April 16th ~ Integrated Spelling in Phonics Instruction; Home Literacy Environment, Reading Interest, and Reading Skills; Teachers’ use of texts in supporting beginning readers;
The Weekly Newsletter that Keeps you Informed of the Latest Reading Research!
Welcome! This is issue number 47.
Welcome to the Reading Research Recap, a weekly newsletter featuring the latest reading research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The goal of the Recap is to share recent scientific findings and foster an appreciation of science as a way to navigate the world. I try to make this one of the most informative emails you get each week.
Updates
Welcome New Subscribers!
There was a recent surge in sign-ups and so I wanted to bring two things to attention to the new subscribers:
First, I suggest installing the chrome plugin called “unpaywall” (click here to learn more). Some of the open access articles I link are accessed through this plugin. It is free and legal.
This is what I wrote nearly a year ago, and I think it is a good time to re-post, given all the new subscribers who may be wondering, “this research is great, but what do I do with it?!”
I do have some comments/updates to the post I wrote above, and will be talking more about the logic of science, what science can answer, what it can’t, and general scientific literacy in the near future so stay tuned!
Search for Decodable Books by Letter-Sounds!
Screenshot of elemeno.us homepage I’ve been working on the elemeno site (after taking it down for several months for construction). The “search books” page is up and running so check it out, bookmark it, and spread the word. You can now search hundreds free decodable books/passages by letter-sounds! I’ll be adding more books soon. (Note that not all the books have cover picture uploaded yet.)
New feature!
If you want to save all your favorite books in one place you can do this by creating a free login/member account on the page and clicking the heart icon on the book. All your favorites will be then be under your profile. But, this is optional, you do not have to do this to access the books.
screenshot showing the “short a” filter Survey Results
Full survey results are at the end of the newsletter if you are curious. Given that not a lot of people responded, I will assume we are doing an “ok” job. I will think about how to incorporate the feedback!
Ok, sorry for the long “updates” section…onto the research!
Phonological Awareness Materials in Utah Kindergartens: A Case Study in the Science of Reading
“In the current study, we investigated the use of commercial kindergarten materials for such instruction in one state and suggest that the most widely used materials have areas of inconsistency with the science of reading. Notably, the commercial materials reviewed here did not take orthographic development into sufficient account. Additionally, the materials did not use letters and did not limit focus to one or two skills. Implications for classroom instruction, teacher education, commercial materials development, and future research are identified.”
Developmental Relations between Home Literacy Environment, Reading Interest, and Reading Skills: Evidence From a 3-Year Longitudinal Study (open access)
“We examined the bidirectional relations between home literacy environment, reading interest, and children’s emergent literacy and reading skills in a sample of 172 English-speaking Canadian children (Mage = 75.87 months) followed from Grade 1 to Grade 3…These findings suggest that parents are sensitive to their children’s reading performance and modify their involvement accordingly.”
Developing fluency and comprehension with the secondary fluency routine
“This article examines the effects of a reading fluency intervention on the fluency and comprehension of struggling middle school readers…repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted on all outcome measures which included rate, accuracy, fluency, oral reading index, prosody, and comprehension. There were no interaction effects; however, main effects were detected on all measures, and mean difference effect sizes indicated that the intervention was effective in increasing reading fluency and comprehension.”
A survey of Western Australian teachers’ use of texts in supporting beginning readers (open access)
“The most recent version of the Australian Curriculum includes the requirement that teachers use both predictable and decodable texts in early reading instruction. As each text type is underpinned by a different approach to reading instruction, this creates a potential dilemma for teachers when implementing the curriculum….The findings highlight the need to improve early years teachers’ knowledge of the instructional strategies aligned to each text type so that they can make informed decisions when supporting children’s reading development.”
Judging books by covers: Exploring antiblackness and Asian and Hispanic children preferences
“Children’s books support children’s development, but many factors influence interest in engaging with books, including book physical features. Additionally, the lack of diverse children’s books makes it difficult to determine whether racial characters influence children's book preferences…a Chi-square test did reveal significance in preference differences, and five qualitative preference rationale categories emerged, including a race-related rationale. Study implications provide evidence for the necessity of publishing more diverse books and including them as required materials within curriculum.”
