Principal Investigators: Dr. Maria Klatte, Claudia Steinbrink, Prof. Dr. Thomas Lachmann

First Funding Period: 2011-2013

Second Funding Period: 2014 - 2017

Source of funding: German Federal Ministry of Educational Research (BMBF)

Grant amount: 450.000 €

Project Description:

Intact phonological processing abilities are of major importance for successful acquisition of literacy skills. Training studies confirmed that programs which combine phonological training with systematic instruction of letter-sound-relationships are effective in fostering children´s reading and spelling skills. Based on this evidence, we constructed the computerized training program Lautarium for German children with reading and/or spelling difficulties. Lautarium comprises training of phoneme perception, phonological awareness, grapheme-phoneme-mappings, and reading and spelling of transparent words. Due to interactive instructions, automatic task selection and an integrated feedback and token system, the children can perform the training more or less autonomously.

The effectiveness of Lautarium was verified in four evaluation studies using pretest – posttest -  follow-up control group designs (see Klatte et al., 2018). In these studies, Lautarium proved an effective means for fostering phonological processing and reading and spelling skills in third-grade children with a diagnosis of dyslexia, and in first- and second-grade struggling readers.

In November 2017, the training program Lautarium was published (Klatte et al., 2017; Hogrefe-Verlag; ISBN: 9783801728878).

Publications:

Klatte, M.; Bergström, K.; Steinbrink, C.; Konerding, M. & Lachmann, T. (2018). Effects of the computer-based training program Lautarium on phonological awareness and reading and spelling abilities in German second-graders. In: Lachmann, T. & Weis, T. (Eds.). Reading and Dyslexia: From Basic Functions to Higher Order Cognition.Literacy Studies, Perspectives from Cognitive Neurosciences, Linguistics, Psychology and Education: Vol. 16. Cham: Springer International Publishing.