This study examined the effects of two kindergarten literacy interventions on Grade 1 spelling among monolingual Spanish-speaking kindergarteners in low socioeconomic schools in Argentina. One intervention targeted PA and basic phonics, while the other was a multicomponent intervention integrating PA, MA, and vocabulary instruction. A control group followed the standard kindergarten curriculum without explicit literacy instruction. The interventions were delivered over three months by classroom teachers. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that both intervention groups outperformed the control group on spelling at posttest, with large effect sizes. The results suggest that both PA and basic phonics-focused and multicomponent instruction can enhance early spelling skills in transparent orthographies such as Spanish. These findings provide support for kindergarten interventions and underscore the potential of teacher-delivered interventions to promote foundational literacy skills in under-resourced settings.
Porta et al. (Mon,) studied this question.