Is a procedural learning deficit a causal risk factor for developmental language disorder or dyslexia? a meta-analytic review (open access)
“We conclude that current data do not provide an adequate test of the theory that a generalized procedural learning deficit is a causal risk factor for developmental dyslexia or developmental language disorder.”
Data envelopment analysis (DEA) in the educational sciences (open access preprint)
Note: the paper was published here, but not open access, however, the corresponding author said that the published version is the same as the preprint in the link above
“Data envelopment analysis (DEA), is a method rooted in organizational management that makes such insights possible. Unlike models alluded to above, DEA does not explain variance. Instead, it explains how efficiently an individual utilizes their inputs to produce outputs, and identifies which input is not being utilized optimally…This paper then extends DEA’s usage into the educational field using a study on child reading ability. Using students from the Project KIDS dataset (n = 1987), DEA is demonstrated using a simple view of reading framework, identifying individual efficiency levels in using reading-based skills to achieve reading comprehension, determining which skills are being underutilized, and classifying new subsets of readers. New subsets of readers were identified using this method, with implications for more targeted interventions.”
Effects of Integrated Spelling in Phonics Instruction for At-Risk Children in Kindergarten
paper here
Background
Spelling requires recall, whereas reading only requires recognition, so integrating spelling instruction into phonics instruction might make early reading instruction easier and more efficient for children at risk of reading disabilities.
Integrating spelling practice (into phonics instruction) would allow for bi-directional practice (sounds to letters and letters to sounds), and this might create stronger links between letters and sounds.
There has been prior correlational work suggesting spelling is associated with reading gains, but the experimental work is muddied by issue of experimenter control,
“However, one limitation of much of this research is that the instruction in the experimental vs. the control groups differs in several ways, which makes it difficult to determine exactly what makes the experimental program superior.”
Rationale for this Study
Prior studies did not have strong experimenter control that could isolate the effects of spelling (versus other factors),
“One option is to compare outcomes of an experimental program that adds spelling activities to instruction in letter-sound correspondences and reading—with outcomes of a control condition in which a similar amount of time and effort is spent solely on letter-sound correspondences and reading. Such a design would allow for an evaluation of the specific effect of integrating spelling activities into initial literacy instruction. The present study employed such a design.”
Therefore, this study was conducted to see how well an integrated spelling approach compared with 3 other conditions: 1) a condition that focused on letter-sound production during the middle 8 minutes; 2) a condition that focused on letter-sound recognition for the middle 8 minutes; and 3) a “business-as-usual” condition
Research Questions
Does integration of spelling activities into systematic phonics instruction in kindergarten support at-risk children’s development of phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling—even when spelling practice replaces other letter-sound activities?
Does literacy instruction that emphasizes recall and articulation of letter-sounds lead to better letter-sound knowledge, reading and spelling ability than teaching that only requires recognition of letter-sounds?
Hypotheses
Based on prior research, the authors believed that the answers to both of the above research questions would be “yes.”
Design & Methods
Participants
kindergarten children in Denmark (children enter kindergarten the summer of the year they turn 6) **Note that Danish has a deep orthography, like English
participants were screened to make sure they were “at-risk” as determined by teacher observation and then subsequent performance on a test of letter-sound knowledge
the final sample consisted of 65 children randomly assigned to the 4 conditions
Intervention
in instruction was provided in four one-on-one 20 minute sessions over four consecutive schooldays
the study lasted from April - May of the kindergarten school year
9 letters (and their standard sounds) were selected to be taught across all three conditions except the “business-as usual” condition
Conditions (see graphic above)
the beginning and end of every lesson was the same across the three experimental conditions, the middle 8 minutes is where the instruction was differentiated according to what condition the child was in
the beginning of each lesson (identical across all three experimental conditions) focused on letter sound knowledge where the teacher modeled and the child practiced
the end of each lesson (identical across all three experimental conditions) focused on reading words that contained the letter-sounds they were learning
the middle 8 minutes was not identical across conditions
In the integrated spelling condition, “…participants in the Integrated Spelling condition segmented and spelled four or five words as many times as possible within the allotted time e.g., læ (“lee”), så (“saw”), ål (“eel”), læs “read”)”
In the letter-sound production condition, “…participants practiced the letter-sound associations taught in the first part of the session. The practice was done in game-like activities in which the children had to produce the sounds of all nine letters multiple times.”
