How does whole-word multimedia software support early acquisition of literacy skills in typically-developing and struggling readers?
Karemaker, A.M.1,2, Pitchford, N.J.1 & O’Malley, C.1 1 University of Nottingham 2 University of Oxford, Department of Education We present findings from two intervention studies comparing the effectiveness of the multimedia software, Oxford Reading Tree (ORT) for Clicker, to traditional ORT Big Books. The interventions were carefully matched and counterbalanced so as to provide the purest test of intervention implementation possible within the classroom setting. Sixty-one typically-developing readers (Study 1) and 17 struggling readers (Study 2), aged 5-6 years, were given each intervention over five one-hour sessions throughout one school week. Performance on tasks of written word recognition, written word naming, and phonological awareness was measured before and after each intervention. Both interventions led to significant improvements on all measures for both groups of readers. Furthermore, for typically-developing readers greater gains were found following the multimedia than tra
