Effects of a phonics-based intervention on the reading skills of students with intellectual disability.
Teacher-run phonics groups give elementary students with ID a solid boost in reading without extra staff or tech.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Salazar et al. (2021) tested a seven-month phonics program for kids with intellectual disability. Teachers ran 30-minute small groups, four days a week, in regular elementary schools.
Kids were randomly placed in phonics or business-as-usual classes. The team tracked word reading, fake-word reading, spelling, and a broad reading test.
What they found
The phonics group jumped ahead in both real and made-up word reading. The gain was medium-sized and held steady at the end of the year.
Spelling and the big reading test also rose, but the change was smaller and not always significant.
How this fits with other research
Grindle et al. (2012) used the same direct-instruction style to teach science words to autistic students. Both studies show that step-by-step drills work for academic skills across developmental disabilities.
Dong et al. (2025) looked at parent-led shared reading with prompts. They also saw reading gains, but the teaching agent was mom or dad at home, not the teacher at school. The two papers together tell us literacy can grow in either setting if we script the prompts.
Sureshkumar et al. (2024) used video prompting via telehealth to teach first-aid. Like Rachel’s study, they got large, lasting gains. The common thread: clear models, repeated practice, and checks for understanding help kids with ID lock in new skills.
Why it matters
You do not need a fancy curriculum. A plain phonics sequence, run by the classroom teacher in small groups, moves the needle on decoding for students with ID. Add five minutes of spelling review and you may see bonus gains. If parents ask what works, you can point to this trial and even send home the same prompt style for bedtime reading.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: To date, only a few studies with randomized controlled trials have been published on the effectiveness of phonics-based reading interventions to teach decoding and spelling skills to students with intellectual disability. AIMS: This study evaluated the effects of a phonics-based reading intervention program on the progress of French-speaking elementary students with intellectual disability. METHODS: A total of 48 non decoding elementary students with intellectual disability were randomly assigned to either a treatment group or a control group. Most of the participants (75 %) had nonverbal IQs below 55. The reading intervention program was implemented for seven months by the students' teachers and mainly in a small-group format (two to four students). RESULTS: Students from the treatment group made significantly more progress in word and nonword reading measured by a researcher-designed test with a medium effect size. An almost significant difference was also found on spelling (p = .058) and on word and nonword reading measured with a standardized test (p = .060) with medium effect sizes. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that students with ID benefit from phonics-based programs integrating research-based approaches and techniques.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2021 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2021.103883