Acknowledgments
 

The National Reading Panel wishes to express its gratitude to the following individuals for their contributions 

to its effort. 

Marilyn Adams Ed Bouchard Harris Cooper Gerald Duffy 

Michelle Eidlitz Barbara Foorman David Francis Ester Halberstam 

Blair Johnson Alisa Kenny Helen S. Kim Marjolaine Limbos 

Khalil Nourani Simone Nunes Elizabeth S. Pang Joan Pagnucco 

Michael Pressley David Reinking Scott J. Ross Barbara Schuster 

Robin Sidhu Steven Stahl Maggie Toplak Zoreh Yaghoubzadeh 

Reports of the Subgroups ii 
 

 

Members of the National Reading Panel 

Donald N. Langenberg, Ph.D., Chair 

Gloria Correro, Ed.D. Linnea Ehri, Ph.D. 

Gwenette Ferguson, M.Ed. Norma Garza, C.P.A. 

Michael L. Kamil, Ph.D. Cora Bagley Marrett, Ph.D. 

S.J. Samuels, Ed.D. Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D. 

Sally E. Shaywitz, M.D. Thomas Trabasso, Ph.D. 

Joanna Williams, Ph.D. Dale Willows, Ph.D. 

Joanne Yatvin, Ph.D. 

MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL READING PANEL SUBGROUPS 

Alphabetics

Linnea Ehri, Chair 

Gloria Correro 

Timothy Shanahan 

Dale Willows 

Joanne Yatvin 

Comprehension

Michael L. Kamil, Chair 

Gwenette Ferguson 

Norma Garza 

Thomas Trabasso 

Joanna Williams 

Fluency

S.J. Samuels, Co-Chair 

Timothy Shanahan, Co-Chair 

Sally E. Shaywitz 

Methodology

Timothy Shanahan, Co-Chair	 

Sally E. Shaywitz, Co-Chair	 

TeacherEducation

Gloria Corerro, Co-Chair 

Michael L. Kamil, Co-Chair 

Gwenette Ferguson 

Norma Garza 

Cora Bagley Marrett 

Technology/Next Steps

Michael L. Kamil, Chair 

Donald N. Langenberg 

STAFF OF THE NATIONAL READING PANEL 

F. William Dommel, Jr., J.D., Executive Director 

Vinita Chhabra, M.Ed., Research Scientist Mary E. McCarthy, Ph.D., Senior Staff Psychologist 

Judith Rothenberg, Secretary Stephanne Player, Support Staff 

Jaimee Nusbacher, Meeting Manager Patrick Riccards, Senior Advisor 

iii	 National Reading Panel 
Table of Contents 

Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................. ii
 

Members of the National Reading Panel .......................................................................... iii
 

Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology 

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1-1
 

Methodology: Processes Applied to the Selection, Review, and
 

Analysis of Research Relevant to Reading Instruction ...................................................... 1-5
 

Chapter 2: Alphabetics 

Part I: Phonemic Awareness Instruction
 

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................... 2-1
 

Report 

Part II: Phonics Instruction
 

........................................................................................................................... 2-9
 

Appendices ................................................................................................................... 2-53
 

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................... 2-89
 

Report ........................................................................................................................... 2-99
 

Appendices ................................................................................................................... 2-145
 

Chapter 3: Fluency 

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................. 3-1
 

Report .................................................................................................................................. 3-5
 

Appendices .......................................................................................................................... 3-35
 

Chapter 4: Comprehension 

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................. 4-1
 

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 4-11
 

Part I. Vocabulary Instruction
 

Report ........................................................................................................................... 4-15
 

Appendices ................................................................................................................... 4-33
 

Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction
 

Report ........................................................................................................................... 4-39
 

Appendices ................................................................................................................... 4-69
 

Part III. Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction
 

Report ........................................................................................................................... 4-119
 

Appendices ................................................................................................................... 4-133
 

v National Reading Panel 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................. 5-1
 

Report .............................................................................................................................................. 5-3
 

Appendices ...................................................................................................................................... 5-19
 

Chapter 6: Computer Technology and Reading Instruction
 

Executive Summary............................................................................................................... 6-1
 

Report .................................................................................................................................. 6-3
 

Appendices .......................................................................................................................... 6-13
 

Minority View 

Reports of the Subgroups vi
 

Introduction

REPORTS OF THE SUBGROUPS 

Introduction 

Congressional Charge 

In 1997, Congress asked the “Director of the National 

Institute of Child Health and Human Development 

(NICHD), in consultation with the Secretary of 

Education, to convene a national panel to assess the 

status of research-based knowledge, including the 

effectiveness of various approaches to teaching children 

to read.” The panel was charged with providing a report 

that “should present the panel’s conclusions, an 

indication of the readiness for application in the 

classroom of the results of this research, and, if 

appropriate, a strategy for rapidly disseminating this 

information to facilitate effective reading instruction in 

the schools. If found warranted, the panel should also 

recommend a plan for additional research regarding early 

reading development and instruction.” 

Establishment of 

the National Reading Panel 

In response to this Congressional request, the Director of 

NICHD, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, 

constituted and charged a National Reading Panel (the 

NRP or the Panel). The NRP was composed of 14 

individuals, including (as specified by Congress) “leading 

scientists in reading research, representatives of colleges 

of education, reading teachers, educational 

administrators, and parents.” The original charge to the 

NRP asked that a final report be submitted by 

November 1998. 

When the Panel began its work, it quickly became 

apparent that the Panel could not respond properly to its 

charge within that time constraint. Permission was 

sought and received to postpone the report’s submission 

deadline. A progress report was submitted to the 

Congress in February 1999. The information provided in 

the NRP Progress Report, the Report of the National 

Reading Panel, and this Report of the National Reading 

Panel: Reports of the Subgroups reflects the findings and 

determinations of the National Reading Panel. 

NRP Approach to Achieving the 

Objectives of Its Charge and Initial 

Topic Selection 

The charge to the NRP took into account the 

foundational work of the National Research Council 

(NRC) Committee on Preventing Reading Difficulties in 

Young Children (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The 

NRC report is a consensus document based on the best 

judgments of a diverse group of experts in reading 

research and reading instruction. The NRC Committee 

identified and summarized research literature relevant to 

the critical skills, environments, and early developmental 

interactions that are instrumental in the acquisition of 

beginning reading skills. The NRC Committee did not 

specifically address “how” critical reading skills are most 

effectively taught and what instructional methods, 

materials, and approaches are most beneficial for 

students of varying abilities. 

In order to build upon and expand the work of the NRC 

Committee, the NRP first developed an objective 

research review methodology. The Panel then applied 

this methodology to undertake comprehensive, formal, 

evidence-based analyses of the experimental and quasiexperimental research literature relevant to a set of 

selected topics judged to be of central importance in 

teaching children to read. An examination of a variety of 

public databases by Panel staff revealed that 

approximately 100,000 research studies on reading have 

been published since 1966, with perhaps another 15,000 

appearing before that time. Obviously, it was not 

possible for a panel of volunteers to examine critically 

this entire body of research literature. Selection of 

prioritized topics was necessitated by the large amount 

of published reading research literature relevant to the 

Panel’s charge to determine the effectiveness of reading 

instructional methods and approaches. A screening 

process was, therefore, essential. 

The Panel’s initial screening task involved selection of 

the set of topics to be addressed. Recognizing that this 

selection would require the use of informed judgment, 

the Panel chose to begin its work by broadening its 

1-1 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology 

understanding of reading issues through a thorough 

analysis of the findings of the NRC report, Preventing 

Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns, & 

Griffin, 1998). Early in its deliberations the Panel made 

a tentative decision to establish subgroups of its 

members and to assign to each subgroup one of the 

major topic areas designated by the NRC Committee as 

central to learning to read—Alphabetics, Fluency, and 

Comprehension. 

Regional Public Hearings 

As part of its information gathering, the Panel publicly 

announced, planned, and held regional hearings in 

Chicago, IL (May 29,1998), Portland, OR (June 5, 

1998), Houston, TX (June 8, 1998), New York, NY 

(June 23, 1998), and Jackson, MS (July 9, 1998). The 

Panel believed that it would not have been possible to 

accomplish the mandate of Congress without first 

hearing directly from consumers of this information— 

teachers, parents, students, and policymakers—about 

their needs and their understanding of the research. 

Although the regional hearings were not intended as a 

substitute for scientific research, the hearings gave the 

Panel an opportunity to listen to the voices of those who 

will need to consider implementation of the Panel’s 

findings and determinations. The regional hearings gave 

members a clearer understanding of the issues important 

to the public. 

As a result of these hearings, the Panel received oral and 

written testimony from approximately 125 individuals or 

organizations representing citizens—teachers, parents, 

students, university faculty, educational policy experts, 

and scientists—who would be the ultimate users and 

beneficiaries of the research-derived findings and 

determinations of the Panel. 

At the regional hearings, several key themes were 

expressed repeatedly: 

•	 The importance of the role of parents and other 

concerned individuals, especially in providing 

children with early language and literacy experiences 

that foster reading development; 

•	 The importance of early identification and 

intervention for all children at risk for reading 

failure; 

•	 The importance of phonemic awareness, phonics, 

and good literature in reading instruction, and the 

need to develop a clear understanding of how best 

to integrate different reading approaches to 

enhance the effectiveness of instruction for all 

students; 

•	 The need for clear, objective, and scientifically 

based information on the effectiveness of different 

types of reading instruction and the need to have 

such research inform policy and practice; 

•	 The importance of applying the highest standards of 

scientific evidence to the research review process so 

that conclusions and determinations are based on 

findings obtained from experimental studies 

characterized by methodological rigor with 

demonstrated reliability, validity, replicability, and 

applicability; 

•	 The importance of the role of teachers, their 

professional development, and their interactions and 

collaborations with researchers, which should be 

recognized and encouraged; and 

•	 The importance of widely disseminating the 

information that is developed by the Panel. 

Adoption of Topics To Be Studied 

Following the regional hearings, the Panel considered, 

discussed, and debated several dozen possible topic 

areas and then settled on the following topics for 

intensive study: 

•	 Alphabetics 

- Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

- Phonics Instruction 

•	 Fluency 

•	 Comprehension 

- Vocabulary Instruction 

- Text Comprehension Instruction 

- Teacher Preparation and Comprehension 

Strategies Instruction 

•	 Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

•	 Computer Technology and Reading Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups	 1-2 
Introduction 

In addition, because of the concern voiced by the public 

at the regional hearings that the highest standards of 

scientific evidence be applied in the research review 

process, the methodology subgroup was tasked to 

develop a research review process including specific 

review criteria. 

Each topic and subtopic became the subject of the work 

of a subgroup composed of one or more Panel 

members. Some Panel members served on more than 

one subgroup. (The full report of each subgroup is 

included in this volume.) The subgroups formulated 

seven broad questions to guide their efforts in meeting 

the Congressional charge of identifying effective 

instructional reading approaches and determining their 

readiness for application in the classroom: 

1.	 Does instruction in phonemic awareness improve 

reading? If so, how is this instruction best provided? 

2.	 Does phonics instruction improve reading 

achievement? If so, how is this instruction best 

provided? 

3.	 Does guided repeated oral reading instruction 

improve fluency and reading comprehension? If so, 

how is this instruction best provided? 

4.	 Does vocabulary instruction improve reading 

achievement? If so, how is this instruction best 

provided? 

5.	 Does comprehension strategy instruction improve 

reading? If so, how is this instruction best provided? 

6.	 Do programs that increase the amount of children’s 

independent reading improve reading achievement 

and motivation? If so, how is this instruction best 

provided? 

7.	 Does teacher education influence how effective 

teachers are at teaching children to read? If so, how 

is this instruction best provided? 

Each subgroup also generated several subordinate 

questions to address within each of the major questions. 

It should be made clear that the Panel did not consider 

these questions and the instructional issues that they 

represent to be the only topics of importance in learning 

to read. The Panel’s silence on other topics should not 

be interpreted as indicating that other topics have no 

importance or that improvement in those areas would 

not lead to greater reading achievement. It was simply 

the sheer number of studies identified by Panel staff 

relevant to reading (more than 100,000 published since 

1966 and more than 15,000 prior to 1966) that 

precluded an exhaustive analysis of the research in all 

areas of potential interest. 

The Panel also did not address issues relevant to second 

language learning, as this topic was being addressed in 

detail in a new, comprehensive NICHD/OERI (Office of 

Educational Research and Improvement) research 

initiative. The questions presented above bear on 

instructional topics of widespread interest in the field of 

reading education that have been articulated in a wide 

range of theories, research studies, instructional 

programs, curricula, assessments, and educational 

policies. The Panel elected to examine these and 

subordinate questions because they currently reflect the 

central issues in reading instruction and reading 

achievement. 

1-3	 National Reading Panel 
Methodology

REPORTS OF THE SUBGROUPS 

Methodology: Processes Applied to the Selection, Review, and
 

Analysis of Research Relevant to Reading Instruction
 

In an important action critical to its Congressional 

charge, the NRP elected to develop and adopt a set of 

rigorous research methodological standards. These 

standards, which are defined in this section, guided the 

screening of the research literature relevant to each topic 

area addressed by the Panel. This screening process 

identified a final set of experimental or quasiexperimental research studies that were then subjected to 

detailed analysis. The evidence-based methodological 

standards adopted by the Panel are essentially those 

normally used in research studies of the efficacy of 

interventions in psychological and medical research. 

These include behaviorally based interventions, 

medications or medical procedures proposed for use in 

the fostering of robust health and psychological 

development and the prevention or treatment of 

disease. 

It is the view of the Panel that the efficacy of materials 

and methodologies used in the teaching of reading and in 

the prevention or treatment of reading disabilities should 

be tested no less rigorously. However, such standards 

have not been universally accepted or used in reading 

education research. Unfortunately, only a small fraction 

of the total reading research literature met the Panel’s 

standards for use in the topic analyses. 

With this as background, the Panel understood that 

criteria had to be developed as it considered which 

research studies would be eligible for assessment. There 

were two reasons for determining such guidelines or 

rules a priori. First, the use of common search, 

selection, analysis, and reporting procedures would 

ensure that the Panel’s efforts could proceed, not as a 

diverse collection of independent—and possibly 

uneven—synthesis papers, but as parts of a greater 

whole. The use of common procedures permitted a 

more unified presentation of the combined methods and 

findings. Second, the amount of research synthesis that 

had to be accomplished was substantial. Consequently, 

the Panel had to work in diverse subgroups to identify, 

screen, and evaluate the relevant research to complete 

their respective reports. Moreover, the Panel also had to 

arrive at findings that all or nearly all of the members of 

the NRP could endorse. Common procedures, grounded 

in scientific principles, helped the Panel to reach final 

agreements. 

Search Procedures 

Each subgroup conducted a search of the literature using 

common procedures, describing in detail the basis and 

rationale for its topical term selections, the strategies 

employed for combining terms or delimiting searches, 

and the search procedures used for each topical area. 

Each subgroup limited the period of time covered by its 

searches on the basis of relative recentness and how 

much literature the search generated. For example, in 

some cases it was decided to limit the years searched to 

the number of most recent years that would identify 

between 300 to 400 potential sources. This scope could 

be expanded in later iterations if it appeared that the 

nature of the research had changed qualitatively over 

time, if the proportion of useable research identified was 

small (e.g., less than 25%), or if the search simply 

represented too limited a proportion of the total set of 

identifiable studies. Although the number of years 

searched varied among subgroup topics, decisions 

regarding the number of years to be searched were made 

in accord with shared criteria. 

The initial criteria were established to focus the efforts 

of the Panel. First, any study selected had to focus 

directly on children’s reading development from 

preschool through grade 12. Second, the study had to be 

published in English in a refereed journal. At a 

minimum, each subgroup searched both PsycINFO and 

ERIC databases for studies meeting these initial 

criteria. Subgroups could, and did, use additional 

databases when appropriate. Although the use of a 

1-5 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology 

minimum of two databases identified duplicate 

literature, it also afforded the opportunity to expand 

perspective and locate articles that would not be 

identifiable through a single database. 

Identification of each study selected was documented 

for the record and each was assigned to one or more 

members of the subgroup who examined the title and 

abstract. Based on this examination, the subgroup 

member(s) determined, if possible at this stage, whether 

the study addressed issues within the purview of the 

research questions being investigated. If it did not, the 

study was excluded and the reason(s) for the exclusion 

were detailed and documented for the record. If, 

however, it did address reading instructional issues 

relevant to the Panel’s selected topic areas, the study 

underwent further examination. 

Following initial examination, if the study had not been 

excluded in accord with the preceding criteria, the full 

study report was located and examined in detail to 

determine whether the following criteria were met: 

•	 Study participants must be carefully described (age; 

demographics; cognitive, academic, and behavioral 

characteristics). 

•	 Study interventions must be described in sufficient 

detail to allow for replicability, including how long 

the interventions lasted and how long the effects 

lasted. 

•	 Study methods must allow judgments about how 

instruction fidelity was ensured. 

•	 Studies must include a full description of outcome 

measures. 

These criteria for evaluating research literature are 

widely accepted by scientists in disciplines involved in 

medical, behavioral, and social research. The application 

of these criteria increased the probability that objective, 

rigorous standards were used and that therefore the 

information obtained from the studies would contribute 

to the validity of any conclusions drawn. 

If a study did not meet these criteria or could not be 

located, it was excluded from subgroup analysis and the 

reason(s) for its exclusion was detailed and documented 

for the record. If the study was located and met the 

criteria, the study became one of the subgroup’s core 

working set of studies. The core working sets of studies 

gathered by the subgroups were then coded as described 

below and then analyzed to address the questions posed 

in the introduction and in the charge to the Panel. 

If a core set of studies identified by the subgroup was 

insufficient to answer critical instructional questions, 

less recent studies were screened for eligibility for, and 

inclusion in, the core working sets of studies. This 

second search used the reference lists of all core studies 

and known literature reviews. This process identified 

cited studies that could meet the Panel’s methodological 

criteria for inclusion in the subgroups’ core working sets 

of studies. Any second search was described in detail 

and applied precisely the same search, selection, 

exclusion, and inclusion criteria and documentation 

requirements as were applied in the subgroups’ initial 

searches. 

Manual searches, again applying precisely the same 

search, selection, exclusion and inclusion criteria, and 

documentation requirements as were applied in the 

subgroups’ electronic searches, were also conducted to 

supplement the electronic database searches. Manual 

searching of recent journals that publish research on 

specific NRP subgroup topics was performed to 

compensate for the delay in appearance of these journal 

articles in the electronic databases. Other manual 

searching was carried out in relevant journals to include 

eligible articles that should have been selected, but were 

missed in electronic searches. 

Source of Publications: The Issue of 

Refereed and Non-Refereed Articles 

The subgroup searches focused exclusively on research 

that had been published or had been scheduled for 

publication in refereed (peer reviewed) journals. The 

Panel reached consensus that determinations and 

findings for claims and assumptions guiding instructional 

practice depended on such studies. Any search or review 

of studies that had not been published through the peer 

review process but was consulted in any subgroups 

review was treated as separate and distinct from 

evidence drawn from peer-reviewed sources (i.e., in an 

appendix) and is not referenced in the Panel’s report. 

These non-peer-reviewed data were treated as 

preliminary/pilot data that might illuminate potential 

Reports of the Subgroups	 1-6 
Methodology 

trends and areas for future research. Information 

derived in whole or in part from such studies was not to 

be represented at the same level of certainty as findings 

derived from the analysis of refereed articles. 

Types of Research Evidence and 

Breadth of Research Methods 

Considered 

Different types of research (e.g., descriptive-interpretive, 

correlational, experimental) lay claim to particular 

warrants, and these warrants differ markedly. The Panel 

felt that it was important to use a wide range of research 

but that that research be used in accordance with the 

purposes and limitations of the various research types. 

To make a determination that any instructional practice 

could be or should be adopted widely to improve reading 

achievement requires that the belief, assumption, or 

claim supporting the practice be causally linked to a 

particular outcome. The highest standard of evidence for 

such a claim is the experimental study, in which it is 

shown that treatment can make such changes and effect 

such outcomes. Sometimes when it is not feasible to do 

a randomized experiment, a quasi-experimental study is 

conducted. This type of study provides a standard of 

evidence that, while not as high, is acceptable, depending 

on the study design. 

To sustain a claim of effectiveness, the Panel felt it 

necessary that there be experimental or quasiexperimental studies of sufficient size or number, and 

scope (in terms of population served), and that these 

studies be of moderate to high quality. When there were 

either too few studies of this type, or they were too 

narrowly cast, or they were of marginally acceptable 

quality, then it was essential that the Panel have 

substantial correlational or descriptive studies that 

concurred with the findings if a claim was to be 

sustained. No claim could be determined on the basis of 

descriptive or correlational research alone. The use of 

these procedures increased the possibility of reporting 

findings with a high degree of internal validity. 

Coding of Data 

Characteristics and outcomes of each study that met 

the screening criteria described above were coded and 

analyzed, unless otherwise authorized by the Panel. The 

data gathered in these coding forms were the information 

submitted to the final analyses. The coding was carried 

out in a systematic and reliable manner. 

The various subgroups relied on a common coding form 

developed by a working group of the Panel’s scientist 

members and modified and endorsed by the Panel. 

However, some changes could be made to the common 

form by the various subgroups for addressing different 

research issues. As coding forms were developed, any 

changes to the common coding form were shared with 

and approved by the Panel to ensure consistency across 

various subgroups. 

Unless specifically identified and substantiated as 

unnecessary or inappropriate by a subgroup and agreed 

to by the Panel, each form for analyzing studies was 

coded for the following categories: 

1. Reference 

•	 Citation (standard APA format) 

•	 How this paper was found (e.g., search of named 

database, listed as reference in another empirical 

paper or review paper, hand search of recent issues 

of journals) 

•	 Narrative summary that includes distinguishing 

features of this study 

2. Research Question: The general umbrella 

question that this study addresses. 

3. Sample of Student Participants 

•	 States or countries represented in sample 

•	 Number of different schools represented in sample 

•	 Number of different classrooms represented in 

sample 

•	 Number of participants (total, per group) 

•	 Age 

•	 Grade 

•	 Reading levels of participants (prereading, 

beginning, intermediate, advanced) 

1-7	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology 

•	 Whether participants were drawn from urban, 

suburban, or rural setting 

•	 List any pretests that were administered prior to 

treatment 

•	 List any special characteristics of participants 

including the following if relevant: 

•	 Socioeconomic status (SES) 

•	 Ethnicity 

•	 Exceptional learning characteristics, such as: 

- Learning disabled 

- Reading disabled 

- Hearing impaired 

•	 English Language Learners (ELL)—also known as 

Limited English Proficient (LEP) students 

•	 Explain any selection restrictions that were applied 

to limit the sample of participants (e.g., only those 

low in phonemic awareness were included) 

•	 Contextual information: Concurrent reading 

instruction that participants received in their 

classrooms during the study 

- Was the classroom curriculum described in the 

study (code = yes/no) 

-	 Describe the curriculum 

•	 Describe how sample was obtained: 

- Schools or classrooms or students were selected 

from the population of those available 

- Convenience or purposive sample 

- Not reported 

- Sample was obtained from another study 

(specify study) 

•	 Attrition: 

- Number of participants lost per group during the 

study 

-	 Was attrition greater for some groups than for 

others? (yes/no) 

4. Setting of the Study 

•	 Classroom 

•	 Laboratory 

•	 Clinic 

•	 Pullout program (e.g., Reading Recovery©) 

•	 Tutorial 

5. Design of Study 

•	 Random assignment of participants to treatments 

(randomized experiment) 

-	 With vs. without a pretest 

•	 Nonequivalent control group design (quasiexperiment) (Example: existing groups assigned to 

treatment or control conditions, no random 

assignment) 

-	 With vs. without matching or statistical control 

to address nonequivalence issue 

•	 One-group repeated measure design (i.e., one group 

receives multiple treatments, considered a quasiexperiment) 

-	 Treatment components administered in a fixed 

order vs. order counterbalanced across 

subgroups of participants 

•	 Multiple baseline (quasi-experiment) 

- Single-subject design 

- Aggregated-subjects design 

6. Independent Variables 

a. Treatment Variables

•	 Describe all treatments and control conditions; be 

sure to describe nature and components of reading 

instruction provided to control group 

•	 For each treatment, indicate whether instruction was 

explicitly or implicitly delivered and, if explicit 

instruction, specify the unit of analysis (soundsymbol; onset/rime; whole word) or specific 

responses taught. [Note: If this category is omitted 

in the coding of data, justification must be 

provided.] 

