Effect Of Phonological Awareness Intervention on Reading Abilities in Poor Readers of Kannada Alphasyllabary among School going Children A single subject study

While there is growing knowledge regarding the role of Phonological Awareness (PA) in reading non-alphabetic languages, there is only limited evidence detailing the role of phonology in reading alphasyllabic languages. Available literature supports early focused training in phonological abilities and letter knowledge among younger children in some Indian languages (Nag, 2007; Prema, 2012), which needs to be extended to other age groups to understand the need for PA treatment in higher-grade levels. This can provide better insights into understanding the effect of treatment across the grades on reading and to compare the effects from lower to higher grades. Furthermore, not many studies have investigated the influence of auditory processing abilities in bottom-up treatment approaches as phonological intervention in children with poor reading abilities in Kannada. Hence, the need to investigate the role of auditory processing abilities in PA intervention for Kannada poor readers. The current study aims to investigate the effectiveness of PA intervention on reading abilities in poor readers of Kannada among school-going children in grades 3 to 7. The study will be conducted in two phases  (Phase 1 is to identify poor Kannada readers and Phase 2 will have an intervention) with following objectives. The first objective of phase one is to identify poor readers in Kannada from grades 3 to 7. The second objective is to evaluate the effect of PA intervention in poor readers on reading ability and auditory processing skills. Further, the changes in reading and auditory processing abilities will be correlated post intervention in poor readers of grades 3 to 7. Initially, a list of schools from an Udupi district will be stratified using the stratified cluster sampling method using the details of the schools on school strength, location, and school category (private aided/Government/private unaided) which will be tabulated, and suitable filters will be used to match the inclusion of the study as well as to justify the cost of resources involved to make multiple visits to schools. The proposed study consists of two phases. In Phase I, Initially, all the children will be screened for language proficiency, disability, overall academic performances, emotions, and behaviors. Based on the strict inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study participants are involved in further testing. A comprehensive test battery will be used to assess their socio-economic status, intellectual abilities (Non-verbal Intelligent Quotient), broader oral language component, reading and hearing abilities. These tests will be administered individually to each child in the quiet environment of the schools over 2-3 sessions of 30-40 minutes each within a week which will be audio recorded. All the obtained data will be grouped as good, poor and non-readers. For group comparison, participants who score below 1.5 S.D mainly on their word reading accuracy measures are grouped as poor readers. Also, within the group children whose reading abilities fall below the 15th percentile for their grade in word reading accuracy measures will be considered as non-readers group as their reading performance will be exceptionally low in the word reading accuracy measures. Poor readers from urban schools who score lower than 1.5 S.D. on word and non-word reading accuracy testing (from phase 1) will be randomly chosen for the intervention phase (Phase II) across grades three to seven, considering factors such as school distance (rural setting), resource costs, and study feasibility. Phase 2 will commence with baseline assessments of all measures including word and non-word reading measures (accuracy, rate, and reaction times). The primary researcher will use the revised remedial module (The intervention items will be revised considering the change in the current curriculum, words usage and other environmental factors. The set of words will be pooled and compiled from grade specific textbooks and from standardized age-appropriate test batteries to include for baseline, weekly probe, and an intervention. These items will be validated by the teachers who have minimum of 3 years of working experience, parents who have children in age band 8 to 15 years, and Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) who have experience working with dyslexics or children with specific learning disorder for more than 3 years. The experts will be asked to rate the items on relevancy, age appropriateness, iconicity of the pictures, and size of the pictures. A five-point rating scale ranging from 0 to 5 will be used to rate the stimulus and will be asked to provide feedback or comment specific to an item or domain)  deliver interventions to the participants within their respective schools. In the PA intervention phase, all the items within each subsection will be randomized for each session. The criteria for moving to sub-tasks/stimuli within the intervention module will be 80% or 4 out of 5 trials on two consecutive week probes and each session would last for 30 to 45 minutes. All session data will be audio-recorded for scoring and analysis purposes. The primary researcher will also maintain a record book for noting responses from each participant across sessions. Intervention fidelity will be assessed by an independent observer (a trained SLP) by listening to the recordings using an appropriate rating scale. After completion of the intervention or meeting the criteria, the maintenance will be checked for all group participants after a week. The tests administered for maintenance will be similar to pre-intervention assessment. All participants will be reassessed in follow-up assessments, administered a month after the maintenance, and three months after the first follow-up assessment. Additionally, feedback on the child’s reading performance will be collected from the teachers/parents of the poor readers after the intervention phase. Additional reading exercises and strategies to continue to help children’s reading skills (for poor readers) will be provided after the completion of the follow-up phase of the study. The findings of our study are expected to provide evidence for the effectiveness of PA intervention on poor readers for an extended age range, i.e., 8 years to 14 years. The study is expected to provide insights into understanding reading in alphasyllabic orthography, which could help develop suitable interventional modules and inform educational policies for children struggling with reading. This knowledge holds significant value for teachers and parents of children who experience difficulties in reading, as they can integrate this intervention into their curriculum to offer essential support to those children in need of reading assistance.