SUPPLEMENT ISSUE www.iioab.org | Gholami et al. 2016 | IIOABJ | Vol. 7 | Suppl 1 | 270-276 | 270 SOCIAL SCIENCE KEY WORDS reading difficulties; phonetics intervention; holistic intervention; mixed intervention. *Corresponding Author Email: gholamionline@yahoo.co m Tel.: +989177078395 ARTICLE COMPARISON OF EFFECTIVENESS OF PHONETIC INTERVENTION, HOLISTIC INTERVENTION AND MIXED INTERVENTION ON THE RATE AND ACCURACY OF READING SKILLS OF CHILDREN WITH READING DIFFICULTY IN GRADE 2 Morteza Gholami 1* , Tahereh Sima Shirazi 2 , Narjes Nikookar 3 , Ali Rahimi 4 1 Department of Foreign Languages, Jahrom University of Medical Sciences, Jahrom, IRAN 2 Department of Speech Therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, IRAN 3 Depatment of Nursing, Jahrom University of Medical Sciences, Jahrom, IRAN 4 School of Humanities and Tourism Management, Bangkok University, Bangkok, THAILAND ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of this study is the comparison of the effectiveness of phonetic, holistic and mixed methods on reading accuracy and reading speed of students’ with reading difficulties in grade two in primary school. Materials & Methods: This study is quasi experimental- comparative. The population is students with reading difficulties of the ordinary primary school in grade two in Jahrom and the investigated sample was 12 students with reading problems which were picked up from ordinary schools in access and randomly categorized into three groups, so that each group contained 4 people received one of the interventions in 35 sessions. The participants were investigated and compared regarding accuracy and speed of reading text, accuracy of non-words, and words before, after, and one month after the intervention using diagnostic reading test (Shirazi, Nili Pour 1384). Using software SPSS, descriptive statistics and statistical test were carried out. Results: After three interventions, the participants had a significant difference in all indices of reading skills in comparison to pre study (p< 0.05). But, after the invention, no significant difference was observed among intervention methods in all indices of reading skills (p>0.05). Conclusion: During this study, it was perceived that the three phonetic, mixed and holistic interventions made a significant difference among students with reading difficulties. As the result, reading problems could be treated through three interventions. INTRODUCTION Reading is the use of a set of complex and unique skills in human which requires extracting word written data, transforming it into mental representation, and then get to meaning and pronunciation. Thus, it is not surprising that some children have reading difficulties [1,2]. Reading difficulties is defined in various studies as the acquisition of one or two standard deviation below the reading mean of reading standard tests [3]. Reading difficulties is the main cause of failure in schools. These difficulties are, in fact, the most obvious danger signal by which the children failure can be predicted in educational fields, this is why successful reading is considered the foundation of success in other courses [4]. Without the assistance of experts in special education to children with reading difficulties, they would encounter with certain frustrations at school [5]. There are extensive evidences which show that reading difficulties of majority of the children can be prevented through early intensive intervention plans. Consequently, systematic and intensive complementary interventions are required to remove reading difficulties of the students who struggle with reading [6]. Process of reading is one of the basic functions of language which is categorized as one of the perceptive actions (receptive) and has received much attention in recent years. Numerous studies have been conducted to achieve receptive information processing of reading and the outcome was presenting models which are the results of experimental experiences. One of the reading models which absorbs a lot of attention is the dual route model [7]. According to the dual route model, various approaches have been created in reading education. Phonetic method, whole word method, and mixed method are the most popular methods which are applied. Phonetic method highlights the significance of Phonological sounds and the sounds of letters. Whole word method emphasizes encountering the written words, so that the children become familiar with the words and they create lexical thesaurus through frequent exposure to them. In this method, the emphasis is more on meaningful units of language than speech sounds [4]. Also in the mixed method, phonetic strategy is tested simultaneously with the whole reading strategies in a way that grapheme - phoneme correspondence and word phonological awareness skills are taught in which the word were by the whole reading. In this method, children would learn strategies associated with both phonetic and holistic methods and analyzing the structure of the words [8]. Lovett et al compared word reading skills in children with severe reading disabilities using both methods. One group was trained in whole word (holistic) treatment, and the other group in grapheme- phoneme correspondence, and the control group in study skills [10]. Each group received 35 hours of intensive training. In this study, children responded to both treatments. However, both groups failed generalization of what have learned in untrained words. Therefore, it seems that even the children who trained grapheme-phoneme correspondence, require a particular training to generalize learned cases to untrained words [9, 10]. Lovett et al compared two different intensive training of word recognition in children with Published: 30Oct 2016