•	 If text is involved in treatments, indicate difficulty 

level and nature of texts used 

•	 Duration of treatments (given to students) 

- Minutes per session 

- Sessions per week 

- Number of weeks 

Reports of the Subgroups	 1-8 
Methodology 

•	 Was trainers’fidelity in delivering treatment 

checked? (yes/no) 

•	 Properties of teachers/trainers 

•	 Number of trainers who administered treatments 

•	 Teacher/student ratio: Number of participants to 

number of trainers 

•	 Type of trainer (classroom teacher, student teacher, 

researcher, clinician, special education teacher, 

parent, peer, other) 

•	 List any special qualifications of trainers 

•	 Length of training given to trainers 

•	 Source of training 

•	 Assignment of trainers to groups: 

- Random 

- Choice/preference of trainer 

- All trainers taught all conditions 

•	 Cost factors: List any features of the training such as 

special materials or staff development or outside 

consultants that represent potential costs 

b. Moderator Variables

List and describe other nontreatment independent 

variables included in the analyses of effects (e.g., 

attributes of participants, properties or types of text). 

7.	 Dependent (Outcome) Variables 

•	 List processes that were taught during training and 

measured during and at the end of training 

•	 List names of reading outcomes measured 

- Code each as standardized or investigatorconstructed measure 

- Code each as quantitative or qualitative measure 

- For each, is there any reason to suspect low 

reliability? (yes/no) 

•	 List time points when dependent measures were 

assessed 

8.	 Nonequivalence of Groups 

•	 Any reason to believe that treatment/control group 

might not have been equivalent prior to treatments? 

(yes/no) 

•	 Were steps taken in statistical analyses to adjust for 

any lack of equivalence? (yes/no) 

9.	 Result (for each measure) 

•	 Record the name of the measure 

•	 Record whether the difference—treatment mean 

minus control mean—is positive or negative 

•	 Record the value of the effect size including its sign 

(+ or -) 

•	 Record the type of summary statistics from which 

the effect size was derived 

•	 Record number of people providing the effect size 

information 

10. Coding Information 

•	 Record length of time to code study 

•	 Record name of coder 

If text was a variable, the coding indicated what is 

known about the difficulty level and nature of the texts 

being used. Any use of special personnel to deliver an 

intervention, use of special materials, staff development, 

or other features of the intervention that represent 

potential cost were noted. Finally, various threats to 

reliability and internal or external validity (group 

assignment, teacher assignment, fidelity of treatment, 

and confounding variables including equivalency of 

subjects prior to treatment and differential attrition) were 

coded. Each subgroup also coded additional items 

deemed appropriate or valuable to the specific question 

being studied by the subgroup members. 

A study could be excluded at the coding stage only if it 

was found to have so serious a fundamental flaw that its 

use would be misleading. The reason(s) for exclusion of 

any such study was detailed and documented for the 

record. When quasi-experimental studies were selected, 

it was essential that each study included both pretreatment and post-treatment evaluations of performance 

and that there was a comparison group or condition. 

Each subgroup conducted an independent re-analysis of 

a randomly designated 10% sample of studies. Absolute 

rating agreement was calculated for each category (not 

for forms). If absolute agreement fell below 0.90 for any 

1-9	 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology 

category for occurrence or non-occurrence agreement, 

the subgroup took some action to improve agreement 

(e.g., multiple readings with resolution, improvements in 

coding sheet). 

Upon completion of the coding for recently published 

studies, a letter was sent to the first author of the study 

requesting any missing information. Any information 

that was provided by authors was added to the 

database. 

After its search, screening, and coding, a subgroup 

determined whether for a particular question or issue a 

meaningful meta-analysis could be completed, or 

whether it was more appropriate to conduct a literature 

analysis of that issue or question without meta-analysis, 

incorporating all of the information gained. The full 

Panel reviewed and approved or modified each decision. 

Data Analysis 

When appropriate and feasible, effect sizes were 

calculated for each intervention or condition in 

experimental and quasi-experimental studies. The 

subgroups used the standardized mean difference 

formula as the measure of treatment effect. The formula 

was: 

(Mt

 - M c) / 0.5(sdt + sd c) 

where: 

Mt is the mean of the treated group,
 

Mc is the mean of the control group,
 

sdt is the standard deviation of the treated group,


 and 

sdc is the standard deviation of the control group. 

When means and standard deviations were not 

available, the subgroups followed the guidelines for the 

calculation of effect sizes as specified in Cooper and 

Hedges (1994). 

The subgroups weighted effect sizes by numbers of 

subjects in the study or comparison to prevent small 

studies from overwhelming the effects evident in large 

studies. Each subgroup used median and/or average 

effect sizes when a study had multiple comparisons, and 

only employed the comparisons that were specifically 

relevant to the questions under review by the subgroup. 

Expected Outcomes 

Analyses of effect sizes were undertaken with several 

goals in mind. First, overall effect sizes of related studies 

were calculated across subgroups to determine the best 

estimate of a treatment’s impact on reading. These 

overall effects were examined with regard to their 

difference from zero (i.e., does the treatment have an 

effect on reading?), strength (i.e., if the treatment has an 

effect, how large is that effect?), and consistency (i.e., 

did the effect of the treatment vary significantly from 

study to study?). Second, the Panel compared the 

magnitude of a treatment’s effect under different 

methodological conditions, program contexts, program 

features, outcome measures, and for students with 

different characteristics. The appropriate moderators of 

a treatment’s impact were drawn from the distinctions in 

studies recorded on the coding sheets. In each case, a 

statistical comparison was made to examine the impact 

of each moderator variable on average effect sizes for 

each relevant outcome variable. These analyses enabled 

the Panel to determine the conditions that alter a 

program’s effects and the types of individuals for whom 

the program is most and least effective. Within-group 

average effect sizes were examined, as were overall 

effect sizes, for differences from zero and for strength. 

The analytic procedures were carried out using the 

techniques described in Cooper and Hedges (1994). 

Reports of the Subgroups 1-10 
Methodology 

References 

Cooper, H., & Hedges, L.V. (1994). The handbook 

of research synthesis. New York: Russell Sage 

Foundation. 

Snow, C. E., Burns, S. M., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). 

(1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. 

Washington, DC: National Academy Press. 

1-11 National Reading Panel 


Executive Summary

PART I: PHONEMIC AWARENESS INSTRUCTION 

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

When today’s educators discuss the ingredients of 

effective programs to teach children to read, phonemic 

awareness (PA) receives much attention. However, not 

everyone is convinced. In education, particularly in the 

teaching of reading over the years, the choice of 

instructional methods has been heavily influenced by 

many factors, not only teachers’ own frontline 

experiences about what works, but also politics, 

economics, and the popular wisdom of the day. The 

pendulum has swung back and forth between holistic, 

meaning-centered approaches and phonics approaches 

without much hope of resolving disagreements. 

Meanwhile, substantial scientific evidence has 

accumulated purporting to shed light on reading 

acquisition processes and effective instructional 

approaches (Anderson et al., 1985; Adams, 1990; 

Snow, 1998). Many studies investigating the 

effectiveness of phonemic awareness instruction have 

contributed to this body of evidence. Proponents believe 

that this research holds promise of placing reading 

instruction on a more solid footing and ending the 

periodic upheavals and overhauls of reading 

instructional practices. 

The purpose of this report of the National Reading 

Panel (NRP) was to examine the scientific evidence 

relevant to the impact of phonemic awareness 

instruction on reading and spelling development. In the 

analyses conducted, the NRP sought answers to 

questions such as the following: Is phonemic awareness 

instruction effective in helping children learn to read? 

Under what circumstances and for which children is it 

most effective? Were studies showing its effectiveness 

designed appropriately to yield scientifically valid 

findings? What does a careful analysis of the findings 

reveal? How applicable are these findings to classroom 

practice? To evaluate the adequacy and strength of the 

evidence, the NRP conducted a meta-analysis. The 

literature was searched to locate all experimental 

studies that included a PA treatment and a control 

group and that measured reading as an outcome of the 

treatment. 

There were several reasons why phonemic awareness 

instruction was selected for review and analysis. 

Correlational studies have identified phonemic 

awareness and letter knowledge as the two best schoolentry predictors of how well children will learn to read 

during their first 2 years in school. This evidence 

suggests the potential instructional importance of 

teaching PA to children. Many experimental studies 

have evaluated the effectiveness of PA instruction in 

facilitating reading acquisition. Results are claimed to be 

positive and to provide a scientific basis documenting 

the efficacy of PA instruction. There is currently much 

interest in PA programs among teachers, principals, and 

publishers. State adoption committees have prescribed 

the inclusion of PAtraining in reading instruction 

materials approved for use in schools. It is thus 

important to determine whether PA instruction lives up 

to these claims and, if so, to identify circumstances that 

govern its effectiveness. 

Phonemes are the smallest units constituting spoken 

language. English consists of about 41 phonemes. 

Phonemes combine to form syllables and words. A few 

words have only one phoneme, such as a or oh. Most 

words consist of a blend of phonemes, such as go with 

two phonemes, or check with three phonemes, or stop 

with four phonemes. Phonemes are different from 

graphemes, which are units of written language and 

which represent phonemes in the spellings of words. 

Graphemes may consist of one letter, for example, P, T, 

K, A, N, or multiple letters, CH, SH, TH, -CK, EA, ­

IGH, each symbolizing one phoneme. 

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to focus on 

and manipulate phonemes in spoken words. The 

following tasks are commonly used to assess children’s 

PA or to improve their PA through instruction and 

practice: 

2-1 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

1.	 Phoneme isolation, which requires recognizing 

individual sounds in words, for example, “Tell me 

the first sound in paste.” (/p/) 

2.	 Phoneme identity, which requires recognizing the 

common sound in different words. For example, 

“Tell me the sound that is the same in bike, boy, and 

bell.” (/b/) 

3.	 Phoneme categorization, which requires recognizing 

the word with the odd sound in a sequence of three 

or four words, for example, “Which word does not 

belong? bus, bun, rug.” (rug) 

4.	 Phoneme blending, which requires listening to a 

sequence of separately spoken sounds and 

combining them to form a recognizable word. For 

example, “What word is /s/ /k/ /u/ /1/?” (school) 

5.	 Phoneme segmentation, which requires breaking a 

word into its sounds by tapping out or counting the 

sounds or by pronouncing and positioning a marker 

for each sound. For example, “How many 

phonemes are there in ship? ” (three: /š/ /I/ /p/) 

6.	 Phoneme deletion, which requires recognizing what 

word remains when a specified phoneme is 

removed. For example, “What is smile without the / 

s/?” (mile) 

In the studies reviewed by the NRP, researchers used 

one or several of these tasks to assess how much PA 

children possessed before training and how much they 

had learned at the end of training. Also, these tasks 

were the basis for activities that children practiced 

during training. In some of the studies, children were 

taught to perform these tasks with letters, for example, 

segmenting words into phonemes and representing each 

with a grapheme. In other studies, phoneme 

manipulation was limited to speech. 

To be clear, PA instruction is not synonymous with 

phonics instruction that entails teaching students how to 

use grapheme-phoneme correspondences to decode or 

spell words. PA instruction does not qualify as phonics 

instruction when it teaches children to manipulate 

phonemes in speech, but it does qualify when it teaches 

children to segment or blend phonemes with letters. 

PA is thought to contribute to helping children learn to 

read because the structure of the English writing 

system is alphabetic. Moreover, it is not easy to figure 

out the system. Although most English words have 

prescribed spellings that consist of graphemes, 

symbolizing phonemes in predictable ways, being able to 

distinguish the separate phonemes in pronunciations of 

words so that they can be matched to graphemes is 

difficult. This is because spoken language is seamless; 

that is, there are no breaks in speech signaling where 

one phoneme ends and the next one begins. Rather, 

phonemes are folded into each other and are 

coarticulated. Discovering phonemic units requires 

instruction to learn how the system works. 

Methodology 

How was the analysis of the research 

literature conducted? 

Before conducting a meta-analysis, the NRP 

systematically searched the research literature relevant 

to PA instruction. After a methodology established by 

the Panel was followed, appropriate key words were 

entered to identify relevant studies in ERIC and 

PsycINFO. The search was limited to articles 

appearing in journals written in English, but no limit was 

placed on the year of publication. This yielded a total of 

1,962 potentially relevant articles. Abstracts were 

printed and screened. In addition, references listed in 

these articles and in several review papers were handsearched and screened. To qualify for analysis, studies 

had to meet the following criteria: 

1.	 Studies had to adopt an experimental or quasiexperimental design with a control group or a 

multiple baseline method. 

2.	 Studies had to appear in a refereed journal. 

3.	 Studies had to test the hypothesis that instruction in 

phonemic awareness improves reading 

performance over alternative forms of instruction or 

no instruction. 

4.	 Studies had to provide training in phonemic 

awareness that was not confounded with other 

instructional methods or activities. 

5.	 Studies had to report statistics permitting the 

calculation or estimation of effect sizes. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-2 
 

Executive Summary 

Applying these procedures, the NRP found 52 articles 

from which 96 instructional comparisons were drawn. 

In each comparison, one group of children was taught 

PA while a control group received either another type 

of instruction or regular classroom instruction. Following 

training, the two groups were compared in their ability 

to read. 

The primary statistic used in the NRP analysis was 

“effect size,” the extent to which performance of the 

treatment group exceeded performance of the control 

group. An effect size of 1.0 indicates that the 

treatment group mean was one standard deviation 

higher than the control group mean, revealing a strong 

effect of PA instruction. An effect size of 0 indicates 

that treatment and control group means were identical, 

revealing that training had no effect. To judge the 

strength of an effect size, a value of 0.20 is considered 

small, 0.50 is moderate, and 0.80 is large. For each 

comparison, three effect sizes were calculated to 

determine whether PA instruction improved children’s 

phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling. 

The studies in the NRP database varied in many 

respects. These variations showed whether effect sizes 

were bigger under some conditions than others. The 

NRP compared effect sizes associated with the 

following variations: 

•	 Type of test: a standardized test was used or a test 

devised by experimenters. 

•	 Time of test: Outcomes were measured right after 

instruction or after a delay. 

•	 Type of PA training: Children received instruction 

that focused on one type of PA or two types of PA, 

or they were taught three or more types of PA 

skills. 

•	 Use of letters: Children were taught to manipulate 

phonemes using letters, or they were taught to 

manipulate phonemes in speech only. 

•	 Size of groups: Children were taught individually or 

in small groups or in larger classroom groups. 

•	 Trainer: The source of the instruction was the 

children’s classroom teacher or a researcher or a 

computer. 

•	 Length of instruction: Instruction varied from 1 hour 

to 75 hours. 

•	 Reading level of students: The children receiving 

instruction were at risk for developing reading 

problems, or were reading disabled, or were 

normally developing readers. 

•	 Grade level: The children were preschoolers, 

kindergartners, 1st graders, or 2nd through 6th 

graders. 

•	 Socioeconomic status (SES): The children were low 

SES or middle-to-high SES. 

In addition, the NRP examined various features of the 

experiments to determine whether those showing strong 

effects were well designed or weakly designed. Among 

the design features examined were whether children 

were randomly assigned to treatment and control 

groups, whether the size of the sample was small or 

large, and whether the study met criteria of rigor 

specified in a critique by Troia (1999). 

Results and Discussion 

What do results of the meta-analysis of PA 

instruction studies show? 

The NRP examined whether PA instruction was 

significantly better than alternative forms of training in 

helping children acquire phonemic awareness and 

enabling them to apply this skill in their reading and 

spelling. Results were positive. The overall effect size 

on PA outcomes was large, 0.86. The overall effect 

size on reading outcomes was moderate, 0.53. The 

overall effect on spelling was also moderate, 0.59. 

Effects were significant on followup tests given several 

months after training ended. Effects were significant on 

measures of children’s ability to read words and 

pseudowords as well as their reading comprehension. 

Effects were significant on standardized tests as well as 

experimenter-devised tests. These findings show that 

teaching children to manipulate phonemes in words was 

highly effective across all the literacy domains and 

outcomes. Effects of training did not generalize to 

performance on math tests, indicating that halo/ 

Hawthorne effects did not account for the findings. 

2-3	 National Reading Panel 
 

 

Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

What were the effects of moderators on 

learning phonemic awareness? 

The NRP examined whether PA training was effective 

under more specific conditions. Children acquired PA 

successfully under all conditions, but some conditions 

produced larger effects than others. Effect sizes were 

larger when children received focused and explicit 

instruction on one or two PA skills than when they were 

taught a combination of three or more PA skills. 

Instruction that taught phoneme manipulation with 

letters helped normally developing readers and at-risk 

readers acquire PA better than PA instruction without 

letters. When children were taught PA in small groups, 

their learning was greater than when they were taught 

individually or in classrooms. The length of time spent 

teaching children was influential, with treatments lasting 

from 5 to 18 hours producing larger effect sizes than 

shorter or longer treatments. Classroom teachers were 

very effective in teaching PA to children. Also, 

computers were effective. Although all levels of 

readers acquired PA successfully, effect sizes were 

greater for children who were beginning readers at risk 

for reading failure and normally progressing readers 

than for older disabled readers. Students in the lower 

grades, preschool, and kindergarten, showed larger 

effect sizes in acquiring PA than children in 1st grade 

and above. Children learning to read in English showed 

larger effects than children learning to read in other 

alphabetic languages. However, SES level exerted no 

impact on effect size, indicating that low and mid-tohigh SES children benefited similarly from PA training 

in acquiring phonemic awareness. 

What were the effects of moderators on 

learning to read? 

The impact of these specific conditions on the amount 

of transfer from PA training to other reading skills was 

also examined. For example, transfer was greater when 

experimenter-devised tests were used to measure 

reading skills than when standardized tests were used. 

This was not surprising, given that standardized tests 

tend to be less sensitive. Teaching that focused on one 

or two types of PA manipulations yielded larger effect 

sizes than teaching three or more PA skills. Teaching 

children to manipulate phonemes using letters produced 

bigger effects than teaching without letters. Blending 

and segmenting instruction exerted a significantly larger 

effect on reading development than did multiple-skill 

instruction. Small-group instruction produced larger 

effect sizes on reading than individual instruction or 

classroom instruction, albeit in an unanticipated fashion. 

Specifically, the longer the training program, the smaller 

the effect size. Significant improvement in reading skills 

following PA instruction was observed both in studies 

involving classroom teachers and in computer formats, 

but the degree of transfer was less than that achieved 

in experimentally controlled studies. Large effect sizes 

were obtained in studies of at-risk readers, with 

moderate effect sizes obtained for disabled and 

normally developing readers. 

Moreover, preschoolers exhibited a much larger effect 

size on reading than did students in the other grade 

levels. Children learning to read in English also showed 

larger transfer effects to reading than children learning 

in other languages. The effects of PA training on 

reading outcomes were also influenced by SES, with 

mid-to-high SES associated with larger effect sizes than 

low SES. 

What were the effects of moderators on 

learning to spell? 

The NRP also examined how different conditions 

influenced the impact and transfer of PA training to 

spelling. The effects of PA training on spelling for 

disabled readers was minimal, as indicated by effect 

sizes that did not differ significantly from zero. This is 

consistent with other findings indicating that learning to 

spell is especially difficult for disabled readers. Because 

disabled readers were unevenly distributed across the 

conditions that were examined in relation to the effects 

of PA training on spelling, along with the finding of a 

nonsignificant effect size, data obtained from studies of 

disabled readers were eliminated from the database. 

The effects of conditions on spelling outcomes were 

analyzed for at-risk and normal readers. For these 

groups, effect sizes involving spelling outcomes did not 

differ across levels of the following properties of PA 

training: whether one or two or multiple PA skills were 

taught, whether training was conducted with individuals 

or small groups or classroom-size groups, how long 

training lasted, or whether the trainer was a classroom 

teacher or a researcher. However, effect sizes did 

differ across other conditions. Teaching children to 

manipulate phonemes with letters exerted a much larger 

impact on spelling than teaching children without letters. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-4 
Executive Summary 

Also kindergartners made greater gains from PA 

training in spelling than 1st graders. Mid-to-high SES 

children showed larger effect sizes on spelling than low 

SES children. Children acquiring literacy in English 

showed larger effects on spelling than children 

acquiring literacy in other languages. 

Did the effects of PA training arise from 

well-designed experiments? 

The NRP examined whether significant effect sizes 

arose primarily from experiments with the weakest 

designs or whether well-designed experiments showed 

significant effect sizes as well. Findings indicated that 

rigorous designs yielded strong effects. The majority of 

studies used random assignment, and their effect sizes 

on PA and reading outcomes ranged from moderate to 

large. About one-third of the studies assessed trainers’ 

fidelity to instructional procedures. Effect sizes in these 

studies were moderate. 

Some studies compared PA treatment groups to control 

groups that were given another treatment, and some 

studies used untreated control groups. Neither type of 

control group consistently produced larger effect sizes, 

indicating that Hawthorne effects do not explain why 

PA training was effective. Although studies using 

smaller samples tended to show somewhat larger effect 

sizes, even those having the largest samples showed 

positive and significant effects that were moderate in 

size. 

The NRP also assessed the relationship between 

methodological rigor and effect size by applying Troia’s 

(1999) criteria to the studies. On PA outcomes, studies 

that met his criteria for the best designs produced the 

largest effect sizes on all five measures of rigor. On 

reading outcomes, effect sizes associated with the most 

rigorous levels were close to the largest, if not the 

largest, effect sizes on four out of five measures. Thus, 

these findings indicate that claims about the 

effectiveness of PA instruction are supported by 

evidence derived from methodologically sound studies. 

Conclusions 

What conclusions can be drawn from this meta-analysis 

of PA instruction studies? 

Can phonemic awareness be taught? 

Yes. The results clearly showed that PA instruction is 

effective in teaching children to attend to and 

manipulate speech sounds in words. Findings of the 

meta-analysis revealed not only that PA can be taught 

but also that PA instruction is effective under a variety 

of teaching conditions with a variety of learners. 

Does phonemic awareness instruction 

assist children in learning to read? If so, 

which students benefit? 

Yes. Results of the meta-analysis showed that teaching 

children to manipulate the sounds in language helps 

them learn to read. Across the various conditions of 

teaching, testing, and participant characteristics, the 

effect sizes were all significantly greater than chance 

and ranged from large to small, with the majority in the 

moderate range. Effects of PA training on reading 

lasted well beyond the end of training. PA instruction 

produced positive effects on both word reading and 

pseudoword reading, indicating that it helps children 

decode novel words as well as remember how to read 

familiar words. PA training was effective in boosting 

reading comprehension, although the effect size was 

smaller than for word reading. This was not surprising. 

PA instruction could be expected to benefit children’s 

reading comprehension because of its dependence on 

effective word reading. However, the NRP had not 

expected the effect to be as strong, given that the 

influence is indirect. Other capabilities influence reading 

comprehension as well, such as children’s vocabulary, 

their world knowledge, and their memory for text. PA 

instruction helped all types of children improve their 

reading, including normally developing readers, children 

at risk for future reading problems, disabled readers, 

preschoolers, kindergartners, 1st graders, children in 

2nd through 6th grades (most of whom were disabled 

readers), children across various SES levels, and 

children learning to read in English as well as in other 

languages. 

2-5 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Does PA instruction assist children in 

learning to spell? If so, which students 

are helped? 

Yes. Teaching PA was found to help children learn to 

spell, and its effect lasted well beyond the end of 

training. Some but not all types of students benefited 

from PA instruction. It helped kindergartners and 1st 

graders learn to spell. PA instruction also benefited 

children at risk for future reading problems and 

normally developing readers and was effective in 

boosting spelling skills in low SES as well as mid-to-high 

SES children. It helped children learning to spell in 

English as well as children learning in other languages. 

However, PA instruction was not effective for 

improving spelling in disabled readers. This is consistent 

with other research indicating that disabled readers 

have a difficult time learning to spell. 

What properties of instruction 

make it most effective? 

