Evaluation of phonological awareness training on reading improvement and skills

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 achi evement. 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 hea ring impairment. 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. Based on the results, after teaching the phonological awareness strategies to the experi mental 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. 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