A comparative study of the effectiveness of direct instruction, phonological awareness and the combined method on reading comprehension in elementary students with reading disabilities

The purpose of this paper was to compare the effectiveness of Direct Instruction (DI), Phonological Awareness (PA) and Combined Method (CM) on reading comprehension in elementary students with reading disabilities (RD). The target population included male and female third, fourth and fifth grade elementary students in Kermanshah in trhe academic year 1390-1391. The study sample consisted of 20 participants diagnosed with RD. Then, four equally sized groups each with 5 participants were formed. WISC-R and reading achievement and reading comprehension test were utilized. Pretest and posttest were administered to the four groups. The 40 minutes special treatment was given to experimental groups three for 20 sessions but the control group received nothing except for the traditional school instruction. The data were analyzed by one–way ANOVA and Scheffe post-hoc test. The results revealed that PA could significantly enhance reading comprehension, but the other two methods could not. Accordingly, this study suggests the PA method for reading comprehension problems remediation.