Middle School Phonemic Awareness Project

Funded by the National Institute on Disabilities Research and Rehabilitation, U.S. Department of Education

Subsequent to the AALRC feasibility study, three research studies were conducted to further evaluate the power of Fast ForWord (Scientific Learning, 1996) a computer-driven phonemic awareness program, on middle school students with low reading skills. Study One involved 36 adolescents attending an on-campus summer program called Brain Camp. Study Two included middle school students enrolled in an after-school remedial program. Study Three involved a small group of students enrolled for six weeks through this project in two private speech and language centers during the third summer of the project.

In two of the three studies, Lexia (Lexia Learning Systems, Inc, 1991/2000) was provided as a comparison program to a matched group of students. In studies One and Two, a third group of students received the full complement of psychometric evaluations, but they continued to receive their school-directed curriculum.

Representatives of the respective companies trained the teachers for Fast ForWord and Lexia. Providers (teachers) in Study Three were speech and language professionals who use Fast ForWord in their practices.

In all three studies, students were selected based on their low test scores regarding phonemic awareness, receptive language, and reading. Students in studies One and Two were then randomly divided into three groups: Fast ForWord, Lexia or the school-based curriculum. The intervention for the Lexia students was divided three ways: Lexia, recorded books, and writing about what they had heard and read. During the same time period, Fast ForWord students continued with the seven games provided in that program.

Study One was an after-school program conducted in the spring semester. The outcomes were marginal due to many factors. Most notably, students' established after-school routines were interrupted by participation in this spring study, and many students resented the interruption even though they initially agreed to participate. Consequently, they were hesitant, as a group, to put forth the sustained focus needed to accomplish significant gains. Nonetheless, students in both groups attended the sessions and generated clear, useable data.

All students in these three studies completed an extensive battery of psychometric evaluations. In addition, students in studies Two and Three responded to four electroencephalographic (EEG) evoked related potential (ERP) tasks pre, post and follow-up of their specific intervention. The psychometric battery included tests of phonemic awareness, language, and reading. In the first ERP task, students were asked to recognize the difference between two tones (high and low) heard with eyes closed. For the second ERP task, students were asked to note the difference between two phonemes (/aba/ and /ada/).

Tasks three and four were administered with eyes open. For the third task, students saw pictures and heard words. If the two matched (picture of a horse and heard word /horse/), they did nothing. If the picture and word failed to match (picture of a horse and heard word /goat/), they pushed a button. Task four was the same as task three except that the words were written beneath the picture rather than being heard. Students had to read the words and determine if they matched the pictures. This set of core ERP tasks was continued in studies discussed under the Youth of Promise Project.

While the data are still being analyzed, observations suggest that middle school students enjoyed working on the first four levels of Lexia and those in Fast ForWord enjoyed the games for the first two weeks. When these levels had been reached, student attention tended to wander and there was greater need to implement classroom management strategies to keep students on task.

All students selected for Study Three were enrolled in a six-week Fast ForWord summer program taught by speech and language specialists. Results will be compared to those receiving Fast ForWord training in studies one and two to determine if teachers' level of training and experience with Fast ForWord made a significant difference in the outcome.

All data from these three studies are being analyzed for manuscript development.