Jeffrey L. Black, M.D.,
Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children

Progress mode by 24 dyslexic students (mean age 10.8 years) after two years in the Dyslexia Training Program (DTP), a small-group adaptation of alphabetic phonics, was compared with the outcome of 26 dyslexic controls matched for age, grade, intelligence. phonemic awareness, word recognition and spelling. Children in the control group were more advantaged according to their socio-economic Status (SES) and general oral language skills- Control children, seven of whom were enrolled in dyslexia or special education programs in the schools, did not receive reading instruction that emphasized phonological coding during the intervention period. Children in the DTP intervention group made statistically and clinically significant improvement in decoding skills, word recognition, and reading comprehension when compared to the nonphonetic control group. Progress made by DTP students completing the live (N-ll) and videotape (N=13) instruction was comparable and statistically significant at the p < .05 level. The experimental group mode greater progress in spelling but the change was not statistically or clinically significant- This study indicates that a modified alphabetic phonics approach is useful in teaching dyslexic students reading, and that videotaped instruction can be equally effective in a small group format. Spelling was shown to be less remediable even when it is a direct target of intervention efforts. The study was presented at the 46th annual conference of the Orton-Dyslexia Society in Houston, Texas, November 1995, now in print.