The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of the phonetic-based reading instruction
and meaning centered-based reading instruction on the reading capacity of children with
intellectual disabilities. To achieve the objective, this study intentionally selected 60 students
with intellectual disabilities among the students of special education who are attending
elementary school to assign 30 students to the phonetic-based reading instruction program
group and 30 students to the meaning centered-based reading instruction program group and
applied 20 sets of programs for 10 weeks to each of the groups. As results of the study,
children with the mental levels over 5 years of age, displayed greater improvements in
post-tests of phonetic-based reading instruction methods and children with the mental levels
under 5 years of age, displayed greater improvements in post-tests for meaning centered-based
reading instruction methods than the phonetic-based reading instruction methods. Therefore, it
is possible to more effectively improve the improve the reading capacities of intellectually
disabled children with the mental levels over 5 years of age through the phonetic-based
reading instruction methods while the meaning centered-based reading instruction methods are
more effective for intellectually disable children with mental levels under 5 years of age.