The NRP findings indicate that PA instruction may be 

most effective when children are taught to manipulate 

phonemes with letters, when the instruction is explicitly 

focused on one or two types of phoneme manipulations 

rather than multiple types, and when children are taught 

in small groups. Of course, instruction must be suited to 

students’ level of development, with easier PA tasks 

appropriate for younger children. Teaching with letters 

is important because this helps children apply their PA 

skills to reading and writing. Teaching children to blend 

phonemes with letters helps them decode. Teaching 

children phonemic segmentation with letters helps them 

spell. If children have not yet learned letters, it is 

important to teach them letter shapes, names, and 

sounds so that they can use letters to acquire PA. PA 

instruction is more effective when it makes explicit how 

children are to apply PA skills in reading and writing 

tasks. PA instruction does not need to consume long 

periods of time to be effective. In these analyses, 

programs lasting less than 20 hours were more 

effective than longer programs. Single sessions lasted 

25 minutes on average. Classroom teachers as well as 

computers can teach PA effectively. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

Are the results ready for 

implementation in the classroom? 

Yes. The NRP report includes many ideas that provide 

guidance to teachers in designing PA instruction and in 

evaluating existing programs. The NRP has listed 

references that teachers can locate for additional ideas 

and guidance. However, there were some important 

issues not addressed by the research. In implementing 

PA instruction in the classroom, teachers should bear in 

mind several serious cautions. 

•	 Teachers should recognize that acquiring phonemic 

awareness is a means rather than an end. PA is not 

acquired for its own sake but rather for its value in 

helping learners understand and use the alphabetic 

system to read and write. This is why it is important 

to include letters when teaching children to 

manipulate phonemes and why it is important to 

teach children explicitly how to apply PA skills in 

reading and writing tasks. 

•	 It is important to recognize that children will differ 

in their phonemic awareness and that some will 

need more instruction than others. In kindergarten, 

most children will be nonreaders and will have little 

phonemic awareness, so PA instruction should 

benefit everyone. In 1st grade, some children will 

be reading and spelling already, whereas others 

may know only a few letters and have no reading 

skill. Nonreaders will need much more PA and 

letter instruction than those already reading. Among 

readers in 1st and 2nd grades, there may be 

variation in how well children can perform more 

advanced forms of PA, that is, manipulations 

involving segmenting and blending with letters. The 

best approach is for teachers to assess students’ 

PA before beginning PA instruction. This will 

indicate which children need the instruction and 

which do not, which children need to be taught 

rudimentary levels of PA (e.g., segmenting initial 

sounds in words), and which children need more 

advanced levels involving segmenting or blending 

with letters. 

•	 PA training does not constitute a complete reading 

program. Although the present meta-analysis 

confirms that PA is a key component that can 

contribute significantly to the effectiveness of 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-6 
 

Executive Summary 

beginning reading and spelling instruction, there is 

obviously much more that needs to be taught to 

children to enable them to acquire reading and 

writing competence. PA instruction is intended only 

as a critical foundational piece. It helps children 

grasp how the alphabetic system works in their 

language and helps children read and spell words in 

various ways. However, literacy acquisition is a 

complex process for which there is no single key to 

success. Teaching phonemic awareness does not 

ensure that children will learn to read and write. 

Many other competencies must be taught for this to 

happen. 

•	 A number of PA instructional programs were found 

to be effective. The studies assessing these 

programs are useful in identifying several factors 

that are important and should be considered in 

planning classroom instruction or in evaluating 

published programs that purport to teach PA. In 

implementing PAinstruction in their classrooms, 

teachers need to evaluate the methods they use 

against measured success in their own students. 

•	 One factor that is obviously important in any 

effective classroom program but has not been 

specifically addressed in the research literature on 

PA instruction is motivation of the students and of 

the teachers. It seems self-evident that techniques 

to develop children’s PA in classrooms should be as 

relevant and exciting as possible so that the 

instruction engages children’s interest and attention 

in a way that promotes optimal learning. However, 

research has not specifically focused on this factor. 

Neither has the research examined the specific 

techniques that are most engaging for teachers. For 

example, none of the studies inquired whether 

teachers liked the programs they were given to 

teach. It seems self-evident that teachers will be 

most effective when they are enthusiastic in their 

teaching and enjoy what they are doing in the 

classroom. In selecting ways to teach PA in their 

classrooms, teachers need to take account of 

motivational aspects of programs for themselves as 

well as their students. 

•	 Results of the meta-analysis should not be 

overinterpreted. Although most comparisons in the 

analysis demonstrated significant mean effect sizes, 

the NRP cannot infer that every teacher of every 

child in the studies was successful in promoting the 

acquisition of PA or its transfer to reading and 

writing. There was considerable variation within 

and across individual studies. Likewise, the NRP 

findings should not be used to dictate any 

oversimplified prescriptions regarding effective PA 

instruction, for example, how long PAtraining 

should last (e.g., 5 to 18 hours) to be most 

effective. There are many factors that govern the 

effectiveness of instruction. 

•	 More is not necessarily better. The NRP findings 

indicated that PA training was effective regardless 

of its length. However, effect sizes were largest 

when training lasted less than 20 hours. This 

suggests that teachers should make reasoned 

decisions and remain flexible about the amount of 

time to devote to this component of their 

instructional programs. Children will differ in the 

time they need to acquire PA. The best solution is 

to pretest for PA skills and adjust the amount of 

instruction to suit individual and class needs. 

•	 Early PA instruction cannot guarantee later literacy 

success. The most reasonable conclusion from the 

findings of the NRP analysis is that adding welldesigned PA instruction to a beginning reading 

program or a remedial reading program is very 

likely to yield significant dividends in the acquisition 

of reading and writing skills. Whether the benefits 

are lasting will likely depend on the 

comprehensiveness and effectiveness of the entire 

literacy program that is taught. Additional factors 

that play a significant role in children’s literacy 

acquisition are detailed in other sections of the NRP 

report. 

Directions for Further Research 

Many experiments have been conducted to test 

whether phonemic awareness instruction helps children 

learn to read. Results have been sufficiently positive to 

sustain confidence that this treatment is indeed 

effective across a variety of child and training 

conditions. However, there are still some questions 

needing further attention from researchers. 

•	 Research is needed to identify what teachers need 

to know and be able to do to teach PA effectively 

and to integrate this instruction with other elements 

2-7	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

of beginning reading instruction or instruction 

directed at older disabled readers. 

• Research is needed to study whether small groups 

are the most effective way to teach phonemic 

awareness and, if so, the processes and conditions •

that make this approach especially effective. 

• Research is needed to evaluate motivational 

properties of PA training programs and ways of
 

enhancing motivation and interest if they are
 

lacking. This includes assessing whether
 

approaches appeal to teachers as well as students. 

It is important to study the factors that influence 

whether teachers are likely to continue using 

programs once they are learned. 

 Research is needed to determine whether and how 

PA might be taught more effectively using 

computers so that transfer to spelling as well as

reading is maximized. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-8 
Executive Summary

PART I: PHONEMIC AWARENESS INSTRUCTION 

Report 

Introduction 

When today’s educators discuss the ingredients of 

effective programs to teach children to read, phonemic 

awareness (PA) receives much attention. However, not 

everyone is convinced. In education, particularly in the 

teaching of reading over the years, the choice of 

instructional method has been influenced by numerous 

factors, not only teachers’ own frontline experiences 

about what works, but also politics, economics, and the 

popular wisdom of the day. Historically, the pendulum 

has swung back and forth between holistic, meaningcentered approaches and phonics approaches without 

much hope of resolving disagreements. Meanwhile, 

substantial scientific evidence has accumulated 

purporting to shed light on reading acquisition processes 

and effective instructional approaches (Anderson, 

Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkerson, 1985; Adams, 1990; Snow, 

Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Many studies investigating the 

effectiveness of phonemic awareness instruction have 

contributed to this body of evidence. Proponents believe 

that such research holds promise of placing reading 

instruction on a more solid footing and ending the 

periodic upheavals and overhauls. 

The purpose of this report is to examine the scientific 

evidence supporting claims about the impact of 

phonemic awareness instruction on reading 

development. The National Reading Panel (NRP) 

sought answers to questions such as the following: Is 

phonemic awareness instruction effective in helping 

children learn to read? Under what circumstances and 

for which children is it most effective? Were studies 

showing its effectiveness designed to yield scientifically 

valid findings? What does a careful analysis of the 

findings reveal? How applicable are these findings to 

classroom practice? 

There were several reasons why the Panel selected 

phonemic awareness instruction for review and 

analysis. First, correlational studies have identified 

phonemic awareness and letter knowledge as the two 

best school-entry predictors of how well children will 

learn to read during the first 2 years of instruction 

(Share, Jorm, Maclean, & Matthews 1984). Such 

evidence suggests the potential instructional importance 

of PA training in the development of reading skills. 

Second, many experimental studies have been 

conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of PA training 

in facilitating reading acquisition. Results of these 

studies claim to be positive and to provide a scientific 

basis documenting the efficacy of PA training 

programs. Third, there is currently much interest in PA 

training programs among teachers, principals, and 

publishers because of claims about their effectiveness 

in improving children’s ability to learn to read. State 

adoption committees such as those in Texas and 

California have prescribed the inclusion of PA training 

in reading instruction materials approved for use in 

schools. Thus it is important to determine whether PA 

training programs live up to these claims and, if so, to 

identify the circumstances that govern their 

effectiveness. 

In order to evaluate the adequacy and strength of the 

evidence, the NRP conducted a meta-analysis. The 

Panel located all of the experimental studies that (1) 

administered PA training to students, (2) that included 

control groups, and (3) that measured the impact of 

training on reading outcomes. The Panel found 52 

published studies that met the NRP criteria. The studies 

varied in many respects. Different types of phonemic 

awareness skills were taught. The participants ranged 

from preschoolers to 6th graders and included students 

at risk for reading problems as well as students 

classified as reading disabled. The instruction was 

delivered by classroom teachers in some studies and by 

researchers or computers in other studies. Children 

were tutored individually, or they received instruction in 

small groups, or in larger classroom groups. The metaanalytic procedure allowed the Panel to examine not 

only whether PA instruction exerted a significant impact 

on reading across all of these different conditions, but 

also whether these variations made any difference in 

the size of the impact. 

2-9 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Assessing and Teaching Phonemic 

Awareness 

To understand how the Panel screened and selected 

studies that taught PA, it is necessary to clarify what 

phonemic awareness is and what it is not. Phonemes 

are the smallest units comprising spoken language. 

English consists of about 41 phonemes. Phonemes 

combine to form syllables and words. A few words 

have only one phoneme, such as a or oh. Most words 

consist of a blend of phonemes, such as go with two 

phonemes, or check with three phonemes, or stop with 

four phonemes. In the text below, individual phonemes 

are represented with IPA (International Phonetic 

Alphabet) symbols between backslashes (e.g., /g/) to 

contrast them with letters represented by capitals (e.g., 

G). 

Phonemes are different from graphemes, which are 

units of written language and represent phonemes in the 

spellings of words (Venezky, 1970, 1999). Graphemes 

may consist of one letter, for example, P, T, K, A, N, or 

multiple letters, CH, SH, TH, -CK, EA, -IGH, each 

symbolizing one phoneme. Some of the studies 

reviewed taught children to use letters as aids in 

distinguishing the separate phonemes in speech. 

However, the studies the Panel accepted into the 

database did not go beyond this to teach conventional 

spelling or text writing. 

PA refers to the ability to focus on and manipulate 

phonemes in spoken words. In the studies reviewed, 

researchers used the following tasks to assess 

children’s PA or to improve their PA through instruction 

and practice: 

1.	 Phoneme isolation, which requires recognizing 

individual sounds in words, for example, “Tell me 

the first sound in paste” (/p/); 

2.	 Phoneme identity, which requires recognizing the 

common sound in different words, for example, 

“Tell me the sound that is the same in bike, boy, and 

bell” (/b/); 

3.	 Phoneme categorization, which requires recognizing 

the word with the odd sound in a sequence of three 

or four words, for example, “Which word does not 

belong? bus, bun, rug” (rug); 

4.	 Phoneme blending, which requires listening to a 

sequence of separately spoken sounds and 

combining them to form a recognizable word, for 

example, “What word is /s/ /k/ /u/ /l/?” (school); 

5.	 Phoneme segmentation, which requires breaking a 

word into its sounds by tapping out or counting the 

sounds, or by pronouncing and positioning a marker 

for each sound, for example, “How many 

phonemes in ship?” (3: /š/ /I/ /p/); and 

6.	 Phoneme deletion, which requires recognizing what 

word remains when a specified phoneme is 

removed, for example, “What is smile without the 

/s/?” (mile). 

One question of interest in the meta-analysis was 

whether teaching some forms of PA helped children 

learn to read better than teaching other forms. 

Note that the above list does not include phoneme 

discrimination, which refers to the ability to recognize 

whether two spoken words are the same or different, 

for example, recognizing that tan sounds different from 

Dan. Phoneme discrimination is simpler than PA 

because it requires neither conscious awareness of 

phonemes nor phoneme manipulation. To qualify for 

analysis, studies had to teach active manipulation of 

phonemes, not just phoneme discrimination. 

Also phoneme awareness is different from phonological 

awareness, which is a more encompassing term 

referring to various types of awareness, not only PA but 

also awareness of larger spoken units such as syllables 

and rhyming words. Tasks of phonological awareness 

might require students to generate words that rhyme, to 

segment sentences into words, to segment polysyllabic 

words into syllables, or to delete syllables from words 

(e.g., what is cowboy without cow?). Tasks that require 

students to manipulate spoken units larger than 

phonemes are simpler for beginners than tasks requiring 

phoneme manipulation (Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, 

& Carter, 1974). PA training in the NRP set of studies 

very often began by teaching children to analyze larger 

units. For example, Lundberg, Frost, and Petersen 

(1988) taught children rhyming exercises and how to 

break sentences into words and words into syllables 

before they taught children to segment initial phonemes 

in words. However, if the programs used to teach PA 

did not progress to the phonemic level, then the study 

was not included in the NRP data set. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-10 
 

Report 

In a few of the studies analyzed by the NRP, instruction 

was focused on teaching children to manipulate onsets 

and rimes in words (Fox & Routh, 1984; Lovett, 

Barron, Forbes, Cuksts, & Steinbach, 1994; Treiman & 

Baron, 1983; Wilson & Frederickson, 1995). The onset 

is the single consonant or consonant blend that precedes 

the vowel, and the rime is the vowel and following 

consonants, for example, j-ump, st-op, str-ong. Dividing 

single-syllable words into these units is easier than 

dividing the words in other places, for example, after 

the vowel (Treiman, 1985). The NRP included these 

studies in the set because students were essentially 

manipulating phonemes when the onset was a single 

phoneme. 

Some forms of PA training in the data set qualified as 

phonics instruction, which involves teaching students 

how to use grapheme-phoneme correspondences to 

decode or spell words. For example, Williams’ (1980) 

ABD program taught students to use graphemes and 

phonemes to blend words—which is decoding. Ehri and 

Wilce (1987b) taught students to use graphemes and 

phonemes to segment words—which is spelling. Also, 

Wise, King, and Olson (in press) taught both segmenting 

and blending with letters. What distinguished the NRP 

studies from the general pool of phonics training studies, 

however, is that instruction given to treatment students 

but withheld from controls was limited to graphemephoneme manipulation and did not go beyond this to 

include other activities such as reading decodable text 

or writing stories. 

Contribution of PA in Learning to Read 

As mentioned above, PA measured at the beginning of 

kindergarten is one of the two best predictors of how 

well children will learn to read. In a study by Share et 

al. (1984), kindergartners were assessed on many 

measures when they entered school, including phonemic 

segmentation, letter name knowledge, memory for 

sentences, vocabulary, father’s occupational status, 

parental reports of reading to children, TV watching, 

and many more. These researchers examined which of 

these measures best predicted how well the children 

would be reading at the end of kindergarten and at the 

end of 1st grade. Results showed that PA was the top 

predictor along with letter knowledge. PA correlated 

0.66 with reading achievement scores in kindergarten 

and 0.62 with scores in 1st grade. Of interest in our 

analysis was whether PA could be shown to play a 

causal role in learning to read. 

PA is thought to contribute in helping children learn to 

read because the structure of the English writing 

system is alphabetic. Moreover, it is not easy to figure 

out the system. Words have prescribed spellings that 

consist of graphemes symbolizing phonemes in 

predictable ways. Being able to distinguish the separate 

phonemes in pronunciations of words so that they can 

be linked to graphemes is difficult. This is because 

spoken language is seamless and there are no breaks in 

speech signaling where one phoneme ends and the next 

one begins. Rather phonemes are folded into each other 

and are coarticulated. Discovering phonemic units is 

helped greatly by explicit instruction in how the system 

works. This is underscored by research revealing that 

people who have not learned to read and write have 

great trouble performing phonemic awareness tasks 

(Morais, Bertelson, Cary, & Alegria, 1987). Likewise 

people who have learned to read in a script that is not 

graphophonemic, such as Chinese, have difficulty 

segmenting speech into phonemes (Mann, 1987; Read, 

Zhang, Nie, & Ding, 1987). For these reasons, it was 

expected that the impact of PA training on literacy 

would be strongest in tasks assessing children’s ability 

to read and spell words. 

Research on word reading processes has distinguished 

several ways to read words (Ehri, 1991, 1994). The 

process of decoding words never read before involves 

transforming graphemes into phonemes and then 

blending the phonemes to form words with recognizable 

meanings. The PA skill centrally involved in decoding is 

blending. To assess decoding skill, researchers often 

test children’s ability to read pseudowords such as blig 

or nef. 

A second way to read unfamiliar words is by analogy to 

known words (Gaskins, Downer, Anderson, 

Cunningham, Gaskins, Schommer, & the Teachers of 

Benchmark School, 1988; Glushko, 1979; Goswami, 

1986; Marsh, Freidman, Welch, & Desberg, 1981). A 

common basis for analogizing is recognizing that the 

rime segment of an unfamiliar word is identical to that 

of a familiar word, and then blending the known rime 

2-11 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

with the new onset, for example, reading brick by 

recognizing that -ick is contained in the known word 

kick. Reading by analogy is thought to require the PA 

skills of onset-rime segmentation and blending. 

Another way to read words is from memory, sometimes 

called sight word reading. This requires prior 

experience reading the words and retaining information 

about them in memory. In order for individual words to 

be represented in memory, beginning readers are 

thought to form connections between graphemes and 

phonemes in the word. These connections bond 

spellings to their pronunciations in memory (Ehri, 1992; 

Ehri & Wilce, 1987a; Rack, Hulme, Snowberg, & 

Wightman, 1994; Reitsma, 1983). The PA skill thought 

to be important for developing word memory is being 

able to segment pronunciations into phonemes that link 

to graphemes. Formulation of this concept led to the 

expectation PA training would benefit children’s word 

reading, particularly when they received practice 

learning to read the words. 

The processes involved in writing words, either by 

generating approximate spellings of the words or by 

retrieving correct spellings from memory, require 

phonemic segmentation skill (Griffith, 1991). Phonemic 

segmentation is required for spellers to select letters to 

represent the phonemes. Phonemic segmentation is 

required to help children retain correct spellings in 

memory by connecting graphemes to phonemes. In the 

analysis it was expected that PA training would benefit 

children’s ability to spell. 

Various kinds of word reading outcomes were assessed 

across the studies the Panel reviewed. The simplest 

task given to preschoolers required them to look at a 

word (sat) and decide whether it says sat or mat 

(Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991). Studies with older 

children gave them lists of words to read either from 

standardized tests or experimenter-devised tests. Also, 

word learning tasks were used. For example, 

kindergartners first reviewed four letter-sound relations 

and then practiced learning to read five words over 

several trials, am, at, mat, sat, Sam (O’Connor, Jenkins, 

& Slocum, 1995). Also, pseudoword reading tasks were 

used in which children read nonwords such as feem, 

hote, cliss. Spelling tasks were included as well. 

Younger children were given credit for inventing 

phonetically plausible spellings of words while older 

children were scored for producing correct spellings. 

Some of the studies in the NRP database measured 

reading comprehension as well as word reading. In 

order to comprehend a text, readers must be able to 

read most of the words. However, other capabilities 

influence reading comprehension as well, such as 

readers’ vocabulary, their world knowledge, and their 

memory for text. It was expected that PA training 

would benefit children’s reading comprehension 

because of its dependence on effective word reading. 

However, the degree of influence was expected to be 

less than that observed with word reading because the 

influence is indirect. 

Design Features of Phonemic Awareness 

Training Studies 

Many correlational studies have reported strong 

relationships between phonemic awareness and learning 

to read (for reviews, see Blachman, in press; Ehri, 

1979; Stahl & Murray, 1994; Wagner & Torgesen, 

1987). In correlational studies, researchers measure 

children’s ability to manipulate phonemes and also their 

reading ability. Typical findings show that students who 

have superior phonemic awareness are better readers 

than students with low PA. However, such findings are 

insufficient to show that PA was the underlying cause 

enabling some students to read better than others. This 

is because the finding does not rule out other causal 

explanations for the relationship. Perhaps the 

correlation was observed because cause operated in the 

reverse direction; that is, learning to read improved 

students’ PA. Or perhaps a third factor operated as an 

underlying cause boosting both PA and reading, for 

example, vocabulary size, memory, or general 

intelligence. 

In order to show that PA operates as a direct cause in 

helping children learn to read, the NRP needed to 

assess evidence from experimental studies with 

treatment and control groups. A well-designed 

experiment that provides strong evidence for cause 

should include the following steps: 

1.	 Pretesting should be given to students before they 

receive any training. Pretests verify that children 

have not already acquired PA and hence can profit 

from training. Pretest performance can be 

compared to posttest performance on PA, reading, 

and spelling tasks to evaluate gains resulting from 

PA training. Also, pretests indicate whether 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-12 
Report 

treatment and control groups were equivalent prior 

to training. If not, pretests can be use to equate the 

groups statistically when effects of training are 

evaluated on outcome measures. 

2.	 The group receiving PA training should be 

compared to a control group that is equivalent in all 

respects except for receiving the PA training. 

Control groups may receive another type of training 

involving equal time but no PA instruction, or 

control groups may receive no special training 

beyond that provided in the students’ classrooms at 

school. The use of an alternative-treatment control 

group is considered preferable to a no-treatment 

control group because the former rules out the 

Hawthorne effect as the explanation for any 

outcome differences favoring the experimental 

group. The Hawthorne effect occurs when a 

treatment group outperforms a no-treatment control 

group because the treated group received special 

attention and as a result was more motivated to 

perform. 

3.	 Random assignment should be used to place 

students in treatment and control groups. Random 

assignment makes it likely that treatment and 

control groups do not differ systematically in any 

way that would explain outcome differences 

following training. In other words, this step helps to 

establish that the treatment, rather than some other 

factor, was the cause of any improvement in 

reading outcomes. 

4.	 Posttests should be given to students following 

training. Posttests to assess PA verify that training 

worked, that the PA-trained group made greater 

gains than the control group. Posttests to assess 

reading and spelling show that PA training 

transferred and improved students’ reading and 

spelling performance. 

5.	 Followup posttests should assess the long-term 

effects of PA training on students’ progress in 

reading and spelling. Between the end of training 

and the followup tests, both experimental and 

control students receive regular instruction at school 

but no further specialized training in PA. 

Although these features characterize a well-designed 

experiment, there were studies in the NRP database 

that lacked some of these features. Because of this, the 

relationship between design features and outcomes was 

assessed. Studies varied in whether they compared 

performance of the PA-trained groups to performance 

of treated control groups or untreated control groups. If 

Hawthorne effects have influenced comparisons, one 

would expect bigger effects when PA treatment groups 

are compared to untreated control groups than when 

compared to treated control groups. However, Bus and 

van Ijzendoorn (1999) in their meta-analysis reported 

the reverse, finding bigger effects in comparisons 

between PA treatment groups and control groups 

receiving an alternative treatment. The Panel attempted 

replication of their findings with the NRP data set. 

The Panel also assessed whether PA training affected 

outcomes in three types of designs: (1) in true 

experiments where students were randomly assigned to 

treatment and control groups; (2) in quasi-experiments 

where students were members of pre-existing groups 

which were not randomly assigned to treatment and 

control conditions; and (3) in studies where students 

from treatment and control groups were matched. 

