Barker 1995.

Methods	Randomised controlled trial 2 intervention groups (phonics, phonological awareness (not relevant)) and 1 control group (alternative training)
Participants	Location/setting: 2 elementary schools; USA Criteria: score ≤ 40th percentile on the WJRMT Word Identification subtest; score < 50th percentile on the Sound Categorisation subtest Recruits: 54 English‐speaking children, who scored slightly below mean range on Vocabulary subtest form Stanford Binet IV‐Revised (mean 16.5, SD 2.36; range 11–22) Sex: not reported Mean age: not reported (SD not reported; range 6 years, 2 months to 7 years, 8 months) Ethnicity: not reported Sample size: 32 English‐speaking children Allocation: "Children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions" (quote, p 95). This review used the phonological decoding training group as the intervention group and the maths training group as the control group. There was also a phonological awareness control group (see notes), which was not used by this review. Intervention groups: phonics: n = 18 (mean age, SD, and range not reported) phonological awareness: n = 18 (mean age, SD, and range not reported) Control group: n = 18 (mean age, SD, and range not reported)
Interventions	Intervention: phonics training: phonological decoding training: Hint and Hunt I programme: "designed to acquaint children with the basic short vowel sounds and provide practice in identifying words containing those sounds" (quote, p 94; phonics) phonological awareness: phoneme awareness training using Daisy Quest Control: attentional control group: maths‐oriented software programs (Alien Addition, Math Rabbit, Math Blaster) Procedure: training took place in school psychologist's office. Groups of 3 and 4 throughout the school day. 25‐minute sessions, 4 times/week (Monday to Thursday) for 8 weeks. Friday used as make‐up sessions. 1 experimenter at each site who set up each station with appropriate programme for each student. Training done via computer. Experimenter helped with technical issues but no conceptual issues. Students rewarded with 1 sticker at end of session.
Outcomes	Time of post‐test: immediately after training completed Primary and secondary outcomes: non‐word reading accuracy (Word Analysis subtest from WJRMT), regular and irregular word reading accuracy (Word Identification subtest from WJRMT), and phonological awareness (experimental: phoneme elision)
Notes	The phonological awareness training group used Daisy Quest andDaisy's Castle. Daisy Quest trains recognising words that rhyme; recognising words that have the same beginning, middle, and ending sounds. Daisy's Castle teaches these additional skills: recognising words formed from a series of phonemes presented as onset and rime; recognising words that can be formed from a series of separately presented phonemes; counting the number of sounds in words. These programmes did not include phonics and so were not included as an intervention in this review. 2 measures were used to test reading accuracy: non‐words. We only included the Word Analysis subtest of the WJRMT as it is a published test with known reliability. 2 measures were used to test reading accuracy: words. We just used Word Identification of the WJRMT to represent mixed/regular word reading accuracy. Study start and end dates: not reported Funding: not reported Potential/declared conflicts of interest: none reported
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote from publication: "Children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions" (p 95) Comment: no other information provided
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Low risk	Comment: could not foresee assignment due to central allocation of participants to groups.
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Comment: no information provided; however, participants were children with little understanding of reading treatment techniques and hence were unlikely to understand allocation.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Comment: no information provided; however, this study used objective tests of literacy‐related skills that are designed to avoid assessor bias.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Comment: no information provided; allocated group sizes not reported in publication, and no response to request for information.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	Comment: data reported for all phonological and reading tests listed in methods; adequate detail for data to be included in analysis.
Other bias	Low risk	Comment: none apparent