Setting
The study included two elementary schools in one Pacific Northwest school district.
Study sample
Thirty-five first-grade students from five classrooms in two schools who were identified as having
low phonological awareness skills based on performance on the Test of Phonological Awareness
(TOPA) participated in the study. The students were organized into six groups, and these groups
were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Complete Auditory Discrimination in Depth
(CADD, which is now known as LiPS®, included 11 students), the basal reading program (BASAL,
which included 13 students), or Modified Auditory Discrimination in Depth (MADD, which included
11 students). The MADD condition is not eligible for review, as it is a modified version of the LiPS®
program. Therefore, the 11 students in the MADD condition are excluded from this review.
The CADD group’s analytic sample included five male and six female students, with a mean
age of 6.35 years. The BASAL (comparison) group’s analytic sample included three male and
nine female students, with a mean age of 6.47 years. All students who participated in the study
scored at or below the 15th percentile on the TOPA, which was used as a screening test and
administered prior to randomization.
Intervention Group
The LiPS® program is designed to teach students the skills they need to decode and encode
words and to identify individual sounds and blends in words. For this study, instruction focused
on five components of the CADD program: (a) setting the climate for learning, (b) identifying and
classifying speech sounds, (c) tracking speech sounds, (d) spelling, and (e) reading.
As a supplement to regular classroom reading instruction, CADD instruction was delivered to
small groups of five to six students. Instruction was provided for 30 minutes every day for 8
weeks (40 sessions total). During this period, all consonant pairs specified in CADD guidelines
were introduced, but there was insufficient time to introduce consonant groups and some
vowel sounds.
Comparison Group
Students in the comparison (BASAL) group received supplemental reading instruction that
incorporated phonological awareness activities from the basal reader adopted for use in
the regular classroom. The classroom reading basal at School A was the Scribner Reading
Series, Join the Circle (Scribner, 1997); the classroom reading basal at School B was the
Open Court Series, Blue Pillow Sky (Open Court, 1989). The supplemental instruction was
provided to students in a small room near the first-grade classroom for approximately 30
minutes each day for 40 days (8 weeks).
Outcome descriptions
Two outcomes in the alphabetics domain met review requirements. These outcomes were
the WRMT-R Word Identification subtest and the Word Attack subtest. For a more detailed
description of these outcome measures, see Appendix B.
Supplemental findings are presented in Appendix D on WRMT-R results for a 4-week delayed
posttest and an 8-week delayed posttest. The supplemental findings do not factor into the
intervention’s rating of effectiveness.
Outcomes in two domains (alphabetics and reading fluency) did not meet review requirements.
The Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test (LACT) in the alphabetics domain was overaligned
with the intervention. The Curriculum-Based Oral Reading Fluency Test in the reading
fluency domain was developed by the study authors. No reliability information was provided
for this outcome, so it did not meet review requirements because the reliability of the test
could not be established.
Support for implementation
The two teachers providing instruction for the CADD, MADD, and BASAL programs each
received 18 hours of pre-service training on the published formats and guidelines for each
program. The two teachers also met with the investigator for 2 hours each week for 8 weeks
for additional pre-service training. Daily lesson plans developed by the investigator were also
provided to the two teachers.