Although random assignment is preferable, researchers 

may be limited to a quasi-experimental design when 

they evaluate PA programs in schools where 

classrooms already exist or when they employ as 

trainers teachers who are already familiar with a 

program and teach it to their students. The procedure of 

matching children on the basis of pretest scores is done 

to minimize any pretreatment differences between the 

groups being compared. In the NRP analysis, the 

effects of PA training separately for the three types of 

studies were examined. 

In a recent critique of PA training studies, Troia (1999) 

identified several design flaws and applied these criteria 

to rate PA training studies for their lack of 

methodological rigor. To evaluate the impact of these 

flaws on outcomes, the Panel examined the relationship 

between Troia’s assessments of the PA studies and the 

effects reported in these studies. The purpose of this 

analysis was to rule out the possibility that claims about 

PA training effects are supported mainly by poorly 

designed studies. 

2-13	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Other Features of PA Training Studies 

Studies in our data set varied in the types of students 

who received PA training. The NRP wanted to know 

whether certain types of students benefited more than 

other types. Studies varied in the grade level of their 

participants and ranged from preschool to 6th grade. 

Studies varied in whether their students showed any 

signs of having reading problems. Three types of 

readers were distinguished across the studies. Some 

focused on children at risk for developing reading 

difficulties in the future. These were children below 2nd 

grade. Being at risk was defined as having low PA or 

low reading in 83% of the cases. Low socioeconomic 

status (SES) characterized only 27% of the cases. 

Some studies focused on children who had already 

fallen behind classmates in their reading, referred to as 

disabled readers. These were children in 1st grade and 

above. The remaining studies sampled children who 

were judged to be making normal progress in learning to 

read. This judgment was based on the fact that the 

children were not identified as having any reading 

problems. 

One common finding reported in many correlational 

studies is that children who are or will become disabled 

readers have poor phonemic awareness, substantially 

below that expected of students at their reading levels 

(Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Bruck, 1992; Fawcett & 

Nicholson, 1995). Researchers have suggested that this 

deficiency underlies and explains their difficulty in 

learning to read. In the NRP analysis, the Panel 

examined whether PA training was effective in 

teaching PA to at-risk and disabled readers and 

whether this improved their reading and spelling 

performance, thus providing evidence for a causal 

connection. 

Studies varied in how the PA training was delivered. In 

some studies, researchers or their specially trained 

assistants taught children to manipulate phonemes. In 

other studies, classroom teachers were the trainers. In 

a few studies, training was presented primarily by 

computers. Because classroom teachers are the 

purveyors of reading instruction for most children, it is 

important to determine whether they can teach PA 

effectively. If training requires specially trained 

personnel, then PA instruction should not be imposed on 

classroom teachers. In the NRP analyses, the effects 

of PA training were examined separately for teachers, 

for computers, and for researchers. 

There is substantial evidence that one-to-one tutoring is 

the most effective form of instruction (Bloom, 1984; 

Cohen, Kulik, J., & Kulik, C., 1982; Glass, Cahen, 

Smith, & Filby, 1982; Pinnel, Lyons, DeFord, Byrk, & 

Seltzer, 1994; Wasik & Slavin, 1993). However, Bus 

and van Ijzendoorn (1999), in their meta-analysis of PA 

training studies, found that teaching PA to small groups 

of children produced a bigger impact on outcomes than 

teaching students individually or in classrooms. The aim 

was to attempt replication of this finding with the NRP 

data set that included more studies than those in the 

previous meta-analysis. 

It is common wisdom that greater time spent training 

students yields superior learning. However, instructional 

time in schools is very limited because of the many 

subjects and skills that must be taught. The studies in 

the NRP data set varied in the length of time spent 

teaching PA to students. To address the question of 

how much time might be sufficient for teaching PA, the 

relationship between training time and effects on 

learning was examined. 

The NRP database included PA training studies 

conducted not only in English but also in other 

languages, such as Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, 

Danish, Spanish, Hebrew, Dutch, and German. In most 

of these languages, the grapheme-phoneme connections 

are more transparent than in English. Of interest was 

whether PA training might exert a larger impact in 

English because it is harder for beginning readers to 

discover the graphophonemic system in English than in 

other languages. 

Methodology 

Database 

An electronic search of two databases, ERIC and 

PsycINFO, was conducted. Six terms involving 

phonemic awareness were crossed with 15 terms 

related to reading performance. The PA terms were: 

phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, spelling, 

blending, learning to spell, and invented spelling. The 

reading terms were: reading, reading ability, reading 

achievement, reading comprehension, reading 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-14 
Report 

development, reading disabilities, reading skills, remedial 

reading, beginning reading, beginning reading instruction, 

reading acquisition, word identification, word reading, 

oral reading, and miscues. The search was limited to 

articles appearing in journals written in English, but no 

limit was placed on the year of publication. Using this 

procedure, the Panel located 637 articles through ERIC, 

and 1,325 articles through PsycINFO. Abstracts were 

printed and screened. In addition, the Panel handsearched and screened references cited in the studies 

located by the electronic search and in several review 

papers (Apthorp, 1998; Blachman, in press; Bus & van 

Ijzendoorn, 1999; Stahl & Murray, 1994; Troia, 1999; 

Wagner, 1988). 

To qualify for the analysis, studies had to meet the 

following criteria: 

1.	 Studies had to adopt an experimental or quasiexperimental design with a control group or a 

multiple baseline method. 

2.	 Studies had to appear in a refereed journal. 

3.	 Studies had to test the hypothesis that training in 

phonemic awareness improves reading 

performance over alternative forms of training or 

no training. 

4.	 Studies had to provide training in phonemic 

awareness that was not confounded with other 

instructional methods or activities. 

5.	 Studies had to report statistics permitting the 

calculation or estimation of effect sizes. 

From the various lists of references, the Panel identified 

and located 78 articles that appeared to meet our 

criteria. Upon closer inspection, 26 articles did not 

match all criteria: 5 lacked sufficient information to 

determine effect size; 5 lacked an adequate control 

group; 12 did not assess reading as an outcome; and 4 

lacked appropriate phonemic awareness training. The 

final set of studies meeting our criteria numbered 52 

(see Appendix A). 

The primary statistic used in the Panel’s analysis of 

performance on outcome measures was effect size, 

indicating the extent to which performance of the 

treatment group exceeded performance of the control 

group, with the difference expressed in standard 

deviation units. The formula used to calculate raw 

effect sizes for each treatment-control comparison 

consisted of the mean of the treatment group minus the 

mean of the control group divided by a pooled standard 

deviation. 

From the 52 studies, 96 cases comparing individual 

treatment and control groups were derived. Because 

some of the studies included more than one treatment 

or control group, the cases included comparisons 

utilizing the same group more than once. There were 

seven treatment groups appearing twice because they 

were compared to two different control groups. There 

were 16 control groups appearing twice because they 

were compared to 2 different treatment groups. There 

was one control group appearing three times because it 

was compared to three treatment groups. In sum, there 

were 47 independent comparisons and 49 comparisons 

having a group that overlapped with one or at most two 

other comparisons. Although this meant that effect 

sizes were not completely independent across cases, 

the Panel preferred this alternative to combining 

treatment and control groups within studies because it 

was important not to obscure important moderator 

variables of interest. For example, Davidson and 

Jenkins (1994) studied three treatment groups, one 

taught to blend, one taught to segment, and one taught 

to both to segment and blend. They compared the 

performance of each treatment to the same control 

group. The Panel wanted to retain these as separate 

comparisons in our analysis, so the same control group 

was allowed to recur in three comparisons. 

A few studies in the NRP database included treatment 

or control groups that were not deemed appropriate for 

analysis. One reason was that the treatment groups 

provided not only phonemic awareness training but also 

reading or writing training that was not provided to 

control groups, thus confounding PA training with 

reading and writing training. The following describes 

which treatment or control groups were eliminated from 

the analysis and why: a treatment group given decoding 

training and word reading (Barker & Torgesen, 1995); a 

treatment group given a reading and writing program 

(Brennan & Ireson, 1997); a treatment group taught to 

manipulate syllables rather than phonemes (Sanchez & 

Rueda, 1991); a treatment group taught semantic 

categorization with written words (Defior & Tudela, 

1994); treatment groups in which the teacher-trainers 

failed to spend the time prescribed for training 

(Olofsson & Lundberg, 1983); treatment groups in 

2-15	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

which children not only analyzed phonemes but also 

read words in sentences and stories, unlike children in 

the control groups who only listened to stories or 

remained in their classrooms (Solity, 1996; Weiner, 

1994); a control group lacking not only PA training but 

also the Reading Recovery© instruction given the 

treatment group (Iversen & Tunmer, 1993): and a 

control group that did not control for all of the non-PA 

elements of training (Lovett et al., 1994; Vellutino & 

Scanlon, 1987). These treatment or control groups were 

not included in the database. 

The studies in the NRP database were coded for many 

characteristics that the Panel felt were important to 

include as moderator variables in the meta-analyses. 

These characteristics are listed in Table 1 (Appendix 

B). Various properties of phonemic awareness training 

were coded. Training programs varied in whether they 

focused on specific PA manipulations. Single-focus 

studies taught blending, categorization, identity, 

segmention, or onset-rime only. Double-focus studies 

involved combinations of blending, segmenting, deletion, 

or categorization. Global treatments taught three or 

more PA skills. Programs that only taught onset-rime 

manipulation were coded as onset-rime training, even 

though the training might have involved blending and 

segmenting (e.g., Fox & Routh, 1976). Training varied 

in whether children were taught to manipulate 

phonemes using letters or whether attention was limited 

to phonemes in speech. Training that had children 

manipulate blank markers was coded as a nonletter 

treatment. 

The training unit varied across studies. Students were 

tutored individually in some studies and in either small 

groups or whole classrooms in other studies. The size of 

the small groups varied from two to seven students. 

The identity of trainers varied across studies. The Panel 

compared classroom teachers to others who were 

mostly researchers or trained assistants. Credentialed 

teachers who conducted the training but were not the 

students’ classroom teacher were coded as others. In a 

few studies, PA training was provided mainly by 

computers. The Panel compared this training to training 

provided by noncomputers (all others). The length of 

training varied from 1 to 75 hours. Comparisons were 

conducted by dividing training time into four blocks. 

Characteristics of children receiving the training were 

coded. Children were grouped into four categories to 

reflect their grade levels: preschool, kindergarten, 1st 

grade, and 2nd through 6th grades. Also children were 

grouped by reading ability. At-risk children were those 

judged by authors of the studies to be at risk for 

developing reading problems. In the majority of cases 

(77%), this was indicated by poor performance on PA 

tasks. Other indicators used in a few studies were low 

reading, low SES, developmental or language delays, or 

cognitive disabilities. Only 27% of the cases were low 

SES, while 37% were middle-to-high SES. These 

children were all below 2nd grade. 

Children who had already developed reading problems 

were coded as disabled readers. All but three cases 

involved children between 2nd and 6th grade levels. 

The three cases involved 1st graders who qualified for 

Reading Recovery© programs (Hatcher, Hulme, & Ellis, 

1994; Iversen & Tunmer, 1993). Being reading disabled 

meant reading below grade level despite at least 

average cognitive ability in most studies. In one study, 

the school’s definition of learning disabled was used 

(Williams, 1980). In one study, students were not only 

reading disabled but also had neurological impairment 

and language learning problems (Lovett et al., 1994). 

Samples of children not reported as being at risk or 

reading disabled were coded as normally progressing 

readers. These studies included children selected not to 

have reading problems as well as children selected 

without regard to reading ability. The socioeconomic 

level of children was coded into two categories, low 

SES or middle-to-high SES, based on assertions by 

authors. The language spoken by children and used to 

teach PA was coded as English or non-English. NonEnglish languages included Dutch, Finnish, German, 

Hebrew, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. 

Some features of the methodology used in the 

experiments were coded. Children were assigned to 

treatment and control groups in one of three ways. 

They were randomly assigned. Or they were members 

of intact groups that were not randomly assigned to 

conditions, referred to by researchers as nonequivalent 

groups. In some studies two classrooms were assigned 

randomly, one to the treatment and one to the control 

condition. These cases were categorized as 

nonequivalent groups. In other studies, several 

classrooms were assigned randomly to treatment and 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-16 
Report 

control conditions. These cases were categorized as 

random assignment. The third way of assigning children 

to conditions involved matching children on the basis of 

similar test scores. Typically, members of a match are 

randomly assigned, one to the treatment group and one 

to the control group. However, in some studies, this step 

was not stated explicitly; so, it is impossible to be sure 

that random assignment was always used. 

The Panel coded studies to reflect whether fidelity to 

treatment was checked, that is, whether researchers 

observed trainers to make sure they adhered to 

treatment procedures. In addition, comparisons were 

coded for the type of control group, that is, whether or 

not control students received a special alternative 

treatment or remained untreated. The number of 

students participating in the comparison was coded to 

reflect sample size. The numbers were grouped into 

four blocks to distinguish sample sizes ranging from 

small to large. 

To evaluate the relationship between the methodological 

quality of studies and the effect sizes found, the Panel 

adopted the five methodological criteria applied by Troia 

(1999) in his critique of the internal and external validity 

of PA training studies. Internal validity refers to the 

authenticity of cause-and-effect relationships in a study, 

that is, whether the treatment caused the outcome 

observed, or whether other variables could have 

impacted the outcome. External validity refers to the 

generalizability of the findings, that is, whether or not 

the results of a study can be applied to other persons in 

other settings at other times. To evaluate the internal 

and external validity of studies, Troia used four 

summary measures: percentage of internal validity 

criteria met by the studies, number of critical flaws 

challenging a study’s internal validity (e.g., no random 

assignment, no alternative treatment given to the control 

group, no assessment of trainer fidelity to treatment), 

percentage of external validity criteria met, and number 

of critical flaws challenging a study’s external validity 

(e.g., insufficient information about the sample of 

participants or about how disability was defined and 

assessed). Troia evaluated 28 of the studies included in 

the NRP database. The Panel applied his ratings and 

rankings to the 56 cases derived from these studies. 

The Panel did this without checking Troia’s evaluations 

for accuracy; so, any incorrect codings of the studies 

arise from Troia’s procedures, not from the Panel’s. 

One final characteristic of the NRP studies was coded 

and analyzed, the year of publication. Years were cast 

into four blocks. Other characteristics of the studies 

were coded as well but were not analyzed either 

because there was little interest or because there was 

an insufficient number of cases to support a meaningful 

analysis. 

Four individuals coded the studies and entered values 

into the SPSS database. The reliability of moderatorvariable codes was checked by comparing codes in the 

database to codes generated by one of the coders who 

re-coded 14 of the articles (15% of the cases). The 

percentage of agreement of the codes was 94%. All of 

the means, standard deviations, and sample sizes that 

were entered into the database were verified at least 

twice for accuracy. 

There were three outcomes of primary interest: 

phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling 

performance. Some studies included multiple tasks 

measuring these outcomes. These measures were 

combined by calculating raw effect sizes (g) for 

individual tasks and then averaging the effect sizes 

across tasks. The composite measure for reading 

included many different types and measures of reading. 

For example, word reading, pseudoword reading, 

reading comprehension, reading speed, time to reach a 

criterion of learning, and miscues were included. The 

phonemic awareness composite included only those 

measures that required manipulating phoneme-size 

units, not larger syllabic units. The types of 

manipulations in the composite included segmentation, 

blending, reversing, deletion, identity, and categorization. 

The spelling composite included measures of the quality 

of invented spellings as well as correct spellings of 

words and pseudowords. 

The Panel also examined more specific outcome 

measures that included various types of phonemic 

awareness, reading, spelling, and math. The specific 

measures are listed in Table 1. Also of interest was a 

comparison of effect sizes on outcomes measured 

immediately after training to outcomes assessing longterm learning. Delayed posttests were administered 

from 2 to 36 months following training. 

2-17 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Meta-Analysis 

Most of the studies in the NRP database reported 

treatment and control group means and standard 

deviations that were used to calculate effect sizes. 

However, there were 14 studies that lacked sufficient 

information. DSTAT was employed (Johnson, 1989) to 

estimate these effects, usually from F- or t- or MSE 

values, or the information was obtained from authors. 

The analysis of effect sizes across studies was 

conducted by giving more weight to effect sizes that 

were based on larger samples of participants. However, 

the following studies administered training to groups of 

students and hence used groups rather than individual 

students as the unit of analysis in their statistics: Byrne 

& Fielding-Barnsley, (1991); Castle, Riach, & 

Nicholson, (1994); O’Connor, Jenkins, & Slocum, 

(1995); Torgesen, Morgan, & Davis, (1992); Williams, 

(1980) (Experiment 2). Using the number of groups as 

the value of n in the weighting procedure for these 

studies had the effect of underrepresenting their effect 

sizes. To address this problem, the Panel used n’s for 

the unit of analysis to convert raw effect sizes (g) to 

corrected effect sizes (d) in each case. Then, when 

composite effect sizes were calculated across cases, 

the individual effect sizes (d) were weighted by the 

number of students in the sample, not by the unit of 

analysis, thus ensuring that no cases were 

underrepresented. 

The DSTAT statistical package (Johnson, 1989) was 

employed to determine effect sizes and to test the 

influence of moderator variables on effect sizes. Each 

moderator variable had at least two levels. The Panel 

tested whether the mean weighted effect size (d) at 

each level was significantly greater than zero at p < 

0.05, whether the individual effect sizes at each level 

were homogeneous (p < 0.05), and whether effect sizes 

differed significantly at different levels of the moderator 

variables (p < 0.05). 

Consistency With the Methodology of the 

National Reading Panel 

The NRP review methodology (NRP Progress Report, 

February 1999) was used in the search and analysis of 

the studies. Specifically, studies that were not published 

in peer-reviewed journals were excluded. All of the 

studies in the database employed experimental or quasiexperimental designs. The studies were coded for most 

of the specified categories. Categories left uncoded 

were those where information was rarely provided 

(e.g., setting [urban, rural, suburban], cost factors 

associated with training). 

The Panel determined that a meaningful meta-analysis 

could be conducted on the data. The coding of 

moderator variables and the means and standard 

deviations that were used to calculate effect sizes were 

verified by checking all of them at least twice. 

Intercoder reliability was conducted on the moderator 

variables and agreement exceeded the prescribed level 

of 90%. The data analysis followed the procedures 

specified. 

Results
 

Were Effect Sizes Greater Than Zero?
 

The statistic used to assess the effectiveness of PA 

training on outcome measures was effect size that 

measures how much the mean of the PA-trained group 

exceeded the mean of the control group in standard 

deviation units. An effect size of 1.0 indicates that the 

treatment group mean was one standard deviation 

higher than the control group mean, revealing a strong 

effect of training. An effect size of 0 indicates that 

treatment and control group means were identical, 

revealing that training had no effect. To judge the 

strength of an effect size, values suggested by Cohen 

(1988) are commonly used. An effect size of 0.20 is 

considered small; a moderate effect size is 0.50; an 

effect size of 0.80 or above is large. 

Mean effect sizes obtained for outcome measures and 

levels of the moderator variables are reported in 

Appendix C—Table 2 for phonemic awareness, Table 3 

for reading, and Table 4 for spelling. Effect sizes were 

tested statistically to determine whether each was 

significantly greater than zero, indicating that superior 

performance of PA trained groups over control groups 

was not likely a result of chance at p < 0.05. Inspection 

across Tables 2 and 3 in Appendix C reveals that all of 

the effect sizes involving phonemic awareness and 

reading outcomes were significantly greater than zero. 

This indicates that training was effective in teaching 

phonemic awareness and in facilitating transfer to 

reading across all of the conditions and characteristics 

considered. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-18 
Report 

Inspection of spelling outcomes in Table 4 reveals that 

all but three effect sizes were significantly greater than 

zero. This indicates that, across most of the conditions 

and characteristics considered, phonemic awareness 

training transferred and improved spelling skills more 

than alternative forms of training or no training. Effect 

sizes for spelling outcomes were insignificant when 

computers were used in the training, and when the 

students trained were disabled readers or children in 

2nd grade and above. As documented below, the 

absence of significant effects on spelling outcomes in 

the latter cases arose primarily because disabled 

readers’ spelling benefited little from PA training, and 

these readers were overrepresented in these categories 

(i.e., 2nd through 6th graders, receiving PA instruction 

on computers). 

Some of the studies evaluated the effects of PA training 

on an outcome not expected to be affected (e.g., 

mathematics). Tests to assess math were administered 

following training in 12 comparisons and following some 

delay in three comparisons. Results in Table 3 show 

that the effect size was nonsignificant and close to zero 

(d = 0.03). This indicates that the effects of PA training 

did not influence all outcomes but rather were limited to 

outcomes related to literacy. These findings argue 

against the operation of any halo/Hawthorne effect 

explaining the positive effect sizes. 

In sum, these findings led the Panel to conclude with 

much confidence that phonemic awareness training is 

more effective than alternative forms of training or no 

training in helping children acquire phonemic awareness 

and in facilitating transfer of PA skills to reading and 

spelling. PAtraining improves children’s reading 

performance in various types of tasks, including word 

reading, pseudoword reading, and reading 

comprehension. Benefits are evident on standardized 

tests as well as experimenter-designed tests of reading 

and spelling. Improvement in reading and spelling is not 

short-lived but lasts beyond the immediate training 

period. 

PA training improves reading performance in 

preschoolers and elementary students, and in normally 

progressing children, as well as in older disabled readers 

and younger children at risk for reading difficulties. PA 

training improves spelling performance in 

kindergartners, 1st graders, and at-risk students, but not 

in older disabled readers. PA training boosts reading 

and spelling in both English and non-English languages, 

and among low SES as well as middle-to-high SES 

children. Many types of PA training programs are 

effective for improving reading and spelling, including 

those that teach one or multiple types of phonemic 

awareness, those that incorporate letters into training, 

and those that limit phoneme manipulation to speech. 

Not only researchers but also classroom teachers and 

computers can deliver PA instruction effectively. 

Instruction can be conducted successfully with 

individuals as well as small groups and whole 

classrooms. Training does not have to be lengthy to be 

effective. 

Were Effect Sizes Homogeneous? 

In addition to determining whether mean effect sizes 

were significant, the Panel also tested whether the set 

of effect sizes was sufficiently homogeneous to render 

the mean effect size representative of that set. A 

homogeneity analysis calculates how probable it is that 

the variance exhibited among the effect sizes would be 

observed if only sampling error was making them 

different (Cooper, 1998). The 95% confidence intervals 

for effect sizes presented in Tables 2 to 4 reveal how 

variable they were. When the pool of effect sizes is not 

homogeneous, the next step is to examine whether 

moderator variables reduce the variability among effect 

sizes to create homogeneity, indicating their power to 

explain the variance. 

At the top of Tables 2, 3, and 4 in Appendix C, it is 

apparent that on the immediate outcome measures of 

PA, reading, and spelling, effect sizes were not 

homogeneous, as indicated by “No” in the homogeneity 

column. Effect sizes involving followup measures of PA 

and spelling outcomes were homogeneous, but followup 

reading effect sizes were not. Thus, there is reason to 

examine moderator variables that may explain effects 

on immediate outcomes and on followup tests involving 

reading outcomes. 

Did Moderator Variables Influence Effect 

Sizes? 

Studies varied in many respects as indicated in Table 1 

(Appendix B). The Panel examined whether these 

moderator variables enhanced or limited the 

effectiveness of PA training for teaching PA and for 

facilitating transfer to reading and spelling. It is 

important to recognize the limitations of this type of 

2-19 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

analysis and the tentative nature of any conclusions that 

are drawn. Findings involving the impact of moderator 

variables on effect sizes cannot support strong claims 

about causality. Moderator findings are no more than 

correlational. The biggest source of uncertainty is 

whether there is a hidden variable that is confounded 

with the variable in focus and is the true cause of the 

difference; thus, the conclusions drawn should be 

regarded as tentative and suggestive rather than the 

final word. 

Another caution to keep in mind in interpreting findings 

involving moderator variables is that the same 96 cases 

in the database do not contribute to the calculation of all 

effect sizes. Rather the set of cases changes across 

moderator variables, either because some of the studies 

lacked the information to be coded, they did not assess 

the outcome in interest, or they did not include a 

measure of the outcome at that test point. Any 

instability in the pattern of findings may arise from this 

source, particularly when only a few cases contribute. 

