The purpose of this study was to determine if middle school students with learning disabilities (LD) identified as having phonological awareness deficits could improve their phonological awareness skills after instruction, and if these skills could impact word recognition skills. Forty middle school students with LD who were identified as having phonological awareness deficits were matched and split into two groups, A and B. Both groups received the same type of phonological awareness instruction. Results indicated that there was no group effect for the word identification subtest. However, there was main effect for occasion; for both groups, posttest scores were significantly higher than the midtest scores, and midtest scores were significantly higher than the pretest scores. With respect to the CTOPP scores, results showed an interaction effect. Followup t-tests indicated that for the midtest, Group A significantly outperformed Group B on the CTOPP, suggesting that the intervention had an effect on phonological awareness skills. Both groups also had significantly higher posttest scores compared to the pretest scores, implying that both groups improved their phonological awareness skills over time.
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