Abstract
Preschool children at risk of dyslexia show inadequate progress in their preliteracy
skills; they often perform poorly in the domain of phonological awareness, letter
knowledge, and rapid automatized naming. As a result, they tend to fall behind academically,
specifically in reading, when they enter primary school. Because time is of the essence,
early intervention becomes necessary to provide the best possible preliteracy outcome.
To date, there has not been a study that investigates the effectiveness of early intervention
in Thai, a language that is typologically and orthographically different from those
in previous studies. In this preliminary study, training materials, created with phonological
awareness and letter knowledge at the core, were presented via interactive Siriraj
Pre-Literacy Enhancement software. In total, 73 typically developing preschoolers,
aged 60 to 66 months, were enrolled. Preliteracy skills were measured by Rama Pre-Read
(RPR). At-risk children received the 11-week computer-based early intervention training.
After the intervention was completed, participants' preliteracy skills were evaluated
by RPR (posttest). Sixteen children (21.9%) were at risk of dyslexia. Results after
training indicated that preschool at-risk children of dyslexia in Thailand show a
high magnitude of improvement in preliteracy skills, across all three domains. The
computer-based early intervention to promote preliteracy skills is a feasible and
effective form of remediation for Thai children at risk of dyslexia.
Keywords
at-risk children - dyslexia - computer based - early intervention - preliteracy