Outcome Measures

The immediate goal of phonemic awareness training 

across these studies was to improve children’s 

phonemic awareness. From Table 2, it is apparent that 

the effect size after training was large (d = 0.86), and it 

did not decline significantly at the followup test (d = 

0.73). Thus, PA training taught phonemic awareness 

very effectively, and students retained their skill after 

training ended. Comparison of specific PA skills 

acquired during training indicated that effects were 

larger for segmentation and deletion outcomes than for 

blending. Perhaps blending was harder to teach, or 

perhaps it was easier for controls to pick up without 

instruction. 

The strong gains in PA were observed to transfer to 

reading and spelling, and effects persisted through the 

second followup test. As evident in Table 3, readingoutcome effect sizes were moderate, and the effect 

size after training (d = 0.53) was equivalent to that at 

the first followup test (d = 0.45). A significant effect 

size was still present but significantly smaller at the 

second followup test (d = 0.23). Table 4 shows that 

spelling outcomes were boosted by PA training. The 

effect size following training (d = 0.59) was moderate 

and significantly greater than the effect sizes at the two 

delayed posttests (d = 0.37 and 0.20) that did not differ. 

PA training benefited children’s reading and spelling 

performance not only on experimenter-devised (E) tests 

but also on standardized (S) tests, although the effect 

size was significantly larger with experimenter tests (d 

= 0.61 E vs. 0.33 S for reading; d = 0.75 E vs. 0.41 S 

for spelling). This is perhaps not surprising. 

Standardized tests are designed to assess reading and 

spelling across a wide range of ability levels and hence 

are less sensitive to differences at any one level in the 

range. Also, experimenter tests may be more sensitive 

because often they are tailored to detect the phonemes 

and graphemes that were taught. 

Some studies assessed reading performance with 

pseudowords in order to measure children’s ability to 

decode unfamiliar words. From Table 3, it is apparent 

that PA training benefited decoding skill. Effects were 

moderate and equivalent on both experimenter-devised 

tests (d = 0.56) and standardized tests (d = 0.49). 

The effect of PA training on reading comprehension 

was assessed in 18 cases. From Table 3, it is apparent 

that training boosted reading comprehension 

significantly (d = 0.32), although the effect size was 

smaller than for word reading. This is not surprising. PA 

training would be expected to influence comprehension 

primarily through its impact on word reading. The task 

of reading, understanding, and remembering information 

in the text involves multiple processes. Not only must 

students read the words, but also they must do so 

rapidly and accurately and must construct meaning 

across the words and sentences. These other 

processing demands could be expected to dilute the 

influence of PA training. 

Properties of PA Training

Studies varied in whether one skill, two skills, or multiple 

skills were taught. These skills consisted mainly of 

teaching children to identify or categorize phonemes, or 

to blend, segment, or delete phonemes, or to manipulate 

onset-rime units. From PA outcomes in Table 2, it is 

apparent that focusing instruction on one or two skills 

was significantly more effective for teaching phonemic 

awareness than focusing on multiple skills (d = 1.16 for 

one vs. d = 1.03 for two vs. d = 0.70 for multiple). One 

explanation for lower effect sizes is that children who 

were taught many different ways to manipulate 

phonemes may have become confused about which 

manipulation to apply when the various kinds of PA 

were assessed after training. Another possibility is that 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-20 
Report 

insufficient time was spent on any one type of PA to 

teach it well in the multiple condition. A third possibility 

is that multiple skills instruction involved teaching higher 

level PAskills mainly to older children having difficulty 

acquiring PA. 

The Panel examined whether focused training in PA 

produced greater transfer to reading than multiple-skill 

training. From reading outcomes in Table 3, it is 

apparent that transfer was twice as great when PA 

training focused on one (d = 0.71) or two (d = 0.79) PA 

skills than when a multitude of skills were taught (d = 

0.27). The advantage of focused over multiple-skill 

training for reading persisted at the followup test, 

especially for the two-skill focus that produced 

significantly larger effects than the one-skill focus. This 

indicates that teaching two PA skills to children has 

greater long-term benefit for reading than teaching only 

one PA skill or teaching a global array of skills. 

As evident in Table 4, spelling effect sizes for focused 

and multiple skills instruction showed the same pattern. 

In fact, effects for the one-skill condition (d = 0.74) and 

the two-skill condition (d = 0.87) were over three times 

as large as the effect size for the multiple condition (d = 

0.23). These findings suggest that focused PA 

instruction may benefit spelling more than multiple skill 

instruction does. However, it is likely that the lower 

effect size in the multiple condition arose because 

disabled readers dominated this category and PA 

instruction did not improve their spelling (see below). 

Various types of phoneme manipulations might be 

taught. However, two types, blending and segmenting, 

are thought to be directly involved in reading and 

spelling processes. Blending phonemes helps children to 

decode unfamiliar words. Segmenting words into 

phonemes helps children to spell unfamiliar words and 

also to retain spellings in memory. A number of studies 

examined PA training that taught children to blend and 

segment phonemes. To assess its value, the Panel 

compared the effect size for this treatment to the effect 

size for the multiple (3 or more skills) treatment. As 

evident in Table 2 reporting PA outcomes, neither form 

was more effective than the other for teaching PA. 

However, as evident in Table 3 for reading outcomes, 

teaching students to blend and segment benefited their 

reading much more (d = 0.67) than did a multiple-skills 

approach (d = 27). As shown in Table 4, the blending 

and segmenting treatment also produced a larger effect 

on spelling performance (d = 0.79) than did the multiple 

skill treatment (d = 0.23), but very likely this resulted 

from disabled readers’ dominating the multiple 

treatment condition (see below). From these findings, 

the Panel concludes that blend-and-segment training 

benefited children’s reading more than multiple skills 

training did. 

Also of interest was whether some types of single 

phoneme manipulation activities, for example, blending, 

segmenting, or categorizing, were more effective than 

other types. However, in examining the database, there 

were too few instances of each type to permit 

comparison; so, this question was not addressed in the 

Panel’s analysis. 

Studies in the database differed in whether or not 

children were taught to manipulate phonemes using 

letters during training. For example, some children 

learned to segment words into phonemes by selecting 

plastic letters for the sounds they spoke, whereas other 

children only spoke the sounds or they represented the 

sounds with unmarked tokens. Of interest was whether 

letters might improve children’s learning because they 

provide concrete, lasting symbols for sounds that are 

short-lived and hard to grasp. From PA outcomes in 

Table 2, it is apparent that children trained with letters 

did not acquire stronger PA (d = 0.89) than children 

trained without letters (d = 0.82). The absence of a 

difference may have occurred, however, because 

almost all comparisons involving disabled readers fell in 

the letter use category, and disabled readers exhibited 

smaller effect sizes than nondisabled readers on PA 

outcomes (see Table 2). As described below, when 

effects of letter use were examined after disabled 

readers were removed from the database, a significant 

advantage of letter use was detected. From these 

findings, the Panel concludes that teaching PA with 

letters is more effective in helping nondisabled readers 

acquire phonemic awareness than teaching PA without 

letters. 

It was expected that teaching PA with letters would 

facilitate greater transfer to reading and spelling than 

teaching PA without letters. This is because reading 

and spelling processes require knowing how phonemes 

are linked to letters. From reading outcomes in Table 3, 

it can be seen that teaching children to manipulate 

phonemes with letters created effect sizes almost twice 

as large as teaching children without letters (d = 0.67 

2-21 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

vs. 0.38). The same pattern persisted at the followup 

test as well (d = 0.59 vs.0.36). Likewise, letters 

benefited spelling more than no letters, with the effect 

size almost twice as great (d = 0.61 vs. 0.34). These 

findings reveal that PA training makes a stronger 

contribution to reading and spelling performance when 

the training includes teaching children to manipulate 

phonemes with letters than when training is limited to 

speech. 

Studies varied in whether PA training was provided to 

individual students or small groups or classrooms of 

students. From PA outcomes in Table 2, it is evident 

that the most effective way to teach PA was in small 

groups. The effect size produced by small groups was 

very large (d = 1.38), over twice the size of effects for 

individuals (d = 0.60) and classrooms (d = 0.67). This 

was surprising given that it is easier to tailor instruction 

and corrective feedback when students are taught 

individually, and it was expected that this advantage 

would make individual instruction more effective. 

Explanations for the effectiveness of training in groups 

promoting the acquisition of PA may involve enhanced 

attention, social motivation to achieve, or observational 

learning opportunities. 

The superior PA skills acquired by children taught in 

small groups transferred and boosted their reading and 

spelling performance as well. Effect sizes on reading 

outcomes for small groups were d = 0.81 on the 

immediate posttest and d = 0.83 on the followup 

posttest. In contrast, effect sizes for children taught 

individually or in classrooms ranged from d = 0.30 to 

0.45 on the immediate and delayed posttests. On 

spelling outcomes, small group instruction produced a 

larger effect size than individual instruction did, but the 

small group effect size did not differ from the classroom 

effect size (see Table 4). 

The possibility that small group effect sizes might be 

inflated for statistical reasons was considered. Studies 

that treated groups as the unit of analysis in statistical 

comparisons may have exhibited larger effect sizes than 

studies using individuals as the unit of analysis because 

the standard deviations of group means are smaller than 

the standard deviations of individual scores. However, 

there were only five studies that used groups as the 

statistical unit of analysis, and these contributed only 

seven cases (15%) to the total of 45 cases in which 

children were trained in small groups. The small number 

of instances serves to rule out this explanation for the 

larger effect sizes associated with small group training. 

The length of time allocated for PA training varied from 

1 hour to 75 hours across studies. Cases were grouped 

into four time blocks to determine whether there was an 

optimum length of time for teaching PA. From 

phonemic awareness outcomes in Table 2, it is evident 

that effect sizes were significantly larger for the two 

middle time periods lasting from 5 to 9.3 hours (d = 

1.37) and from 10 to 18 hours (d = 1.14). Periods that 

were either shorter or longer than this were less 

effective for teaching PA, in fact, only half as effective 

(d = 0.61 and 0.65). 

On reading outcomes, training programs that were longlasting yielded a significantly smaller effect size than 

shorter training programs as shown in Table 3. Effect 

sizes for the three shorter time blocks did not differ. 

The same pattern was evident on spelling outcomes. 

These findings run counter to the expectation that more 

extensive training in PA should enable children to 

acquire superior phonemic awareness with stronger 

benefits for reading and spelling. These findings suggest 

that PA training does not need to be lengthy to exert its 

strongest effect on reading and spelling. However, 

caution is needed in drawing conclusions. There are 

various reasons why effect sizes might have been 

smaller when training was extensive. Perhaps the goals 

of instruction were more complex and harder to 

achieve. Or perhaps the students who received 

extended training were harder to teach. Alternatively, 

perhaps shorter instruction is better. The value of PA 

instruction may be to initiate insight into the alphabetic 

system. Adding further nuances or complexities may 

erode learning by producing confusion or boredom. In 

sum, the optimum length of PA training remains an 

issue needing further research. 

Classroom teachers are the primary purveyors of 

reading instruction so, it is important to verify that they 

can teach PA effectively. Results of the analysis of 

phonemic awareness outcomes (see Table 2) showed 

that the effect size produced by classroom teachers 

was large (d = 0.78) although not as large statistically 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-22 
 

Report 

as that produced by others, consisting mainly of 

researchers (d = 0.94). This is not surprising, given that 

researchers were the ones who devised the training 

procedures in all of the studies. 

PA training delivered by teachers transferred to reading 

and spelling. In the case of reading outcomes, the effect 

size associated with classroom teachers was 

significantly smaller (d = 0.41) than the effect size of 

researchers (d = 0.64). Of course, in these studies, 

neither teachers nor researchers intervened and helped 

children apply their PA skills in the reading transfer 

tasks. If transfer occurred, it was unassisted. This 

contrasts with normal classroom operations where 

teachers not only teach phonemic awareness but also 

teach children how to apply it in their reading and 

provide practice doing this. Under these circumstances, 

much more transfer to reading would be expected. 

In the case of spelling outcomes, Table 4 reveals that 

effect sizes associated with classroom teachers were 

significantly greater than effect sizes associated with 

researchers (d = 0.74 vs. 0.51). However, the 

researcher effect size may have been depressed by the 

disproportionate presence of disabled readers in this 

category. When disabled readers were removed from 

the database, the effect sizes did not differ (see below). 

There were only seven studies that used computers to 

teach PA. Ten treatment-control comparisons were 

derived from these studies. From PA outcomes in Table 

2, it is apparent that computers produced a moderately 

strong effect size on the acquisition of PA (d = 0.66) 

although it was significantly less than the effect size for 

other forms of instruction (d = 0.89). The phonemic 

awareness that children learned from computers 

transferred and improved their reading performance on 

the immediate posttest (d = 0.33), but computers did not 

improve reading as much as other forms of PA 

instruction (d = 0.55). In contrast to the effects on 

reading, computer instruction exerted no significant 

effect on spelling outcomes (d = 0.09). One reason is 

that most of the computer comparisons involved 

disabled readers whose spelling performance did not 

benefit from PA training. From these findings the Panel 

concludes that computers are effective for teaching PA 

and for promoting transfer to reading, but they may be 

ineffective for teaching spelling to disabled readers. 

Characteristics of Students

Some of the studies in the database targeted younger 

students at risk for future reading problems and older 

students classified as disabled readers. Both groups 

have been found to exhibit excessive difficulty 

manipulating phonemes in words (Bradley & Bryant, 

1983; Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Juel, 1988). PA 

training programs were designed to remediate these 

readers’ PA problems. Three types of readers were 

coded in the database: at-risk, disabled, and normally 

progressing readers. A comparison of phonemic 

awareness outcomes across the three groups revealed 

that although effect sizes were moderate to large in all 

cases, they were signficantly smaller for disabled 

readers (d = 0.62) than for at-risk (d = 0.95) and 

normally progressing readers (d = 0.93). This suggests 

that it was harder to improve PA in reading disabled 

students than in nondisabled students, perhaps because 

the disabled readers were older and relatively more 

advanced in PA skills with less room for gains than the 

younger beginning-level readers. Also it was the case 

that disabled readers were taught more advanced forms 

of PA (i.e., segmenting and blending with letters) than 

the younger students. At-risk readers were found to 

gain as much from PA training as normally developing 

readers. This indicates that having low PA when 

training began did not hinder at-risk readers in acquiring 

PA. 

One might expect this pattern to be replicated on 

reading outcomes. However, Table 3 reveals that at-risk 

children showed bigger transfer effects in their reading 

(d = 0.86) than normal and disabled students whose 

effect sizes were equivalent (d = 0.47 for normals and d 

= 0.45 for disabled). Effect sizes on followup reading 

tests showed the same pattern except that the effect 

size for at-risk students was even larger (d = 1.33), 

while the effect sizes of the other two groups were 

smaller (d = 0.30 for normals and 0.28 for disabled). 

These findings indicate that PA training gives at-risk 

students a bigger boost in reading than it gives normals 

or disabled readers. 

The effect of PA training on spelling outcomes differed 

among the three reader groups. Effect sizes were large 

and similar for at-risk (d = 0.76) and normal readers (d 

= 0.88). However, as indicated above, the effect size 

was much smaller, in fact, not significantly different 

from zero for disabled readers (d = 0.15). These 

2-23 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

findings show that PA training is not effective for 

improving disabled readers’ spelling skills, perhaps 

because their spelling skills are much harder to 

remediate than their reading skills. In contrast, PA 

training was found to transfer to spelling in at-risk and 

normally progressing readers, indicating that PA training 

does benefit spelling in nondisabled readers. 

The Panel also examined the effects of PA training at 

various grade levels: preschool, kindergarten, 1st grade, 

and 2nd through 6th grades. From PA outcomes in 

Table 2, it is evident that preschoolers showed a very 

large effect size in acquiring PA (d = 2.37). However, 

only two cases contributed to this value, making it less 

reliable. The effect on PA outcomes in kindergarten (d 

= 0.95) was significantly larger than the effect in 1st 

grade (d = 0.48) and in 2nd through 6th grades (d = 

0.70). The latter two effect sizes did not differ. These 

findings indicate that younger students gained the most 

PA, not surprisingly since they started out with the least 

PA. 

Effect sizes for reading outcomes in Table 3 reveal that 

PA training transferred to reading to a similar extent for 

kindergartners, 1st graders, and 2nd through 6th graders 

(ds from 0.48 to 0.49). The effect size for preschoolers 

was much larger (d = 1.25). The same pattern was not 

apparent on spelling outcomes, as evident in Table 4. 

Transfer of PA training to spelling was greater among 

kindergartners (d = 0.97) than among 1st graders (d = 

0.52). There was no transfer to spelling among the 2nd 

through 6th graders for whom the effect size did not 

differ from zero (d = 0.14). (Spelling was not measured 

in the preschool studies.) The absence of an effect on 

spelling among the older children arose primarily 

because the majority of the cases in 2nd through 6th 

grades (78%) consisted of disabled readers who failed 

to show transfer effects from PA training to spelling 

(see below). 

The Panel examined the relationship between the 

socioeconomic status of students across studies and the 

size of effects produced by PA training. As evident for 

PA outcomes in Table 2, low and mid-to-high SES 

levels did not differ, and both levels showed large effect 

sizes in acquiring PA. However, transfer to reading and 

spelling was significantly greater among among mid-tohigh SES than among low SES students (see Tables 3 

and 4). It might be noted that most studies of disabled 

readers did not report the students’ SES; so, disabled 

reader effect sizes did not contribute to SES effect size 

calculations. 

The NRP database included many studies conducted in 

English-speaking countries as well as a smaller number 

of studies conducted in countries speaking languages 

other than English. A comparison of effect sizes 

revealed that PA training exerted a larger impact on the 

acquisition of PA by English-speaking students (d = 

0.99) than by the non-English students (d = 0.65). 

Transfer to reading outcomes was also greater for 

English students (d = 0.63) than for others (d = 0.36) on 

the immediate test but not the followup test. However, 

there were no differences in effects sizes on spelling 

outcomes. 

A possible reason for the absence of effects on spelling 

is that most of the studies involving disabled readers 

were in the pool of English studies. This may have 

suppressed the English effect size in spelling. To check 

on this, effect sizes were recalculated with the readingdisabled (RD) comparisons removed (see below). 

Results confirmed suspicion; they changed from no 

effect on spelling to a significant effect favoring English 

(d = 0.95) over non-English (d = 0.51). 

One intriguing reason for the larger effect sizes in 

English may be that the English writing system is not as 

transparent in representing phonemes as it is in the 

other languages; so, explicit training may make a bigger 

contribution to clarifying phoneme units and how they 

link to graphemes in words for English-speaking 

students. 

Analysis of Moderator Effects With Disabled

Readers Removed From the Database

In the analysis of effects associated with the three 

types of readers, effect sizes were significantly smaller 

for disabled readers than for at-risk and normal readers 

on two outcomes, phonemic awareness and spelling. In 

fact, on the spelling outcome, no significant effect of 

PA training was detected for disabled readers. 

Moreover, the pool of spelling effect sizes for disabled 

readers was homogeneous, indicating that no further 

analysis of moderator variables was needed to locate 

cause and allowing us to conclude that PA training does 

not improve spelling in disabled readers. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-24 
Report 

In the NRP database, there were 17 comparisons 

involving disabled readers (18% of the total 

comparisons). The Panel worried that conclusions about 

how moderator variables regulate the impact of PA 

training on phonemic awareness and spelling outcomes 

might be different if cases involving disabled readers 

were removed from the database. As discussed above, 

in our analysis of English and non-English studies, 

findings changed for spelling outcomes with reading 

disabled cases eliminated. This was because the 

distribution of disabled reader cases was uneven, with 

most cases falling in the English pool of effect sizes. 

There were other moderator variables with an uneven 

distribution of disabled readers across levels as well. 

Disabled readers were older (mostly in grades 2 

through 6), they tended to receive PA instruction 

involving multiple skills taught with letters, the 

instruction was individualized, it tended to be lengthy 

(over 19 hours), and researchers or computers rather 

than teachers were most often the trainers. 

To examine whether findings involving these 

moderators would be different without disabled readers, 

effect sizes were re-analyzed after removing disabled 

reader comparisons from the database. The following 

specific moderator variables were re-analyzed: PA 

skills taught, use of letters, grade, language, training unit, 

teachers vs. others as trainers, and length of training. 

Computer effects were not re-analyzed because there 

were too few cases. 

Findings involving spelling outcomes were altered for 

several moderators when disabled readers were 

removed. Findings involving PA outcomes were altered 

for one moderator. However, findings were not altered 

at all in the analyses of reading outcomes. Results are 

given in Table 5 (Appendix D). 

Comparison of the number of cases contributing effect 

sizes to spelling outcomes with and without disabled 

readers (Tables 4 vs. Table 5) reveals that the numbers 

dropped substantially in the following categories: three 

or more PA skills taught (drop from ten to three cases), 

letters manipulated (from 27 to 17 cases), individual 

instruction (from 14 to 8 cases), small group instruction 

(from 20 to 15 cases), training lasting 20 to 75 hours 

(from 18 to 9 cases), researcher as trainer (from 30 to 

20 cases), 2nd through 6th graders (from 8 to 0 cases), 

English language (from 32 to 22 cases). The same 

comparison for PA outcomes (Table 2 vs. Table 5) 

reveals that in the category of letters manipulated, the 

number dropped from 39 to 25 cases. Declines in the 

other categories listed in Table 5 were minimal. This 

verifies that disabled readers were unevenly distributed 

across levels of these moderators. The SES variable 

was not affected and hence not re-analyzed because 

most studies involving disabled readers did not report 

the SES level of the readers. 

In all but one analysis of spelling outcomes, the pattern 

of effect sizes changed when disabled readers were 

removed from the database. PA teaching that focused 

on one or two skills was no longer superior to multiple 

PA skill teaching. (However, note in Table 5 that there 

were only three cases left in the multiple skills category, 

raising doubt about the reliability of this effect size.) 

Small group instruction no longer produced better 

transfer to spelling than individual instruction. Training 

periods lasting 20 or more hours were no longer less 

effective than shorter training periods. Classroom 

teachers no longer differed from researchers in 

facilitating transfer to spelling. In the analysis of spelling 

outcomes across grades, the 2nd through 6th grade 

category had no comparisons to contribute effect sizes. 

The loss of cases in the upper grades shows that 

disabled readers clearly dominated effect sizes in this 

category. The greater effect of PA training on spelling 

among kindergartners than 1st graders remained the 

same. 

There were two moderators that did not differentially 

influence spelling or PA outcomes when the whole 

database was analyzed; but when disabled reader 

effects were removed, significant differences appeared. 

As evident in Table 5, language now impacted spelling 

effect sizes, with English-speaking students benefiting 

more from PA training than non-English-speaking 

students. Also, letter use now impacted phonemic 

awareness effect sizes such that children who 

manipulated letters acquired more PA than children 

who did not. Removal of disabled readers rendered 

findings for these moderators consistent across all three 

outcomes. That is, language exerted the same impact 

on PA, reading, and spelling outcomes, with English 

producing larger effects than non-English. Also letter 

use exerted the same impact on PA, reading and 

spelling, with letter manipulation producing larger 

effects than no letters. 

2-25 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

In sum, these findings support the following conclusions. 

PA training does not improve spelling in disabled 

readers, but it does improve spelling in normally 

developing readers below 2nd grade and children at risk 

for future reading problems. Among nondisabled 

readers, the benefit to spelling is positive and does not 

depend on whether one or two or multiple PA skills are 

taught, whether instruction is delivered to individuals or 

to small groups, how long training lasts, or whether 

teachers or researchers are the trainers. However, the 

benefit to spelling among nondisabled readers does 

depend upon the language, with PA training in English 

exerting a bigger impact on spelling than PA training in 

other languages. 

Regarding the acquisition of phonemic awareness by 

nondisabled readers, our findings support the conclusion 

that PA training is more effective when it is taught by 

having children manipulate letters than when 

manipulation is limited to speech. 

