What Works for Children with Literacy Difficulties? - Digital ...

teacher, learning word patterns out loud. The sequences are highly structured, and are taught
until all children have mastered them.
The children in the experimental group receiving the first of the ‘therapeutic’ interventions in
this study received DISTAR as above, plus counselling once a week for 20 weeks from one of
35 non-professionals. The children were seen in pairs, for 45 minutes each time. The
counsellors were selected by the head teachers of the schools involved. They had four
meetings beforehand at which they were given handouts on how to structure the sessions with
games and activities. These had been designed by the experimenter, or were those described
by Canfield and Wells (1976). The counsellors were also briefed on self-concept theory and
on the establishment of empathy as described by Rogers (1975) and ‘modelling’ as described
by Bandura (1977). The essence of the intervention was an accepting and non-judgmental
relationship between counsellor and children.
The group receiving the second of the ‘therapeutic’ interventions received DISTAR as above,
plus a weekly drama session designed to enhance self-esteem. Groups varied in size from 7
to 15. The sessions lasted about 45 minutes, and were taken by the County Adviser for
Drama. They were structured to allow the children to experience success, and included roleplaying
of ‘experts’, for example they would be on an imaginary journey and would each be
given a different expert role. The rule was that no criticism of experts was allowed. The
drama condition was intended to illustrate an even simpler method of delivering self-esteem
improvement than the delivery of counselling by non-professionals.
Evaluations
These were all carried out by Lawrence. The following summary gives the main results for
each study, and then some overall conclusions.
Somerset (1)
Professional counselling only was effective. The evidence for counselling plus remedial
phonics teaching, and for remedial phonics only, was less clearcut. Professional counselling
plus remedial phonics was no better than counselling only or remedial phonics only; but
professional counselling only was better than remedial phonics only or no intervention and
equal to professional counselling plus remedial phonics.
Somerset (2)
Counselling by non-professionals plus remedial teaching was no better than remedial teaching
alone.
Somerset (3)
Counselling by non-professionals plus remedial teaching was better than remedial teaching
alone.
Somerset (4)
The two ‘therapeutic’ conditions (counselling by non-professionals plus DISTAR, drama plus
DISTAR) did not differ, and were better than DISTAR only and no intervention, which also
did not differ.
Overall
Counselling by a professional alone was effective in study 1.
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