Evaluation of phonological awareness training on reading improvement and skills

Background and Aim: Reading is not only a fundamental skill in learning but also an imp­ortant channel in dealing with the outside world. However, hearing impairment affects linguistic growth, including speaking and reading; deve­lopment of understanding; and academic achi­evement. The purpose of this study was to inv­estigate the effect of phonological awareness training on improving phonological reading and awareness in primary school children with hea­ring impairment. Methods: The present study has a quasi-experi­mental design. The research was conducted as pretest, intervention and posttest. A total of 20 children with moderate to severe hearing loss were enrolled in the experimental group and 20 subjects in another group as the control. Rea­ding and dyslexia test (NEMA) was used to ass­ess reading improvement and phonological awa­reness was assessed by the phonological aware­ness questionnaire. The data normality was che­cked by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and non-parametric Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney U test were used to evaluate non-parametric data. Results: Based on the results, after teaching the phonological awareness strategies to the experi­mental group, their reading and phonological awareness scores increased significantly higher than the control group (p<0.05). Also the results show higher phonological awareness scores in girls. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that improvement of phonological awareness in children with hearing loss can improve and res­olve their reading performance and problems.