It is important to note that the pattern of effect sizes on 

reading outcomes remained unchanged when 

comparisons involving reading disabled students were 

removed. Specifically, teaching one or two PA skills still 

resulted in larger effect sizes on reading than teaching a 

multitude of PAskills. Small groups still produced 

superior transfer to reading than individual instruction. 

Lengthy training periods still yielded smaller effects on 

reading than shorter training periods. These findings 

serve to sustain our conclusions about the influence of 

moderators on reading outcomes. 

Design Features

Studies in the database varied in methodological rigor. 

The Panel examined some of these properties to see 

whether design weaknesses inflated effect sizes. 

Studies varied in whether or not subjects were 

randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. In 

some cases, nonrandom, nonequivalent groups were 

assigned to treatment and control conditions. In some 

cases, group assignment involved matching individual 

children on the basis of similar test scores. Effect sizes 

for the three assignment types were determined (see 

Tables 2, 3, and 4 in Appendix C). Comparison of PA 

outcomes revealed very similar effect sizes that did not 

differ statistically and ranged from 0.83 to 0.92. 

Comparison of reading outcomes revealed that the 

effect size for randomly assigned groups (d = 0.63) was 

significantly greater than the effect size for 

nonequivalent groups (d = 0.40). However, the opposite 

was found on spelling outcomes, with nonequivalent 

groups showing a significantly larger effect size (d = 

0.86) than random groups (d = 0.37). These findings 

show that larger effect sizes in our database did not 

consistently arise from weaker designs involving 

nonequivalent groups. Moreover, average effect sizes 

for the most rigorous assignment procedure, random 

assignment, ranged from low-moderate to large. 

Some researchers in the database administered fidelity 

checks to ensure that trainers adhered to prescribed 

training procedures, whereas other researchers did not, 

or at least did not report, doing this. A comparison 

revealed that significantly larger effect sizes arose in 

studies not checking for fidelity than in studies checking 

for fidelity. This was true across all three outcome 

measures (see Tables 2, 3, and 4 in Appendix C). 

Although weaker studies involving lack of fidelity 

checking were associated with larger effects, fidelity 

studies nevertheless yielded significant effects that 

were moderate in size. This verifies that lack of rigor in 

fidelity checking does not explain effect sizes in the 

NRP database. 

Bus and van Ijzendoorn (1999) reported an unexpected 

finding in their PA meta-analysis, that studies using 

treated control groups yielded larger effect sizes than 

studies using untreated control groups. This finding was 

examined in the present meta-analysis. Results were 

mixed. On PA outcomes, the two types of control 

groups did not yield significantly different effect sizes. 

On reading outcomes, they did, with studies using 

treated controls showing larger effects than those using 

untreated controls, consistent with Bus and van 

Ijzendoorn’s finding. On spelling outcomes, studies with 

untreated controls showed larger effects than studies 

with treated controls, the reverse pattern. 

The foregoing results emerged from an analysis of all 

the studies. However, these studies varied in many 

respects besides the type of control group they used. In 

the NRP database, there were eight studies that 

compared PA training to both a treated control group 

and an untreated control group. In limiting the analysis 

to these studies, the Panel found that, out of 20 

comparisons, ten showed bigger effects in cases using 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-26 
Report 

treated controls and ten showed bigger effects in cases 

using untreated controls across the three outcome 

measures. Thus, the picture arising from this analysis 

was mixed. 

Although the findings reveal no clear pattern favoring 

treated or untreated control groups, the fact that studies 

using untreated controls did not uniformly yield larger 

effect sizes serves to challenge the commonly held 

belief that untreated control groups always yield larger 

effects. It is not the case that Hawthorne effects 

always prevail. Other factors appear to influence 

outcomes as well. Perhaps Hawthorne effects are 

more characteristic of older participants with better 

developed metacognitive sensitivities. 

Among studies in the NRP database, samples included 

as few as nine students or as many as 383 students. To 

examine whether effects differed as a function of 

sample size, the studies were divided into blocks of 

approximately equal numbers of cases. Outcomes 

reported in Tables 2 to 4 reveal that larger effect sizes 

tended to occur in the smaller samples, whereas the 

smallest effect sizes occurred in the largest samples. 

This is consistent with meta-analytic findings in general 

(Johnson & Eagley, in press). The fact that effect sizes 

were significantly greater than zero even in the largest 

samples shows that the PA training effects observed 

did not arise primarily from the weaker studies with 

small samples. 

Recently Troia (1999) published a critique of phonemic 

awareness training studies. He identified several criteria 

to assess methodological rigor and applied these criteria 

to 39 PA training studies of which 29 were in the NRP 

database. (The remaining studies did not assess reading 

as an outcome so were not among the studies 

considered.) The Panel incorporated his summary 

ratings into the NRP database and examined the 

relationship between these evaluations and effect sizes. 

Troia devised two measures and applied them to 

evaluate the internal validity separately from the 

external validity of studies: the percentage of criteria 

met and the number of critical flaws. Also he ranked 

the studies to indicate their overall methodological rigor. 

The Panel’s purpose was to consider and rule out the 

possibility that effects of PA training were limited 

primarily to studies that were the least rigorous. 

Comparisons were grouped into blocks of three or four 

in order to reveal effect sizes at the various levels of 

rigor. 

The findings are reported in Appendix E—Table 6 for 

PA outcomes and Table 7 for reading outcomes. Both 

tables reveal that effect sizes were significantly greater 

than zero across all blocks on all five measures. This 

shows that significant effect sizes were not limited to 

the weakest studies. 

In Table 6, reporting effects of PA training on PA 

outcomes, it is apparent that across all five measures 

the largest effect sizes occurred for the blocks 

reflecting the most rigor. This shows that the best 

designed studies produced the largest effect sizes on 

the acquisition of PA. 

In Table 7, reporting effect sizes for reading outcomes, 

the same pattern is evident but is not quite as strong. 

The effect size associated with the most rigorous level 

is close to the strongest, if not the strongest, effect size 

on four of the five measures: the two internal validity 

measures, the external validity critical flaws measure, 

and the overall rigor ranking. On the remaining 

measure, percent of external validity criteria met, the 

effect size is moderately strong though less so than the 

largest effect size. This evidence indicates that the 

better designed studies tended to produce stronger 

transfer effects in reading than the weaker studies. 

In sum, although Troia (1999) finds fault with PA 

training studies, his findings do not undermine claims 

about the effectiveness of PA training for helping 

children learn to read. Troia’s concluding plea, that 

researchers maintain high standards in designing their 

studies, is supported by Panel findings that show that 

researchers stand a better chance of obtaining sizeable 

effects when they design strong studies than when they 

design weak studies threatened by violations to internal 

and external validity. 

One final characteristic of studies examined was the 

year of publication. From Tables 2 and 3, it is apparent 

that there was one period in which a spate of PA 

training studies was published, from 1991 to 1994. Over 

twice as many studies were published during this period 

2-27 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

as during the other periods. The 1991 to 1994 studies 

also tended to yield larger effect sizes on PA and 

reading outcomes than studies in time periods before or 

after this. Why this occurred is not clear. 

Discussion 

Summary of Findings 

To summarize results of the meta-analyses, the Panel 

examined 96 cases, each comparing a treatment group 

that received PA training, to a control group that 

received an alternative form of instruction or no special 

instruction; they examined effects on three main 

outcome variables, PA, reading, and spelling. 

PA training was found to be very effective in teaching 

phonemic awareness to students. Effect sizes were 

large immediately after training (d = 0.86), and they 

remained strong over the long term (d = 0.73). PA 

training succeeded in teaching children various ways to 

manipulate phonemes, including segmentation, blending, 

and deletion. PA training was effective in teaching PA 

skills across all levels of the moderator variables 

examined. 

PA training improved children’s ability to read and spell 

in both the short and the long term. The effect size was 

moderate following training on reading (d = 0.53) and 

on spelling (d = 0.59). Tests of word reading, 

pseudoword reading, and reading comprehension all 

yielded statistically significant effect sizes on both 

experimenter-devised tests as well as standardized 

tests. Few instances occurred in which moderator 

variables reduced effect sizes to chance levels, and 

these were limited to spelling outcomes. Whereas PA 

training exerted strong effects on reading and spelling, it 

did not impact children’s performance on math tests. 

This indicates that halo/Hawthorne effects did not 

explain findings and that training effects were limited to 

the targeted domain. 

Several moderator variables were found to influence 

children’s acquisition of phonemic awareness. PA 

training programs varied in whether children were 

taught to manipulate phonemes in one, two, or multiple 

ways, and in the type of phoneme manipulations taught, 

segmenting, blending, deleting, identifying, or 

categorizing phonemes, or manipulating onsets and 

rimes. Properties of the training procedures exerted an 

impact. Programs that focused on teaching one or two 

PA skills yielded larger effects on PA learning than 

programs teaching three or more of these 

manipulations. Instruction that taught phoneme 

manipulation with letters helped children acquire PA 

skills better than instruction without letters. Facilitation 

from letters was observed among at-risk readers and 

normally developing readers below 2nd grade. It was 

not possible to assess the contribution of letters among 

disabled readers because most studies used letters to 

teach PA to disabled readers. 

Teaching children in small groups produced larger 

effect sizes on PA acquisition than teaching children 

individually or in classroom-size groups. Classroom 

teachers produced large effect sizes, indicating that 

they were very successful in teaching PA to students, 

although researchers produced somewhat larger 

effects. Computers also taught PA effectively. The 

length of training influenced PA acquisition. Effect sizes 

were larger when PA instruction lasted from 5 to 18 

hours than when either less or more time than this was 

spent. 

Characteristics of students influenced how much 

phonemic awareness they acquired from training. 

Disabled readers showed smaller effect sizes than atrisk students or normally progressing readers, indicating 

that PA was harder for disabled readers to learn. Also 

students in the lower grades, namely preschool and 

kindergarten, showed larger effect sizes in acquiring PA 

than children in 1st grade and above. SES exerted no 

differential impact on learning PA. However, the 

language spoken by the children did. English-speaking 

children showed larger effects of training on PA 

acquisition than children learning in other languages. 

These moderator variables also influenced how much 

transfer to reading and spelling resulted from PA 

training. The type of test used to measure reading and 

spelling influenced effect sizes that were larger on 

experimenter-devised tests than on standardized tests 

measuring real word reading and spelling. Effect sizes 

did not differ on experimenter-devised and standardized 

pseudoword reading tests. 

Properties of training procedures influenced the extent 

of transfer to reading. Teaching that focused on one or 

two types of PA manipulations yielded larger effect 

sizes than teaching three or more PA skills. Teaching 

children to manipulate phonemes using letters produced 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-28 
Report 

bigger effects than teaching without letters. Blending 

and segmenting instruction showed a much larger effect 

size on reading than multiple-skill instruction did. Small 

group instruction produced larger effect sizes on 

reading than individualized instruction or classroom 

instruction. Length of training exerted an influence as 

well, with the lengthiest training associated with the 

smallest effect size. Classroom teachers provided PA 

training that was effective in promoting transfer to 

reading although the effect size of teachers was smaller 

than the effect size of other trainers. PA training on 

computers transferred to reading as well. 

Characteristics of learners influenced the extent that 

PA training transferred to reading. Effect sizes on 

reading were large for at-risk readers while they were 

moderate for disabled and normally developing readers. 

Preschoolers exhibited a much larger effect size on 

reading than did the other grade levels whose effect 

sizes did not differ. SES made a difference, with mid-tohigh SES associated with larger effects than low SES. 

Also larger effect sizes were evident in reading for 

English-speaking children than for children speaking 

other languages. 

Analysis of moderator variables as they affected 

spelling outcomes was complicated by the fact that PA 

training did not help disabled readers improve in spelling 

and the pool of spelling effect sizes for disabled readers 

was homogeneous, indicating that further analyses using 

moderators was not necessary to explain the result. The 

effects of moderators were re-analyzed with disabled 

readers removed from the database. Conclusions 

regarding the effects of moderator variables on spelling 

outcomes thus centered on the nondisabled readers. 

The only characteristic of PA training that influenced 

spelling outcomes for nondisabled readers was the use 

of letters. Children who were taught to manipulate 

phonemes with letters benefited more in their spelling 

than children whose manipulations were limited to 

speech. Whether instruction focused on one or two 

skills or on multiple skills did not influence spelling in 

nondisabled readers. Instruction delivered to individuals 

was as effective as instruction delivered to small 

groups, and both were more effective than classroomsize groups. The length of training exerted no 

differential impact on spelling outcomes. Whether the 

trainer was a teacher or a researcher made no 

difference. Characteristics of learners did make a 

difference. Kindergartners benefited more in their 

spelling than did 1st graders. Students classed as midto-high SES showed a larger effect size in spelling than 

low SES students. PA training in English produced a 

larger effect on spelling than PA training in other 

languages. 

Features of the design of experiments were related to 

effect sizes. Findings indicated that rigorous designs 

yielded strong effects. The majority of the studies used 

random assignment, and their effect sizes on PA and 

reading outcomes ranged from moderate to large. 

About one-third of the studies checked on whether 

trainers remained faithful to treatment procedures. 

Effect sizes in these studies were significant and 

moderate in size. Some studies compared PA treatment 

groups to control groups that were given some other 

treatment while other studies used untreated control 

groups. Neither type of control group consistently 

produced larger effect sizes. Failure to find larger 

effects for untreated than for treated control groups 

indicates that Hawthorne effects did not inflate effect 

sizes. Studies using smaller samples of children tended 

to have larger effect sizes than studies using larger 

samples, a finding consistent with other meta-analyses. 

However, even in the largest samples, effect sizes were 

positive and significant. 

The Panel also assessed the relationship between 

methodological rigor and effect size by applying Troia’s 

(1999) criteria to the NRP studies. On PA outcomes, 

the best designed studies produced the largest effect 

sizes on all five measures of rigor. On reading 

outcomes, effect sizes associated with the most 

rigorous level were close to the largest, if not the 

largest, effect sizes on four out of five measures: two 

internal validity measures, one external validity 

measure, and the overall ranking of rigor. This indicates 

that the better designed studies produced larger transfer 

effects in reading than the weaker studies. In sum, 

findings show that larger effect sizes did not arise 

mainly from weaker studies that were flawed by threats 

to internal and external validity. 

Interpretations and Issues 

Results of the experimental studies allow the Panel to 

infer that PA training was the cause of improvement in 

students’ phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling 

performance following training. These findings were 

2-29 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

replicated multiple times across experiments and thus 

provide solid support for causal claims. However, 

results of the analysis of moderator variables rest on 

more tentative ground. Assessing features of the 

studies that were associated with stronger or weaker 

effect sizes is at root a correlational endeavor and thus 

precludes strong inferences about cause. The primary 

difficulty is that a third unknown factor may lie in the 

background explaining the relationships observed. 

Although findings are suggestive, any conclusions must 

remain tentative because multiple explanations are 

possible. In this section, potential misinterpretations of 

the findings and issues needing further attention from 

researchers are considered. 

The studies in the NRP database included investigations 

of children at risk for future reading problems as well as 

children low in SES. However, contrary to the common 

view that the criteria for identifying at-risk readers 

includes being economically disadvantaged, authors of 

the studies investigating at-risk readers did not 

uniformly require them to be low in SES. In fact, of the 

cases investigating at-risk readers, only 27% were low 

in SES while 37% were middle-to-high SES, and the 

SES of the remainder was not specified. At risk was 

defined by low phonemic awareness in 77% of the 

cases. In defense of these studies, research findings 

show that one of the two best predictors of reading 

success is phonemic awareness (Share et al., 1984), so 

selecting at-risk readers by measuring their PA makes 

sense. However, because the training targeted this skill, 

large effect sizes may be less surprising. 

The fact that studies in the NRP database departed 

from the common conception of what it means to be at 

risk serves to reconcile discrepancies between results 

for at-risk readers and results for low SES readers. The 

Panel found that at-risk children showed large effect 

sizes in acquiring PA (d = 0.95) and in transferring 

these skills to reading (d = 0.86) and spelling (d = 0.76). 

Low SES children also showed large effect sizes in 

phonemic awareness (d = 1.07) and spelling (d = 0.76), 

but only a moderate effect size in reading (d = 0.45). 

Smaller effect sizes in reading among low SES children 

than among at-risk children is explained by the fact that 

the majority of the at-risk children were not low in SES. 

Based on these findings, one would expect at-risk 

children who are both low PA and low SES to exhibit 

large gains in PA and spelling as a result of PA training 

but to exhibit moderate gains in reading. 

It is noteworthy that low SES children were found to 

benefit as much from PA training as middle-to-high SES 

children in acquiring phonemic awareness. This runs 

counter to Dressman (1999) who argues that low SES 

children will exhibit low PA in research studies because 

their phonological systems differ from that of testers 

and because they suffer from inhibition when tested by 

sociolinguistically foreign researchers. Dressman bases 

his expectations on studies showing that low SES 

children perform more poorly on PA tests than middleclass children. He ignores evidence examining how 

much low SES children gain in PA when they receive 

training. According to the NRP findings, low SES 

children can benefit as much from training as middle-tohigh SES children, despite being phonologically or 

culturally different from the trainers. 

One very striking finding was that in contrast to at-risk 

and normally developing readers, disabled readers’ 

spelling did not benefit at all from PA training. Various 

reasons for this can be entertained. Other studies have 

found that disabled readers have special difficulty 

learning to spell (Bruck, 1993). Perhaps processing 

difficulties associated with being reading disabled make 

spelling especially hard to learn. Alternatively, perhaps 

PA training fails to help older disabled readers with their 

spelling because the types of words that are spelled in 

higher grades require knowledge of spelling patterns 

rather than phonemic segmentation and knowledge of 

individual letter-sound correspondences. Effects of PA 

training on spelling may be limited to less complex 

words that are more phonemically transparent, those 

taught to beginning readers. 

According to NRP findings, children who received 

training that focused on one or two PA skills exhibited 

stronger PA and stronger transfer to reading than 

children who were taught three or more PA skills. 

Various explanations might account for the difference. 

Perhaps focused instruction resulted in more students 

mastering the skills that were taught. Perhaps teaching 

multiple skills created some confusion about which 

manipulations to apply in the reading transfer tasks, or 

perhaps it obscured children’s grasp of the alphabetic 

principle. Clarifying why multiple skills instruction might 

limit children’s gains in PA and reading needs further 

study. However, the findings suggest that when multiple 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-30 
Report 

PA skills are the objective, it is prudent to teach one at 

a time until each is mastered before moving on to the 

next, and to teach students how each skill applies in 

reading or spelling tasks. 

More important than the number of PA skills to teach is 

the question of which skills should be taught to children. 

In all of the studies, children were given PA instruction 

that was considered appropriate for their level of 

literacy development. The manipulations taught to 

preschoolers were quite different from the 

manipulations taught to older students. Easier PA tasks 

were taught to younger children or to less mature 

readers while harder PA tasks were taught to older 

readers. Factors making PA tasks easy or difficult 

include the type of manipulation applied to phonemes, 

the number and phonological properties of phonemes in 

the words manipulated, whether the words are real or 

nonwords, and whether letters are included. To 

illustrate, the following tasks are ordered from easy (1) 

to difficult (6) based on findings of Schatschneider, 

Francis, Foorman, Fletcher, and Mehta (1999): 

1.	 First-sound comparison—identifying the names of 

pictures beginning with the same sound 

2.	 Blending onset-rime units into real words 

3.	 Blending phonemes into real words 

4.	 Deleting a phoneme and saying the word that 

remains 

5.	 Segmenting words into phonemes 

6.	 Blending phonemes into nonwords. 

In the illustrative studies described below, tasks that are 

appropriate to teach at different grade and reader levels 

can be seen. The final decision about which PA 

manipulations to teach should take account of several 

factors, not only task difficulty, but also whether or not 

students can already perform the manipulations being 

taught as determined by pretests, and the use that 

students are expected to make of the PA skill being 

taught. The reason to teach first-sound comparisons is 

to draw preschoolers’ or kindergartners’ attention to the 

fact that words have sounds as well as meanings. A 

reason to teach phoneme segmentation is to help 

kindergartners or 1st graders generate more complete 

spellings of words. The reason to teach phoneme 

blending is to help 1st graders decode words. 

One surprising finding in the analysis involved the 

relationship between training time and outcomes. Effect 

sizes were larger when PA instruction lasted between 5 

and 18 hours than when either less or more time was 

spent training students. However, caution is needed in 

interpreting this finding because multiple explanations 

are possible. Perhaps the goals of instruction were 

more complex in longer programs. Perhaps the students 

receiving instruction were harder to teach. Perhaps 

spending many hours in PA training deprived students 

of the reading instruction benefiting control groups. 

Perhaps PA instruction is valuable mainly in helping 

children achieve basic alphabetic insight. Going beyond 

this by adding further nuances or complexities may 

erode learning by producing confusion or boredom. 

These are only some of the possible reasons why longer 

training sessions might have produced smaller effect 

sizes. Questions regarding the optimum length of PA 

training and factors determining optimum length invite 

further research. However, two conclusions seem selfevident: that length of training should be regulated by 

how long it takes students to acquire the PA skills that 

are taught and that the NRP findings should not be 

translated into any prescriptions regarding how long 

teachers should spend teaching PA. 

One important moderator variable that was not 

considered in the analysis is dialect because none of the 

studies paid attention to this variable. However, regional 

differences at the phonemic level of language are likely 

to be important. For example, vowel phoneme 

categories are not the same across the United States. 

Some dialects make more phonemic distinctions among 

vowels than other dialects. Vowels in the three words, 

marry, Mary, and merry are pronounced identically in 

some areas of the West but differently in some areas of 

the East. As a result, no generalizations about these 

vowel phonemes will suit everyone receiving PA 

instruction. Another dialectal difference involves 

preserving or deleting the final consonants in words, for 

example, past-tense markers such as the /t/ in looked. 

More research on the impact of dialectal variations on 

PA learning is needed. The fact that regional phonemic 

variations exist means that teachers implementing PA 

training programs need to be aware of their students’ 

dialects and whether they deviate from the phonological 

systems that are assumed in the programs. Ignoring 

deviations is likely to undermine the credibility of the 

instruction. 

2-31	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Another variable related to students’ phonological 

systems but neglected in the analysis is whether English 

is the first or second language of students. The problem 

here is that phonemes in English may not be phonemes 

in ESL students’ first language. To understand this 

requires distinguishing between phonemes and phones. 

Phonemes are the smallest units in speech that signal a 

difference in meaning to a listener who knows the 

language. Phones are also the smallest units in speech 

but are described by acoustic and articulatory 

properties. To perceive phonemes, speakers use 

categories that were constructed in their minds when 

they learned their particular language. In contrast, 

phones are defined by their physical properties. 

Phonemes are broader categories that may include 

several phones, called allophones, differing in their 

articulatory features. Even though the allophones differ, 

speaker/listeners process them as the same phoneme. 

For example, the initial sounds in chop and shop are 

articulated differently, so they are two different phones. 

To an English speaker, they are also different 

phonemes, because substituting one for the other signals 

a different word. However, to a speaker of Spanish, the 

two different phones are the same phoneme. The 

change in articulation does not signal a different word in 

Spanish. The speaker either fails to notice the 

difference or perceives it as a slightly different way of 

pronouncing the same word. Another example is that 

Chinese and Japanese speakers process /l/ and /r/ as 

the same phoneme in English words. 

The distinction between phonemes and phones may 

seem trivial, but it is not. If teachers have students who 

are learning English as a second language, they need to 

realize that their students are almost bound to 

misperceive some English phonemes because their 

linguistic minds are programmed to categorize 

phonemes in their first language, and this system may 

conflict with the phoneme categorization system in 

English. Their confusions will be most apparent when 

they select letters to spell unfamiliar words. If they 

know Spanish, they may select CH when they should 

use SH. If they know Japanese or Chinese, they may 

confuse L and R. When teachers teach PA, they need 

to be sensitive to these sources of difficulty faced by 

their ESL students. 

The Role of PA in Reading Acquisition 

Processes 

Findings of the meta-analyses show that PA training 

benefits the processes involved in reading real words, 

pseudowords, and text reading. It also benefits spelling 

skills in normally progressing readers below 2nd grade 

and in beginners at risk for developing reading 

problems. There are several reasons why PA training is 

thought to help children learn to read and spell. 

