EARLY IDENTIFICATION AND REMEDIATION OF PHONOLOGICAL-PROCESSING DEFICITS IN 1ST-GRADE CHILDREN AT RISK FOR READING DISABILITIES

The present study assessed 486 first-quarter first graders on their re ading and phonological-processing skills and intelligence. Based on th is assessment, and using the classification data from Hurford et al.'s (1993) study, 99 children were identified as being at risk for readin g difficulties: 53 children at risk for reading disabilities (RD) and 46 children at risk for becoming ''garden-variety'' poor readers (GV). Half of the RD and GV groups received the phonological-processing int ervention. Posttraining assessment indicated that the training procedu re not only was effective in increasing the phonological-processing sk ills of the trained participants, but also increased their reading abi lity. Both of the RD and GV trained groups benefited from the training . Analyses also indicated that the initial screening device was somewh at less accurate in the present study in identifying at-risk children than in our previous studies (85% vs. approximately 98%, respectively) . The results of the present study indicate that it is possible to ide ntify children at risk for reading difficulties and to significantly i mprove their phonological-processing and reading abilities.