried out with Jack alone, focusing on his poor concentration by using brief and highly visual tasks. By Year 2, Jack is no longer at risk; his reading and spelling have improved considerably, as has his self-esteem.

Jack is a success story, but many children find acquiring literacy skills difficult and continue to underachieve in spite of recent Government initiatives. Research shows that approximately 30% of young children with literacy difficulties will not benefit from phonologically-based small-group interventions. We are keen to understand why some children fail to benefit. Can we identify them early on and how we can help them? Jack was part of a project designed to address these questions.

In March 2000 we screened over 400 children in Reception; 21% were identified as at risk of literacy difficulties. We followed 67 of these children and 68 of their peers who were not at risk from that first screening through to a final assessment in Year 2, term 3.

Following the initial screening, we used a range of assessment measures that examined, among other things, reading, spelling, phonological awareness, memory, vocabulary, general ability and self-esteem to build up a detailed picture of the strengths and weaknesses of each child. A 15-week daily intervention with the at-risk children followed - in small groups, for 20 minutes each day - to develop their phonological awareness skills. We then reassessed all of the children on reading, spelling and phonological awareness.

As expected, 25 of the children (37%) had made little or no progress. Some of these non-beneficiaries had caused disruption when working in a group and others had been too shy, or too lacking in confidence, to speak. In an attempt to address these difficulties, we implemented a second 15-week intervention with the 25 non-beneficiaries, this time on a one-to-one basis twice a week. The intervention again focused primarily on phonological awareness skills, but was tailored more closely to meet individual needs.

A final reassessment of all 135 children examined their reading, spelling and phonological awareness skills. They were also screened again to establish whether they were still at risk of reading difficulties
(i.e. whether, regardless of their attainment, they still displayed a profile of underlying skills that suggested they would find reading development specifically difficult). Of the 67 who were at risk at the start of the project, only 23 (34%) remained at risk at the end. Of these 23, six had shown
progress after the first intervention. Thus, children who had shown initial progress had, nevertheless, remained at risk. The remaining 17 at risk were from the 25 children who had undergone a second
intervention, which, therefore, had moved a further eight children out of the at-risk category. The findings suggest that, for some children, the initial intervention was insufficient to produce lasting effects and a longer period of intervention may have been beneficial. Ongoing monitoring is advisable, therefore, for some time following an intervention programme.

Could we have predicted the non-beneficiaries from our initial assessment measures? Results suggest that the children who remained at risk were those who had shown particularly severe phonological
awareness difficulties at the start. In addition, their expressive vocabulary was somewhat poorer
and they were noticeably slower at naming a series of colours, objects, numbers or letters. All of these factors are potential early indications that a child has especially severe difficulties that may not be improved by standard, group-based intervention.

So, what can we do to help the non-beneficiaries? It is clear that even a systematic, intensive, daily intervention designed to develop phonological awareness skills, no matter how well founded in the research, will not be effective for all children. Approximately a third will need a different approach. In this project, the non-beneficiaries not only had severe difficulties in the phonological domain, they had a range of other problems too that appeared to be holding them back - such as severe emotional difficulties, low self-esteem or poor concentration. For these children, early one-to-one tailored
intervention, which considers 'the whole child', is likely to be the most effective way forward. Our feeling is that an initial intervention on a one-to-one basis, progressing at their own pace, would have
been more beneficial for these children.
 

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