The English writing system is alphabetic. Breaking the 

code entails figuring out how graphemes represent 

phonemes. These relationships, though systematic, are 

variable across word spellings. The same letters may 

symbolize more than one phoneme, and single 

phonemes may be represented by alternative 

graphemes. The vowels are especially variable. This 

lack of transparency makes it harder for beginners to 

figure out the system without help. 

Speech is seamless and has no breaks signaling where 

one phoneme ends and the next begins. Also, phonemes 

overlap and are coarticulated, which further obscures 

their separate identities. Another barrier to developing 

PA is that speakers focus their attention on the 

meanings of utterances, not on sounds. Unless they are 

trying to learn an alphabetic code, there is no reason to 

notice and ponder the phonemic level of language. 

These facts explain why beginners have difficulty 

acquiring PA and why they benefit from explicit 

instruction in PA. 

An essential part of the reading process involves 

learning to read words in various ways (Ehri, 1991, 

1994). Because phonemes in words correspond to 

graphemes in the English writing system, all of these 

ways of reading words are easier to acquire when 

beginners possess PA. Phoneme identity is needed to 

attach phonemes to letters for reading and spelling 

words. The skill of blending is needed to decode 

unfamiliar words. Being able to segment and blend 

onsets and rimes in words helps children read unfamiliar 

words by analogy to known words. Phonemic 

segmentation helps children remember how to read and 

spell words because it helps them distinguish the 

phonemes that are bonded to graphemes when a word’s 

written form is retained in memory. When unfamiliar 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-32 
 

Report 

words are read in text, students may apply decoding 

skills, or they may combine grapheme-phoneme cues 

with meaning cues to derive the word (Tunmer & 

Chapman, 1998). 

It is important to note that acquiring phonemic 

awareness is a means rather than an end. PA is not 

acquired for its own sake but rather for its value in 

helping children understand and use the alphabetic 

system to read and write. This is why including letters 

in the process of teaching children to manipulate 

phonemes is important. PA training with letters helps 

learners determine how phonemes match up to 

graphemes within words and thus facilitates transfer to 

reading and spelling. 

It is important to recognize that children will acquire 

some phonemic awareness in the course of learning to 

read and spell even though they are not taught PA 

explicitly. The process of learning letter-sound relations 

and how to use them to read and spell enhances 

children’s ability to manipulate phonemes. This is 

indicated by evidence that people who do not learn to 

read in an alphabetic system do not develop PA (Mann, 

1987; Morais et al., 1987; Read et al., 1987). It is also 

indicated by the fact that, in many of the studies 

reviewed, control groups showed improvement in 

phonemic awareness from pretests to posttests, very 

likely because of the reading and writing instruction 

they received in their regular classrooms. However, the 

extent of PA needed to contribute maximally to 

children’s reading development does not arise from 

incidental learning or instruction that is not focused on 

this objective. This is indicated by the finding that 

children receiving explicit training in PA gained much 

more PA and reading skill than children in the control 

groups. 

It is important to recognize that children will differ in 

their phonemic awareness and that some will need 

more instruction than others. In kindergarten, most 

children will be nonreaders and will have little phonemic 

awareness; therefore, PA instruction should benefit 

everyone. In 1st grade, some children will be reading 

and spelling while others may know only a few letters 

and have no reading skill. The nonreaders will need 

much more PA and letter instruction than those already 

reading. Among readers in 1st and 2nd grades, there 

may be variation in how well children can perform more 

advanced forms of PA, that is, manipulations involving 

segmenting and blending with letters. The best 

approach is for teachers to assess students’ PA prior to 

beginning PA instruction. This will indicate which 

children need the instruction and which do not; which 

children need to be taught rudimentary levels of PA, for 

example, segmenting initial sounds in words; and which 

need more advanced levels involving segmenting or 

blending with letters. 

In the rush to teach phonemic awareness, it is important 

not to overlook the need to teach letters as well. The 

NRP analysis showed that PA instruction was more 

effective when it was taught with letters. Using letters 

to manipulate phonemes helps children make the 

transfer to reading and writing. However, teaching 

children all the letters of the alphabet is not easy, 

particularly when they come to school knowing few of 

them. There are 52 capital and lower-case letter 

shapes, names, and sounds to learn. The shapes of 

many letters are similar, and, therefore, easily confused 

with one another. Letter learning requires retaining 

shapes, names, and sounds in memory and, in fact, 

overlearning them so that letters can be processed 

automatically in reading and writing words (Adams, 

1990). Thus, to ensure that instruction in phonemic 

awareness is effective, it needs to include instruction in 

graphemes as well as instruction in the connections 

between graphemes and phonemes to read and spell 

words. 

In addition to teaching PA skills with letters, it is 

important for teachers to help children make the 

connection between the PA skills taught and their 

application to reading and writing tasks. In most of the 

studies reviewed, researchers did not do this when they 

presented the transfer tasks to students following 

training. Despite this, significant and sizable transfer 

effects were observed. In a study by Cunningham 

(1990), who did examine application effects, students in 

one group not only were taught to segment and blend 

but also were shown how to apply these skills in reading 

words. Another group received the same PA training 

but not the application training. Effect sizes on reading 

outcomes were much larger when 1st graders received 

the application instruction than when they did not. This 

suggests that results of the NRP meta-analysis actually 

underestimate the magnitude of effects that would 

result if children received explicit instruction and 

practice in applying PA skills in their reading and 

writing. 

2-33 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

It is important to note that when PA is taught with 

letters, it qualifies as phonics instruction. When PA 

training involves teaching students to pronounce the 

sounds associated with letters and to blend the sounds 

to form words, it qualifies as synthetic phonics. When 

PA training involves teaching students to segment 

words into phonemes and to select letters for those 

phonemes, it is the equivalent of teaching students to 

spell words phonemically, which is another form of 

phonics instruction. These methods of teaching phonics 

existed long before they became identified as forms of 

phonemic awareness training (Balmuth, 1982; Chall, 

1967). Although teaching children to manipulate sounds 

in spoken words may be new, phonemic awareness 

training that involves segmenting and blending with 

letters is not. Only the label is new. Explicit instruction 

in the alphabetic principle necessarily includes attention 

to phonemes because these are the phonological units 

that match up to letters. According to NRP findings, it 

is likely that the inclusion of phonemic awareness 

training in phonics instruction is a key component 

contributing to its effectiveness in teaching children to 

read. 

It is important to note that various approaches to 

beginning reading instruction may provide at least some 

phonemic awareness training although it may not be 

presented systematically or thoroughly enough to 

maximize its contribution to reading and writing. Whole 

language instruction that teaches students to invent 

spellings by detecting phonemes in words and 

representing them with letters offers a form of PA 

training. In Reading Recovery© (RR), students may 

acquire phonemic awareness through the spelling 

instruction they receive (Clay, 1985). Three studies in 

the database compared outcomes of standard whole 

language instruction, or RR instruction, to outcomes of 

the same instruction with PA training added (Castle et 

al., 1994; Hatcher et al., 1994; Iversen & Tunmer, 

1993). Overall effect sizes were variable ranging from 

negative to large positive (see Appendix and illustrative 

studies below). One factor possibly limiting outcome 

differences between treatment and control groups is the 

extent to which control students acquired PA from the 

instruction they received. Although whole language 

programs and RR programs include some phonemic 

awareness training, findings of the NRP meta-analysis 

indicate that strengthening the training offered in 

spelling activities by making it more systematic, 

thorough, and explicit, is likely to improve these 

programs’ success in helping children learn to read and 

spell. 

Classroom Instruction in PA: Some 

Illustrations 

NRP findings show that PA training programs 

implemented by teachers in classrooms are effective in 

teaching phonemic awareness to students, and this 

training boosts children’s reading and spelling 

performance. To identify characteristics of programs 

that were used successfully by classroom teachers, the 

Panel examined a few illustrative studies selected from 

a total of 15 (Blachman, Ball, Black, & Tangel, 1994; 

Brady, Fowler, Stone, & Winbury, 1994; Brennan & 

Ireson, 1997; Bus, 1986; Haddock, 1976; Kennedy & 

Backman, 1993; Kozminsky & Kozminsky, 1995; Lie, 

1991; Lundberg, Frost, & Petersen, 1988; McGuinness, 

McGuinness, & Donohue, 1995; O’Connor, NotariSyverson, & Vadasy, 1996; Olofsson & Lundberg, 

1983; Schneider, Kuspert, Roth, Vise, & Marx, 1997; 

Tangel & Blachman, 1992; Williams, 1980). 

One 8-month-long, carefully structured program for 

kindergartners was developed and tested by Lundberg, 

Frost, and Peterson (1988). Twelve classroom teachers 

in Denmark taught children daily to attend to sounds in 

speech and to manipulate sounds through games and 

exercises that increased in difficulty as the year 

progressed. The program began with easy listening 

activities followed by rhyming exercises. Then 

kindergartners learned to segment sentences into words 

and to focus on the length of words in speech. Then 

words were analyzed into syllables. For example, 

children listened to a troll who spoke peculiarly, syllable 

by syllable, and they figured out what he said. Phoneme 

analysis was introduced in the 3rd month by having 

children identify phonemes in initial positions of words, 

mainly continuants and vowel sounds which are easy to 

stretch out and hold. The teacher helped children find 

the sounds by stretching them, for example, 

“Mmmmmark” or by repeating the stop consonants that 

cannot be held, for example, “T-T-T-Tom.” Children 

also practiced adding and deleting phonemes from 

words. In the 5th month of the program, phoneme 

segmentation and blending were introduced, first with 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-34 
Report 

two-phoneme words and then longer words. Many of 

the activities were designed for children’s enjoyment 

and consisted of dancing, singing, and other 

noncompetitive social games. 

Teachers were trained in an inservice course that 

provided theoretical background as well as videotaped 

examples of training sessions. They practiced and 

refined the skills necessary to teach the program during 

the year prior to implementing it. Teachers of the 

control group followed the regular preschool program, 

which emphasized social and aesthetic aspects of 

development rather than cognitive and linguistic 

aspects. Treatment and control schools were located in 

geographically distant parts of Denmark. 

The Danish program was adapted and tested by other 

researchers including Schneider et al. (1997) who 

taught PA to German kindergartners. His study included 

two experiments and a total of 22 teachers who taught 

PA in the treatment conditions. Control groups received 

the regular kindergarten curriculum. The second 

experiment was conducted to improve on the first. 

Teacher training was less extensive in the German 

study than in the Danish study. It lasted 2 months and 

included theoretical background and tutoring sessions in 

which teachers practiced the games and exercises and 

received feedback. 

In both the Danish and German studies, training 

produced large effect sizes on the acquisition of 

phonemic awareness, ranging from 0.70 to 0.82. Effect 

sizes on reading outcomes were small to moderate 

when measured the following year in 1st grade: d = 

0.19 (Denmark), d = 0.26 and 0.45 (Germany). 

An adaptation of the Danish program was tested with 

English-speaking kindergartners by Brennan and Ireson 

(1997). However, only one teacher and her class of 12 

students formed the PA treatment group, which was 

compared to one no-treatment control class. Although 

this is a weaker design yielding less reliable findings, the 

effect size was impressive. The impact of training on 

word reading was large, with an effect size of d = 1.17. 

This provides some evidence that the Danish program 

can be used effectively in American classrooms. A 

translation of the program has been published (Adams, 

Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1998). Whether 

teachers need further help beyond the manual to 

implement the program effectively with their students 

needs to be studied. 

The Danish program did not include letter manipulation. 

However, the meta-analysis showed that when PA is 

taught with letters, it is more effective. A program for 

kindergartners that included letters was developed and 

tested by Blachman and her colleagues (Ball & 

Blachman, 1991; Blachman et al., 1994; Tangel & 

Blachman, 1992). Blachman et al. (1994) taught 10 

teachers and their teaching assistants to deliver PA 

training to low-income, inner-city kindergartners. 

Children were taught in groups of four or five for 15 to 

20 minutes per day, 4 times each week. The program 

lasted 11 weeks. The teachers were trained in seven 2­

hour inservice workshops, during which they were 

taught a theoretical framework; they practiced 

instructional activities; and they asked questions about 

ways of implementing the program. 

A key activity in Blachman et al.’s (1994) program was 

the “say it and move it” procedure. Children learned to 

move a blank tile down a page as they pronounced each 

phoneme in a word. After children practiced 

segmenting two- and three-phoneme words in this way, 

letter-sound correspondences were taught and they 

practiced segmenting the words with blank markers and 

letters. Additional segmentation activities were included 

such as moving markers into Elkonin boxes to represent 

phonemes in three-phoneme words. A variety of games 

was used to reinforce grapheme-phoneme 

correspondences. The control group in this study 

followed a traditional kindergarten curriculum that 

included instruction in letter names and sounds. Results 

of the study were very positive. Children receiving PA 

training outperformed controls on PA tasks, with an 

effect size of d = 1.83, and training transferred to 

reading, d = 0.65, and to spelling, d = 0.94. 

Another program in the NRP set of studies was 

administered by teachers to small groups of older 

disabled readers. Williams (1980) developed and tested 

the ABDs program, which taught students ages 7 to 12 

to segment and blend phonemes first in speech and then 

using letters. Children worked with a limited set of 

seven consonants and two vowels. Lessons progressed 

from segmenting words into syllables to segmenting 

words into phonemes, at first two phonemes and then 

2-35 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

three phonemes. Then blending was applied to the same 

words. Children performed manipulations with wooden 

markers at first and letters later on. Their work blending 

letters was the equivalent of learning to decode, and 

their work segmenting with letters was equivalent to 

learning to spell the sounds in words. More letters were 

added to the set later in the program. Words with 

consonant clusters were introduced. Finally two-syllable 

words were added. The program included various 

games, worksheets, and activities to teach these skills. 

Teachers attended a half-day session to learn about the 

program, which was fully presented and described in a 

manual. The 17 teachers were asked to use the 

program 20 minutes daily. Their instruction was closely 

monitored. Although there were 12 units, only a few 

teachers got through the entire program in the 26-week 

period. 

Williams evaluated the ABDs program again the 

following year, this time not with volunteer teachers but 

with 20 teachers who were mandated to use the 

program. They completed on average 6.6 units, about 

half the program. The treatment groups were compared 

to untreated control groups. The influence of PA 

instruction on students’ ability to decode words and 

nonwords was measured at the end of training. Effect 

sizes were large, d = 1.05 for the 1st year, and d = 0.97 

for the 2nd year. This indicates that the ABDs program 

was highly effective at teaching decoding skill to 

disabled readers. 

Other Programs to Teach PA 

Various programs were used to teach PA across 

studies. Presenting descriptions of these programs 

serves to clarify how studies in the database were 

structured and the variety of ways that PA was taught. 

Some programs had special features that enhanced 

their effectiveness. In the study by Cunningham (1990), 

one treatment group was taught metacognitive skills 

along with PA. Cunningham worked with normally 

progressing readers in kindergarten and 1st grade. A 

puppet was utilized to interact with children. PA training 

was limited to the oral mode, with no letter-sound 

instruction. Training was conducted in small groups for 

10 weeks. Three treatments were compared. One 

treatment group received PA training in segmenting and 

blending phonemes. Another group received a 

somewhat abbreviated version of this training and spent 

the extra time in metacognitive activities that included 

learning about the goals and purposes of each PA 

manipulation, reviewing how that lesson related to 

previous lessons, and observing and practicing how to 

use the skill for reading. The control group spent equal 

time engaged in a story listening treament. 

Results showed that at the end of PA training, the two 

treatment groups outperformed the control group on 

measures of PA and reading in both grades. In addition, 

1st graders who had received both PA and 

metacognitive training achieved higher reading scores 

than 1st graders receiving only PA training. One 

possible reason why the advantage was limited to 1st 

grade is that 1st graders, but not kindergartners, were 

receiving formal reading instruction concurrently in their 

classrooms, so they had a chance to apply their PA 

knowledge on a daily basis. In fact, some 1st graders 

told the experimenter that they used what they had 

been taught to decode words in their classroom reading 

groups. These findings indicate that a metacognitive 

component may be valuable in providing a bridge 

between PA skills and reading processes. This may be 

particularly true in PA programs that do not teach 

phoneme manipulation with letters. 

The ADD program (Auditory Discrimination in Depth) 

was developed by Lindamood and Lindamood (1975) to 

teach PA. The unique feature of this program is that it 

teaches children to identify and monitor articulatory 

gestures associated with phonemes. As already 

discussed, phoneme segmentation is difficult because 

there are no boundaries in speech telling us where one 

phoneme ends and the next begins. Rather phonemes 

are coarticulated to produce speech without any seams. 

One very helpful way to identify separate phonemes is 

to monitor the changes that occur in the mouth as one 

pronounces words. This involves directing attention to 

the position and shape of the lips and tongue. For 

example, there are three phonemes in meat and these 

are reflected in three successive mouth movements: 

your lips closing for /m/, your lips opening into a smile 

shape for the vowel, then your tongue tapping the roof 

of your mouth for /t/. Pictures of mouth positions can be 

used to help children distinguish phonemes in 

pronunciations of words. Also, mirrors help children 

explore what their own mouths are doing when they 

pronounce words. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-36 
Report 

Four studies in the NRP database implemented the 

ADD program to teach PA (Kennedy & Backman, 

1993; McGuinness et al., 1995; (Wise, King, & Olson, 

1999; Wise, King, & Olson, in press). Children received 

extensive training discovering and categorizing the 

various phonemes in English by analyzing their own 

mouth movements, often using mirrors. They learned to 

label these sounds, for example, lip poppers, tip tappers, 

and scrapers. They learned to track movements in 

spoken words in order to identify the separate 

phonemes and then to represent the phonemes with 

graphemes. Effect sizes on reading outcomes were 

variable, ranging from 1.22 for 1st graders 

(McGuinness et al., 1995) to 0.15 for older disabled 

readers (Wise, King, & Olson, 1999). 

An example of a program focused on teaching only one 

type of phoneme manipulation was that studied by 

Byrne and Fielding-Barnsley (1991) for preschoolers, 

called Sound Foundations. This program taught 

phoneme identity. Children learned to recognize 

instances of the same sound in both initial and final 

positions across different words. The following sounds 

received primary attention: /s/, /š/ as in ship, /l/, /m/, /p/, 

/t/, /g/, /ae/ as in bat, /ε/ as in bet. Children were shown 

several large posters covered with pictures of objects. 

Their job was to pick out from a larger set the objects 

having a specified beginning or ending sound, for 

example, sea, seal, sailor, sand. Also, children were 

shown an array of pictures on worksheets or cards, and 

they selected those having targeted sounds. In each 

session, one phoneme in one position was taught. The 

letter representing that phoneme was introduced as 

well. 

In this study, preschoolers averaging 4.5 years of age 

received either the PA training described above or 

control training that focused on story reading and 

semantic activities with the same posters and 

worksheets. Children were trained in groups of 4 to 6 

children, one 30-minute lesson per week for 12 weeks. 

At the end of training, children in the PA-trained group 

were able to identify substantially more initial and final 

phonemes in words than control students. They 

demonstrated superior skill identifying not only sounds 

they had practiced but also unpracticed sounds, 

indicating that phoneme identity skill transferred to 

untaught phonemes. These researchers also gave 

students a simplified word reading task in which 

children were shown a word and identified it from two 

spoken choices (e.g., “Does this [sat] say sat or 

mat?”). Trained students read more words than control 

students, indicating that PAtraining improved 

preschoolers’ rudimentary word recognition skill. 

These researchers also investigated the long-term 

impact of PA training (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 

1993, 1995). Children were tested during the next 3 

years in school. At the end of kindergarten, trained 

children were only slightly superior to controls in PA, 

indicating that learning to read had narrowed the gap in 

PA between the two groups. At the end of each 

successive grade, the PA-trained group read 

significantly more pseudowords than controls, indicating 

that PA training benefited children’s decoding skill. At 

the end of 2nd grade, there was a marginal difference 

in reading comprehension favoring the PA-trained 

students. However, the 2nd graders did not differ in 

reading real words or in spelling words. 

One possible reason why long-term training effects 

were not stronger in this study is that the formal reading 

and spelling instruction that children received in school 

was sufficiently effective to compensate for the 

advantage provided by preschool training in PA. Also, 

the PA training that students received was focused 

rather than comprehensive and amounted to only 6 

hours total. It may take a more comprehensive and 

extensive training program to exert stronger long-term 

effects. 

The effectiveness of different ways to teach PA was 

examined by O’Connor et al. (1995), who inquired 

whether PA training has to be broad rather than 

focused to be most effective. They selected at-risk 

kindergartners with low PA and randomly assigned 

them to one of three training conditions. In the 

comprehensive treatment, children performed a variety 

of sound manipulation activities that included isolating, 

segmenting, blending, and deleting phonemes; 

segmenting and blending syllables and onset-rime units; 

and working with rhyming words. In the focused 

treatment, children practiced segmenting and blending 

onsets, rimes, and phonemes only. Training extended for 

10 weeks, two 15-minute sessions per week, totaling 5 

hours. Beginning in the 5th week, letter-sound 

associations were taught for the sounds being practiced 

2-37 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

orally in both groups. However, children were not 

taught how to use letters to manipulate phonemes in the 

PA activities. The third treatment, a control condition, 

received only the letter-sound instruction. 

Comparison of phonemic awareness following training 

showed that the treated groups performed equally well 

and both outperformed controls, indicating that both 

types of training were equally effective in teaching PA. 

To measure transfer to reading, a simplified word 

learning task was devised. After children learned to 

associate four letters and sounds, they were given 

practice learning to read five words composed of the 

letters and sounds: am, at, mat, sat, sam. Each word 

was taught by saying, “This is aaaaat, at.” Results 

revealed that only the focused group learned to read the 

words in fewer trials than the control group, not the 

comprehensive group. This suggests that concentrating 

instructional time on segmenting and blending may 

contribute more to reading skill than diverting attention 

to many PA activities. These findings are consistent 

with those in the NRP meta-analysis indicating the 

greater impact of segmenting and blending than 

multiskill instruction on reading outcomes. One might 

question the use of a simplified word reading task to 

draw inferences about general reading acquisition. 

However, these kindergartners were beginning readers 

so that more advanced reading tests would have been 

too difficult. 

The separate and combined contributions of instruction 

in segmentation and blending were examined by 

Davidson and Jenkins (1994), who gave kindergartners 

with low PA one or another of four types of training. In 

the segmentation treatment, each word was 

pronounced, and children were taught to say its 

separate sounds. In the blending treatment, children 

listened to the separate sounds and learned to blend 

them into words. In the segmentation-and-blending 

treatment, children learned first to segment, then to 

blend the words. In the control condition, children 

listened to stories. Children were taught to a criterion of 

mastery. The words and nonwords analyzed during 

training had two phonemes formed out of continuant 

consonants and long vowels (e.g., my, vo, low, way). At 

the end of training, all students were taught eight letters 

for the sounds that treatment groups had practiced. 

Then two literacy tests were given in which children 

practiced and received feedback in learning to read and 

learning to spell two-phoneme words. These words 

were formed from the same letter-sounds but they had 

not been taught during training. 

Results showed that the groups learned the PA skill that 

they were taught but performed poorly on the untaught 

skill. This indicates that teaching students either 

segmentation or blending does not improve their 

performance in the other skill. On the measures of 

reading and spelling, both the segmentation and 

combination groups performed similarly and 

outperformed the control group. However, the blending 

group did not do better than the control group. This 

indicates that teaching beginners to segment is as 

effective for learning to read words as teaching 

beginners to segment and blend. In contrast, teaching 

beginners only to blend is not effective. These findings 

were replicated in a similar study by Torgesen et al. 

(1992). 

Although blending made a poor showing in these 

studies, Reitsma and Wesseling (1998) reported more 

success in a study with kindergartners in the 

Netherlands. They used a computer to teach 

kindergartners how to blend three-phoneme Dutch 

words (e.g., lief, geit, met). No limits were placed on 

the variety of phonemes in the words. All phoneme 

manipulations were conducted in speech without any 

letters. First, children were taught a set of vocabulary 

words, and then these were used in various blending 

exercises. Children listened to a sequence of segmented 

sounds, and then clicked on the picture corresponding to 

that word. Children listened to two successively 

segmented words and clicked “same” or “different.” 

