Levy 1999.

Methods	Randomised controlled trial (stratified randomisation) 2 intervention groups (onset rime + phoneme segmentation, whole word (not relevant)) and 1 control group (alternative training)
Participants	Location/setting: grade 2 classrooms of the Hamilton‐Wentworth Roman Catholic Separate School Board, Canada Criteria: English speaker; score < 90 on the WRAT‐3 Word Identification test; score > half a grade below appropriate grade on the WRMT Word Identification test; < 15 training words read correctly Recruits: 128 English‐speaking children in Grade 2 Sex: 72 male; 56 female Mean age: 7 years 7 months (SD and range not reported) Ethnicity: mixed racial distributions Sample size: 96 English‐speaking children Allocation: fast RAN and slow RAN poor readers randomly allocated to four groups (onset rime, phoneme segmentation, whole word, arithmetic). Two groups received phonics training (onset rime, phoneme segmentation), and so were merged. The arithmetic group was used as the control group. Intervention groups: onset rime + phoneme segmentation: n = 64 (sex, mean age, SD, and range not reported) whole word: n = 32 (sex, mean age, SD, and range not reported) Control group: n = 32 (sex, mean age, SD, and range not reported)
Interventions	Interventions: "On each day of training, children in all groups read through the set of 48 words once only. Each word was printed on a separate index card. On the 1st day only, the experimenter first read through the set only once, in a manner appropriate to modelling that training condition, and then the child read through the set in the same manner. On all subsequent days, the child read the words and the experimenter provided only corrective feedback. The critical differences among the three training conditions for the fast and the slow RAN groups were how the 48 words were grouped together during the presentation and how the words were segmented" (quote, pp 123–4) onset rime + phoneme segmentation: rime: "48 words were presented 4 at a time, where the word on each of the four cards presented together was from the same rime family and each was segmented by colouring the rime unit in red and the onset unit in black" (quote, p 124) colour trials: 15 days or until criterion of entire 48 words read correctly on 2 successive days was met. Following the colour trials, the words were printed in black ink only. phoneme: "Each phonemic unit was printed in a different colour for the 1st 15 days of training or until the criterion of two successive perfect readings was met" (quote). Following the colour trials, the words were printed in black and white. whole word: "Each card contained a written word written in one of three colours... each word was in a single colour and the experimenter pronounced the whole word with no segmental breaks. The child then read the whole words on each trial, with corrective feedback at the whole word level. On black and white trials, the colours were removed... all words were printed in black ink" (quote, p 124) Control (arithmetic): "Help with addition and subtraction in one‐on‐one sessions" (quote, p 125) Procedure: all one‐to‐one training, outside of the classroom, for 15 minutes/day for 4 weeks
Outcomes	Time of test: day after completion of training: immediate Primary outcomes: non‐word reading accuracy (experimental: 48 new non‐words) and regular word reading accuracy (experimental: 48 new regular words)
Notes	While there were 6 intervention groups (fast and slow RAN rime, phoneme and whole word) our review focused on the rime and phoneme conditions since they were phonics training. Since both the rime and phoneme intervention groups trained phonics, the experimental data used in this review was a mean of the fast and slow RAN rime and phoneme training groups (i.e. 4 groups). The control data was a mean of the fast and slow RAN control groups. There were 2 immediate post‐tests: the day after completion and 1 week after completion. We only used the first post‐test in this review. Study start and end dates: not reported Funding: "This research was supported by a grant to the first author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada" (quote, p 115). Declared/potential conflicts of interest: none reported
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote from publication: "the fastest RAN children were assigned to the four fast RAN training groups and the slowest RAN children were assigned to the four slow RAN training groups" (p 121). Comment: 1 fast RAN group and 1 slow RAN group were allocated to each type of training and a control group. Quote from personal communication: "Children were randomly assigned to conditions as they arrived for the study, with the intention to keep numbers per condition as equal as possible in each school at all times. The idea was to balance for time of year effects and conditions in schools. Otherwise assignment per condition was random and controlled by the tester."
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	Low risk	Quote from personal communication: "the teachers and parents knew the general purpose of the study but no details of manipulations or child assignments or individual child outcomes." Comment: 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	Quote from personal communication: "the same testers scored all tests for both pre and post tests. No blinding of testers was attempted since the experimenters were largely the testers." Comment: study used objective tests of literacy‐related skills that are designed to avoid assessor bias.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Comment: no explicit information about attrition, but analysis of number of children who met criterion after training suggests that all randomised participants were included in the analysis (i.e. 16 in each group).
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	Comment: data reported for all outcome measures outlined in methods; adequate detail for data to be included in analysis.
Other bias	Low risk	Comment: none apparent