Tackling Two of the Most Important Unresolved Tasks in Reading Intervention

NCT06403007 | Not Yet Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: 2023-195
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 637
• Locations: 0 countries
• Sites: N/A

Brief Summary

An important question in education is how to help young children who struggle to learn to read despite being well-taught in their regular classrooms. Many of the children with low reading ability also come from disadvantaged backgrounds. There is not a lot of evidence on how to support children with low reading ability become better readers. This is especially true when children still have low reading ability despite experiencing attempts to teach them in both their regular whole class and then in small groups. As a result, in this study we will explore the best ways of training teachers to use programs that we have developed to support reading for these children who have not responded well to earlier teaching (this is one of the tough jobs in our project title). These programs have several new elements. One element is teaching morphology. Morphology means shared word meanings such as the shared meanings between words like sign, design, signal, and signature. Another element is called set-for-variability. This means teaching children to have mental flexibility in using relationships between letters and sounds to read English. We will run our study to see whether including these new elements leads to children with low reading ability improving their reading. By doing this we will help children teachers and families and also contribute to a science of reading. To achieve these goals, we will carry out two phases of study. In phase 1, we will randomly allocate 50 schools to one condition where we will teach morphology and 50 schools to the other condition where we will teach set-for-variability. In all schools we will also encourage teachers to teach children to use the relationships between letters and sounds to read words. This is called phonics. Doing such work and still having impact in a large number of schools is a major challenge. This is the second of the tough jobs referred to in our project title. In each school we will come in and train teachers of grade 1 and 2 children how to use our programs, and focusing on the children who have low reading ability. In the second part of the study, we will work with a smaller set of children in Grade 3 who still have low reading ability despite our earlier work. In this latter case the groups of children may be both smaller in number and the teaching may go on for longer to have an effect.

Conditions

Dyslexia, Developmental

Keywords

reading; intervention; phonics; morphology; set-for-variability; dyslexia; prevention

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (6)

• The Castles & Coltheart 3

  A research-standardised test of regular (phonically decodable such as 'chance') exception (words that contain letter-to-sound patterns that are not phonically decodable such as 'choir') and pseudowords (made up words such as 'jeaph')

  Change measure: Baseline and 6 months and 9 months

• Morphological Awareness - Word Reading Task

  A polysyllabic word reading test containing items such as 'signature' and 'disagreement'

  Change measure: Baseline and 6 months and 9 months

• Set-for-variability

  An oral language test of children's ability correct the pronunciation of exception words such as 'choir'

  Change measure: Baseline and 6 months and 9 months

• Morphological analogies (inflected and derivational)

  An oral test of morphological awareness

  Change measure: Baseline and 6 months and 9 months

• Wide Range Achievement Test V Word reading

  A standardized measure of word reading accuracy

  Change measure: Baseline and 6 months and 9 months

• Phoneme elision subtest from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing 2 (Wagner et al., 2012)

  A standarised measure of phonological awareness

  Change measure: Baseline and 6 months and 9 months

Secondary Outcomes (5)

• the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency-2 (TOSWRF-2; Mather et al., 2014

  Administered at screening test

• Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE-2; Torgesen et al., 2012)

  Administered at screening test

• Vocabulary

  Administered at baseline only

• Nonverbal Matrices

  Administered at baseline only

• Picture Comprehension Test

  Change measure: baseline and 6 and 9 months

Study Arms (2)

A. Phonics plus morphology instruction

EXPERIMENTAL

Teachers in all schools in this arm receive three hours of phonics plus morphology professional development training as a group and the intervention manual. They receive in-school support and coaching subsequent to this.

Behavioral: Phonics plus morphology

B. Phonics plus set-for-variability instruction

EXPERIMENTAL

Teachers in all schools in this arm receive three hours of phonics plus set-for-variability professional development training as a group and the intervention manual. They receive in-school support and coaching subsequent to this of equivalent duration to that in the other arm.

Behavioral: Phonics plus set-for-variability

Interventions

Phonics plus morphology BEHAVIORAL

This intervention trains teachers to teach phonics plus morphology to at-risk poor readers

A. Phonics plus morphology instruction

Phonics plus set-for-variability BEHAVIORAL

This intervention trains teachers to deliver phonics plus set-for variability to at-risk poor readers.

B. Phonics plus set-for-variability instruction

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 6 Years - 9 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• Formal parent consent letter received
• Child assent received
• Screening phase data: We use 2 reading screening measures in a screening phase of the study. These are: Sight Word Reading Efficiency (real words) from the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE-2; Torgesen et al., 2012), and the (Sight Word Reading Efficiency (real words) and Phonemic Decoding Efficiency (nonwords) from the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE-2; Torgesen et al., 2012), and the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency-2 (TOSWRF-2; Mather et al., 2014)). Two scores of 3 below a standard score of 90 includes a child in the study.

You may not qualify if:

• No parent consent
• No child assent
• Two scores of 3 NOT below a standard score of 90 includes a child in the study.
• Teacher judgement that child not ready or suited for the intervention.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• York University: lead
• University of Alberta: collaborator
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: collaborator
• Australian Catholic University: collaborator

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Dyslexia

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Language Disorders; Communication Disorders; Neurobehavioral Manifestations; Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Specific Learning Disorder; Learning Disabilities; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Mental Disorders

Central Study Contacts

Robert S Savage, PhD

CONTACT

437 2212603; robert.savage@edu.yorku.ca

George Georgiou, PhD

CONTACT

780 492-8247; georgiou@ualberta.ca

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education

Model Details: We will randomize clusters, our cluster units being schools that children attend. Cluster randomization is to one of two active teacher-delivered interventions: phonics plus morphology versus phonics plus morphology.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 23, 2024
• First Posted: May 7, 2024
• Study Start: August 31, 2024
• Primary Completion (Estimated): June 30, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): August 31, 2027
• Last Updated: May 7, 2024

Record last verified: 2024-05

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share