Phonemes, rhymes, and intelligence as predictors of children's responsiveness to remedial reading instruction: evidence from a longitudinal intervention study.

We present an analysis of data from a longitudinal intervention study with 7-year-old poor readers (Hatcher, Hulme, & Ellis, 1994). A battery of cognitive and phonological tasks administered before the intervention began revealed five separate factors: Phoneme Manipulation, Rhyme, Verbal Ability, Nonverbal Ability and Phonological Memory. We assessed the extent to which these factors were predictive of children's responsiveness to the teaching interventions they received. For reading accuracy, Verbal Ability, Nonverbal Ability, Phonological Memory, and Rhyme made no significant contribution to predicting responsiveness to teaching, while Phoneme Manipulation was a very strong predictor. However for reading comprehension, Verbal ability (but not nonverbal ability) made an additional unique contribution to predicting responsiveness to teaching. The results are discussed in the context of current theories of the role of intelligence and phonological skills in learning to read.