In the letter-sound recognition condition “…the instructor would name letter sounds and ask the child to point to the corresponding letters. Again game-like activities were used.”
Measures
The 5 measures administered to children both pre & post intervention were all created by the experimenters
letter names
letter sounds
reading
spelling
phoneme analysis
Analysis
Separate oneway ANOVAs with planned contrasts were used to investigate differences between the conditions on the 5 outcome measures listed above (letter names, letter sounds, reading, spelling, and phoneme analysis).
Results
Pre-intervention checks
Analyses showed no significant differences between groups on any potential confounding variables. (Nerd alert: Even though the researchers randomly assigned participants to condition, most people do not realize that that alone does not eliminate alternative hypotheses, it just reduces the possibility. Therefore, researchers also check and confirm that the groups are equated/matched at the start in order to strengthen the conclusions you can draw. They did this).
Post-intervention results
letter-name knowledge: all three conditions resulted in significant increases in letter-name knowledge (they were all better than the “business-as-usual” group)
letter-sound knowledge: all three conditions resulted in significant increases in letter-name knowledge (they were all better than the “business-as-usual” group)
spelling: children in the integrated spelling condition scored higher than the letter-sound recognition and “business-as-usual” conditions
phoneme analysis: children in the integrated spelling condition scored higher than the letter-sound recognition and “business-as-usual” conditions
reading: “…training condition was related to differences in gains in reading (F (3,61) = 4.9, p < .01). Again, children in the Integrated Spelling condition made greater gains than children in the Letter-Sound Recognition condition (mean difference 2.3 (SE 1.0), p < .05), and in the control condition (mean difference 3.5 (SE 1.0), p < .01). In addition, children in the Letter-Sound Production condition made greater gains than children in the control condition (mean difference 2.7 (SE 1.0), p < .05). None of the other pairwise contrasts was significant.”
So, what was the overall pattern of results?
[Nerd alert: given the nature of null hypothesis significance testing, there is a chance that any single of the above results is not a true effect. This chance increases the more measures you test (though there are ways you can control for it). That said, it is important to look for patterns among the results.]
“In sum, the Integrated Spelling condition stood out as the only trained condition that was associated with significantly larger gains than the business-as-usual control condition on all measures. The Integrated Spelling condition was further associated with larger gains than the Letter-Sound Recognition condition with respect to the measures of phoneme analysis, spelling, and reading. However, no significant differences were found between outcomes in the Integrated Spelling and Letter-Sound Production groups.”
Regarding their second research question, “Does literacy instruction that emphasizes recall and articulation of letter-sounds lead to better letter-sound knowledge, reading and spelling ability than teaching that only requires recognition of letter-sounds?”
“Even though no significant differences were found on measures of letter-name knowledge or letter-sound knowledge, gains in reading of untrained words were significantly higher in the Letter-Sound Production condition than in the Letter-Sound Recognition condition. Differences in phoneme analysis and spelling also favored the Letter-Sound Production condition though they were not significant.
Limitations
it might be the case that the children in the integrated spelling condition received more practice with spelling and phoneme analysis (leading to significant findings for those outcome measures) versus the other conditions, but analysis of the untrained words suggests that the effect sizes were the same as the
because the participants were all recruited from six schools within a similar area they may not represent the general population
another limitation was the one-on-one teaching: these effects might not hold for small group or whole class, the authors mention they could be “washed out” when given by a typical kindergarten teacher (vs. a specially trained instructor)
“The findings support the notion that integrated spelling instruction is beneficial for at-risk students because it activates the phonological segments corresponding to the letters in three different ways: by phoneme awareness during segmentation of the words to be spelled, by connecting the sounds with their written letters, and again by connecting the letters with their sounds during reading. This integrated three-way activation appears to be more effective than a one-way activation, e.g., from letter(s) to sound(s).”
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