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Within the field of learning disabilities many intervention studies find that treatment resisters remain despite gains in our understanding of best practices and effective treatment for reading development and disability. In this study we examine good vs. poor responders in an intervention study with 147 early primary grade students in a learning support programme. Students were assessed for reading accuracy and fluency after completion of a tablet-based reading intervention, and classified as responders vs. non-responders based on criterionreferenced scores for word reading accuracy and fluency. Differences between the two groups were evaluated for the rate of growth on literacy measures over the intervention phase, their cognitive attributes at pre-intervention, and their in-lesson performance on the tablet-based intervention activities. Findings show the responder group had initial superior performance on decoding and spelling measures, as well as broad abilities related to nonverbal reasoning, working memory, phonological awareness and rapid symbol naming. Further, the gap in performance on decoding and spelling measures increased over time, with the non-responder group showing some improvement in these skills, but to a significantly smaller degree than the responder group. Different approaches to phonics intervention in the study resulted in the same proportion of non-responders. Further, children’s confusions with specific sound-symbol associations over the course of the interventions suggest potential challenges that teachers may highlight.