ducted by Gathercole and Alloway (2008) has shown the
very wide range of ability in terms of working memory
capacity. Indeed, difficulties in working memory can have a
significant impact on a child’s ability to use a phonics
strategy successfully. For example, children with working
memory difficulties may have difficulty holding in shortterm
storage more than two or three sounds while they
blend them together. Some children may, therefore, know
all the sounds individually but be unable to blend them into
words. The fact that a third of the sample did not increase
their standardised reading scores over the course of the
research does not diminish the effectiveness of the intervention
for the rest of the sample.