Children listened to words, either pronounced as wholes 

or segmented, and then had to find which of several 

boxes on the screen contained the other form of the 

word. If a whole word was heard, they had to find its 

segmented form. If a segmented word was heard, they 

had to find its whole form. In all these exercises, the 

incorrect word choices differed by several phonemes 

from the correct choice for some items but only by one 

phoneme for other items, making processing more 

difficult. In the control group, children completed 

vocabulary exercises on the computer. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-38 
Report 

At the end of kindergarten, PA tests of children’s ability 

to blend and to segment words revealed superior 

blending performance by the trained group over the 

control group, but no difference in segmentation 

performance. Thus, training effects were limited to 

blending which was the skill taught, and blending skill 

did not transfer to segmentation. The following year, in 

1st grade, children’s ability to read words was 

examined. Long-term effects of the blending exercises 

were evident because trained children read more words 

than control children. However, no effects on spelling 

were detected. These results suggest that extensive 

training to develop blending skills does benefit reading 

acquisition. Blending is thought to contribute to reading 

by enabling children to decode new words they have 

not yet learned to read. Also, findings indicate the 

effectiveness of using computers to teach PA to 

kindergartners. 

One instructional activity that is maximally effective for 

teaching PA in a way that builds a bridge to reading and 

spelling is that of teaching children to invent 

phonemically more complete spellings of words. 

Typically, kindergartners who know letter names or 

sounds can represent the more salient sounds in words 

such as beginning and ending sounds, for example, 

writing B to spell beaver or R to spell arm. Sometimes 

their spellings are not conventional, for example, writing 

Y to spell wife. However, the important achievement is 

that they can distinguish sounds in words. Once they 

can do this, then teachers can help them detect 

additional sounds in words and learn conventional 

spellings for those sounds. 

In a study by Ehri and Wilce (1987b), kindergartners 

were taught individually how to generate phonemic 

spellings of words and nonwords by segmenting words 

into phonemes and selecting letters representing those 

phonemes. Children who qualified for the study could 

already name the six consonant and four vowel letters 

that were used in training. All names contained the 

relevant sounds in their names (T, S, N, L, K, P, A, E, 

I, O). 

Instruction began with two-phoneme words and 

nonwords and progressed to three-phoneme words and 

words with consonant clusters. Children were helped to 

break words into phonemes by directing their attention 

to articulatory gestures. They were helped to select 

letters by focusing on sounds in letter names. They 

mastered shorter words before advancing to longer 

words. Children in the control group practiced matching 

the ten letters and sounds in isolation. Articulatory 

gestures and letter names were used to correct their 

errors as well. On posttests after training, effect sizes 

were large on measures of segmentation and spelling. 

The measure of reading involved giving children 

practice learning to read 12 similarly spelled words for 

several trials. The words were spelled phonemically 

with the letter-sounds taught, for example, SEL (seal), 

SNAK (snake), SLIS (slice). The effect size was large, 

d = 0.97. These findings indicate that teaching children 

to segment and spell helps them learn to read as well as 

spell words. 

In many PA training studies, the instructional context 

was not considered. However, there were some 

exceptions. Iversen and Tunmer (1993) incorporated 

PA training into Clay’s (1985) Reading Recovery© 

program to examine whether systematic instruction in 

PA would make the program more effective. At-risk 

readers in 1st grade were assigned to one of three 

groups, a group receiving standard Reading Recovery© 

instruction, a group receiving modified RR instruction, 

and an alternative, non-RR intervention group. In the 

modified RR treatment, after children had learned most 

letters, they manipulated magnetic letter forms to make, 

break, and build new words having similar spellings and 

pronunciations, for example, reading and and then 

changing it to hand, sand, band. Training progressed 

from initial sounds to final sounds and then to medial 

sounds. Children added, deleted, and substituted letters 

in their manipulations and also read the changed words. 

Later, the task becomes a writing rather than a 

manipulation task. 

Findings showed that both forms of RR enabled 

children to reach prescribed reading levels that qualified 

them to exit the remedial program. However, children 

who received modified RR attained prescribed levels 

more quickly than children receiving the standard 

program (i.e., a mean of 41.75 lessons for modified RR 

vs. 57.31 lessons for standard RR). This indicates that 

adding PA training improved RR by increasing its 

efficiency. At the end of training, however, both groups 

performed at very similar levels on PA outcomes and 

reading outcomes, indicating that both forms of the RR 

2-39 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

program enabled children to attain similar levels of PA 

and reading. On followup tests given at the end of the 

school year, performance of the groups remained very 

similar. 

Hatcher et al. (1994) also examined whether adding PA 

training to a Reading Recovery© program would 

improve its success. The participants were 7-year-old 

poor readers. The PA training that was added to RR 

involved teaching children to perform different types of 

PA, including segmentation, blending, deletion, 

substitution, and transposition of phonemes. Children 

also practiced linking letters to phonemes in various 

spelling and writing tasks. Effect sizes, though small, 

favored the PA-trained group (d = 0.24 for PA, d = 0.31 

for reading and spelling). 

Castle et al. (1994) examined the contribution of PA 

training to reading acquisition in a whole language 

program. Kindergartners with low PA were assigned to 

treatment and control groups. PA training included 

segmentation, blending, substitution, and deletion. 

Letters were incorporated into the PA activities later in 

the program. Two control groups were included, one 

receiving an alternative, unrelated treatment and 

another receiving no treatment other than the whole 

language instruction provided to all participants in their 

classrooms. Results showed that the PA-trained group 

spelled more words and decoded many more 

pseudowords than the two control groups. However, the 

groups did not differ in reading real words or in reading 

connected text. These findings indicate that adding PA 

instruction to a whole language program enhances 

students’ decoding and spelling skills but not their other 

reading skills. 

Wise et al. (in press) evaluated the effects of PA 

training against training that taught children reading 

comprehension strategies and gave them extensive text 

reading practice on computers. The children were 200 

disabled readers in grades 2 to 5. Both treatment and 

control groups spent time reading stories on the 

computer. They could touch any unknown word with a 

cursor and have it identified. Comprehension questions 

were answered periodically. Controls spent extra time 

reading on the computer while the PA-trained group 

completed various types of PA activities administered 

by the computer. For example, the computer asked the 

child to show feef. The child selected and ordered 

letter-sound symbols with a mouse. Synthetic speech 

pronounced whatever the child assembled, and the child 

continued to manipulate letters until achieving a match. 

Then the computer asked the child to change the word 

to feem. Lessons began with two-phoneme words and 

progressed to longer words. There were several other 

PA activities besides this one. 

On the posttests, PA-trained children outperformed 

controls on tests of phonemic awareness and 

pseudoword reading tests. Also, they read more words 

when there were no time constraints. However, 

controls displayed superior time-limited word reading. 

Both groups made similar gains in spelling and reading 

comprehension. Interestingly, when the analysis of word 

reading took account of grade level, 2nd graders gained 

more than older children and they showed a much 

greater advantage for PA training over the control 

training than did older children. These findings suggest 

that PA training may be more beneficial to younger than 

to older disabled readers. 

In sum, these illustrative studies enrich the 

understanding of the data contributing to the NRP 

meta-analysis. They show that various types of 

instruction were utilized to teach PA at various grade 

levels. They show how different studies were designed 

and the nature of their findings. Also, they draw 

attention to other potentially important features that 

were not addressed in the meta-analysis because of an 

inadequate number of cases. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

1. Can phonemic awareness be taught, 

and does it help children learn to read 

and spell? 

Results of the meta-analysis showed that teaching 

phonemic awareness to children is clearly effective. It 

improves their ability to manipulate phonemes in 

speech. This skill transfers and helps them learn to read 

and spell. PA training benefits not only word reading but 

also reading comprehension. PA training contributes to 

children’s ability to read and spell for months, if not 

years, after the training has ended. Effects of PA 

training are enhanced when children are taught how to 

apply PA skills to reading and writing tasks. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-40 
Report 

2. Which students benefit in their reading? 

Teaching phonemic awareness helps many different 

students learn to read, including preschoolers, 

kindergartners, and 1st graders who are just starting to 

learn to read. This includes beginners who are low in 

PA and are thus at risk for developing reading problems 

in the future. This includes older disabled readers who 

have already developed reading problems. This includes 

children from various SES levels. This includes students 

who are taught to read in English, as well as students 

taught to read in other alphabetic languages. 

3. Which students benefit in their spelling? 

Teaching phonemic awareness helps preschoolers, 

kindergartners, and 1st graders learn to spell. It helps 

children at risk for future reading problems also. It helps 

low as well as middle-to-high SES children. It helps 

students learning to spell in English as well as students 

learning in other languages. However, PA training is 

ineffective for improving spelling in reading-disabled 

students. This is consistent with other research 

indicating that disabled readers have a hard time 

learning to spell. 

4. Which methods of teaching PA work 

best in helping children acquire 

phonemic awareness? 

Various forms of phoneme manipulation might be 

taught, including identifying or categorizing the 

phonemes in words, segmenting words into phonemes, 

blending phonemes to form words, deleting phonemes 

from words, or manipulating onsets and rimes in words. 

In some programs, only one PA skill is taught, while in 

other programs, two or more skills are combined. Some 

programs teach children to use letters to manipulate 

phonemes and others limit training to speech. All of 

these approaches appear to be effective for helping 

children learn to manipulate phonemes. Focusing on one 

or two skills produces larger effects than a multiskilled 

approach. Teaching PA with letters helps students 

acquire PA more effectively than teaching PA without 

letters. 

5. Which methods of teaching PA have the 

greatest impact on learning to read? 

Although all of the approaches exert a significant effect 

on reading, instruction that focuses on one or two skills 

produces greater transfer than a multiskilled approach. 

Teaching students to segment and blend benefits 

reading more than a multiskilled approach. Teaching 

students to manipulate phonemes with letters yields 

larger effects than teaching students without letters, not 

surprisingly because letters help children make the 

connection between PA and its application to reading. 

Teaching children to blend the phonemes represented 

by letters is the equivalent of decoding instruction. 

Being explicit about the connection between PA skills 

and reading also strengthens training effects. 

6. Which methods of teaching PA have the 

greatest impact on learning to spell? 

Teaching PA helps nondisabled readers below 2nd 

grade learn to spell. Methods that teach children to 

manipulate phonemes with letters are more effective 

than methods limiting manipulation to spoken units. 

Teaching children to segment phonemes in words and 

represent them with letters is the equivalent of invented 

spelling instruction. 

7. How important is it to teach letters as 

well as phonemic awareness? 

It is essential to teach letters as well as phonemic 

awareness to beginners. PA training is more effective 

when children are taught to use letters to manipulate 

phonemes. This is because knowledge of letters is 

essential for transfer to reading and spelling. Learning 

all the letters of the alphabet is not easy, particularly for 

children who come to school knowing few of them. 

Shapes, names, and sounds need to be overlearned so 

that children can work with them automatically to read 

and spell words. Thus, if children do not know letters, 

this needs to be taught along with PA. 

8. How much time is required for PA 

instruction to be effective? 

In the NRP analysis, studies that spent between 5 and 

18 hours teaching PA yielded very large effects on the 

acquisition of phonemic awareness. Studies that spent 

longer or less time than this also yielded significant 

effect sizes, but effects were moderate and only half as 

2-41 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

large. Transfer to reading was greatest for studies 

lasting less than 20 hours. In fact, effect sizes were 

more than twice as large for shorter programs than for 

the longest-lasting programs. 

Caution is needed in drawing conclusions from this 

finding. Although it suggests that less instructional time 

is better, it ignores reasons why training that lasted 

longer might have been less effective. Perhaps the PA 

skills being taught were more complex, or perhaps the 

learners were harder to teach, or perhaps, as a result of 

time spent in training, PA-trained students received less 

instruction in reading than students in the control 

groups. 

The Panel concludes that it is wrong to make any 

declarations about how long effective instruction in PA 

needs to last based on the NRP findings. Rather, 

decisions should be influenced by reason, moderation, 

and situational factors. The answer depends on the 

goals of instruction, how many different PA skills are to 

be taught, whether letters are included, how much or 

how little the learners already know about PA when 

they begin, whether they are disabled readers, whether 

provision is made for facilitating transfer to reading and 

spelling, and so forth. Individual children will differ in 

the amount of training time they need to acquire PA. 

What is probably most important is to tailor training time 

to student learning by assessing who has and who has 

not acquired the skills being taught as training proceeds. 

Children who are still having trouble should continue PA 

training while those who have learned the skills should 

move on to other reading and writing instruction. 

Not only the total training time but also the length of 

single training sessions must be considered. In the NRP 

database, the average length of sessions was 25 

minutes. Few sessions lasted more than 30 minutes, and 

these tended to occur with older disabled readers, not 

with younger children. From this, the Panel concludes 

that sessions should probably not exceed 30 minutes in 

length. 

9. Can classroom teachers teach PA 

effectively to their students? 

Classroom teachers are definitely able to teach PA 

effectively. In the NRP analysis, their effect size on the 

acquisition of PA was large. The training they provided 

transferred and improved students’ reading and spelling, 

and the effect on reading continued beyond training. It 

was not possible to specify the amount of training 

required to enable trainers to be effective. This 

relationship was not examined in the studies. Only 15 

studies reported the length of training provided to 

trainers. It ranged from 2 to 90 hours, with a mean of 

21 hours. This suggests that the amount of training 

required may be quite modest and reasonable for 

inservice instruction. 

10. Is instruction most effectively delivered 

to individual students, to small groups, or 

to full classrooms of students? 

Although individual tutoring is commonly regarded as 

the most effective unit of instruction, NRP findings 

indicate that small groups are the best way to teach 

phonemic awareness to children. Also, small groups 

facilitate greater transfer to reading than the other two 

teaching units. This may hold true for several reasons. 

Children may benefit from observing their peers 

respond and receive feedback or from listening to their 

peers’ comments and explanations. Or children may be 

more attentive and motivated to learn so that they do 

well in the eyes of their peers. 

11. Is evidence for the effectiveness of PA 

training on reading outcomes derived 

from strongly designed or weakly 

designed studies? 

The NRP analyses show that the evidence rests solidly 

on well-designed studies. Significant effect sizes were 

apparent on standardized tests as well as experimenterdesigned tests. Random assignment of children to 

groups yielded significant effects. In fact, this effect 

size was larger than that for the nonequivalent group 

design. Studies in which treatment fidelity was checked 

yielded a moderate effect size. Significant effects 

occurred not only when PA-trained groups were 

compared to untreated control groups but also when 

they were compared to treated controls. Significant 

effects were detected with larger as well as smaller 

samples of children. When Troia’s (1999) criteria for 

methodological rigor were applied to studies, the most 

rigorous studies yielded the largest effect sizes. The 

Panel concludes that evidence for the effectiveness of 

PA training on reading outcomes comes from wellReports of the Subgroups 2-42 
Report 

designed experiments. In fact, researchers are advised 

that they have the best chance of observing strong 

effects if they apply the most rigor in designing their PA 

studies. 

12. Are the results ready for 

implementation in the classroom? 

This section of the NRP report includes many ideas that 

provide guidance to teachers in designing PA instruction 

and in evaluating and selecting programs with the best 

chance for success. However, in implementing PA 

instruction in the classroom, teachers should bear in 

mind several serious cautions: 

•	 PA training does not constitute a complete reading 

program. Although the present meta-analysis 

confirms that PA is a key component that 

contributes significantly to the effectiveness of 

beginning reading and spelling instruction, there is 

obviously much more that children need to be 

taught to acquire reading and writing competence. 

PA instruction is intended only as a foundational 

piece. It helps children grasp how the alphabetic 

system works. It helps children read and spell 

words in various ways. However, literacy 

acquisition is a complex process for which there is 

no single key to success. Teaching phonemic 

awareness does not ensure that children will learn 

to read and write. Many competencies must be 

acquired for this to happen. 

•	 Exactly how PA instruction should be taught by 

teachers in their classrooms is not clearly specified 

by the research. A variety of programs was found 

to be effective. The studies are useful in identifying 

features that are important and should be 

considered in selecting programs and planning 

classroom instruction. Ultimately, though, teachers 

need to evaluate the methods they use against 

measured success in their own students. 

•	 One factor that is very important to effective 

classroom instruction but has not been addressed in 

the PA training research is the extent to which 

these programs motivate both students and 

teachers. It seems self-evident that instructional 

techniques for developing PA need to be relevant, 

engaging, interesting, and motivating in order to 

promote optimal learning in children. However, the 

research has not focused on this factor. Neither has 

the research examined which techniques are most 

engaging for teachers. It seems self-evident that 

teachers are most effective when they are 

enthusiastic and enjoy what they are teaching. In 

selecting ways to teach PA, teachers need to take 

account of motivational aspects of programs for 

themselves as well as their students. 

•	 Teachers should recognize that acquiring phonemic 

awareness is a means rather than an end. PA is not 

acquired for its own sake but rather for its value in 

helping learners understand and use the alphabetic 

system to read and write. This is why it is important 

to include letters when teaching children to 

manipulate phonemes and why it is important to be 

explicit about how children are to use the PA skills 

in reading and writing tasks. 

•	 It is important to recognize that children will acquire 

some phonemic awareness in the course of learning 

to read and spell even though they are not taught 

PA explicitly. The process of learning letter-sound 

relations and how to use them to read and spell 

enhances children’s ability to manipulate phonemes. 

However, incidental instruction that does not focus 

on teaching PA falls short in its contribution to 

children’s reading and spelling development. 

•	 It is important to recognize that children will differ 

in their phonemic awareness and that some will 

need more instruction than others. In kindergarten, 

most children will be nonreaders and will have little 

phonemic awareness; so, PA instruction should 

benefit everyone. In 1st grade, some children will 

be reading and spelling already while others may 

know only a few letters and have no reading skill. 

The nonreaders will need much more PA and letter 

instruction than those already reading. Among 

readers in 1st and 2nd grades, there may be 

variation in how well children can perform more 

advanced forms of PA, that is, manipulations 

involving segmenting and blending with letters. The 

best approach is for teachers to assess students’ 

PA prior to beginning PA instruction. This will 

indicate which children need the instruction and 

which do not; which children need to be taught 

rudimentary levels of PA, for example, segmenting 

initial sounds in words; and which need more 

advanced levels involving segmenting or blending 

with letters. 

2-43	 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Directions for Further Research 

A large number of experiments have been conducted to 

test whether phonemic awareness training helps 

children learn to read. Results have been sufficiently 

positive to sustain confidence that this treatment is 

indeed effective across a variety of child and training 

conditions. However, there are still some questions 

needing further attention from researchers. 

1. Training Teachers to Teach PA 

Findings of a few studies have raised doubt that 

teachers possess sufficient phonemic awareness to 

teach this skill adequately on their own (Moats, 1994; 

Scarborough, Ehri, Olson, & Fowler, 1998). These 

studies indicate that teachers fall short in manipulating 

phonemes correctly. However, the studies do not show 

that this lack of knowledge limits teachers’ ability to 

learn to teach PA adequately. Results of the Panel’s 

analysis indicate that with training, teachers can teach 

PA effectively. 

Research is needed to clarify what sort of knowledge 

and training maximizes teachers’ effectiveness in 

teaching PA and in integrating this instruction with 

beginning reading instruction. This includes both 

preservice training and inservice training that covers 

instruction for preschoolers, primary students, and older 

disabled readers. Questions to be addressed are: How 

much and what sort of linguistic knowledge about 

phonemes, graphemes, and the alphabetic system need 

to be taught to teachers? How much knowledge about 

literacy learning processes and their course of 

development in beginning readers needs to be 

understood by teachers? Teachers may need to know 

how phonemic awareness develops in children, which 

tasks are easier and which are harder, what techniques 

help children focus on phoneme-size units such as 

monitoring articulatory cues, what kinds of mistakes 

children commonly make, what the origin is of these 

mistakes, how they should be corrected, and so forth. 

Teaching children to invent spellings of words is one 

way to teach PA. Teachers may need to understand the 

processes children use to invent spellings, how their 

spellings become more complete and conventional, and 

how to promote this growth. Such knowledge should 

help teachers utilize this approach to teach PA. 

Research is needed to address these possibilities. 

2. Use of Small Groups, Large Groups, or 

Individual Tutoring to Teach PA 

In the meta-analysis of instructional programs, size of 

training unit was uncovered as a property that affected 

outcomes differentially. Small group instruction was 

associated with much larger effect sizes than individual 

or classroom instruction. However, these findings are 

correlational. That is, differences emerged across 

studies. Differences did not arise in studies that 

manipulated this variable experimentally. As a result, 

attributing cause to this property is highly tentative and 

open to other interpretations. The next step for 

researchers is to determine experimentally whether 

small group instruction is indeed a better way to teach 

PA than individual and classroom instruction and, if so, 

the processes and conditions that make this approach 

especially effective. 

3. Motivation to Teach and to Learn PA 

Research has focused on the cognitive and linguistic 

factors involved in teaching PA to children. However, if 

teachers are not motivated to teach this skill, or if 

children are not motivated to learn it, then attention to it 

may be slighted. Some forms of teaching and learning 

are interesting and fun whereas other forms are tedious 

and boring. Research is needed to assess motivational 

properties of PA training programs and ways of 

enhancing motivation and interest if they are lacking. 

4. Teaching PA With Computers 

Use of computers is fast becoming a national pastime at 

home as well as at school. Younger children are 

acquiring facility with computers. Parents, as well as 

teachers are in the market for effective computer 

programs to teach important skills to children. A few 

studies in the NRP database examined whether 

computers could deliver PA instruction effectively. 

Findings showed that effect sizes were significant for 

teaching PA and its transfer to reading. However, 

effects were smaller than those produced by teachers 

or researchers. Computers were of doubtful value for 

promoting transfer to spelling although this may apply 

only to older disabled readers. More research is needed 

to determine whether and how PA might be taught 

more effectively using computers. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-44 
Report 

5. Programs to Help Parents Teach PA 

Many parents of preschoolers are anxious to help their 

children acquire the knowledge and skills they need to 

become successful when they enter school and begin 

reading instruction. However, none of the studies 

reviewed utilized parents as trainers. Research is 

needed to address this gap in our knowledge. In addition 

to informal activities that parents might use to draw 

children’s attention to sounds in words, the 

effectiveness of activities that help parents teach letters 

to preschoolers might be explored and assessed. 

6. High-Quality Research 

Results of the NRP meta-analysis reveal the value of 

experimental studies for providing reliable findings that 

can guide instructional practice. The Panel examined 

whether well-designed studies yielded stronger effect 

sizes than weaker designs and found that effect sizes 

were largest for studies that were methodologically 

rigorous. It is important for future researchers to 

maintain the quality of the designs adopted. This is not 

to say that all studies must use random assignment 

rather than nonequivalent groups. Sometimes 

experimenters have no choice if they want to conduct 

studies in school classrooms. However, researchers 

must take steps to maximize the rigor of their studies by 

addressing as many threats to internal and external 

validity as possible. Not only does this enhance 

confidence in the findings but also, as the NRP metaanalysis shows, it gives researchers a better chance of 

detecting treatment effects when they exist. 

2-45 National Reading Panel 
Report 

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Reports of the Subgroups 2-52 
Appendices

PART I: PHONEMIC AWARENESS INSTRUCTION 

Appendices 

Appendix A 
 

Studies Included in the Meta-Analysis
 

* Ball, E., & Blachman, B. (1991). Does 

phoneme awareness training in kindergarten make a 

difference in early word recognition and developmental 

spelling? Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 49-66. 

* Barker, T., & Torgesen, J. (1995). An 

evaluation of computer-assisted instruction in 

phonological awareness with below average readers. 

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89-103. 

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interaction between phonological awareness and 

reading acquisition: It’s a two-way street. Annals of 

Dyslexia, 43, 125-148. 

* Blachman, B., Ball, E., Black, R., & Tangel, D. 

(1994). Kindergarten teachers develop phoneme 

awareness in low-income, inner-city classrooms: Does 

it make a difference? Reading and Writing: An 

Interdisciplinary Journal, 6, 1-18. 

* Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. (1983). Categorizing 

sounds and learning to read: A causal connection. 

Nature, 301, 419-421. 

* Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. (1985). Rhyme and 

reason in reading and spelling. International Academy 

for Research in Learning Disabilities, Monograph 

Series, 1, 75-95. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of 

Michigan Press. (a more complete report of Bradley & 

Bryant, 1983) 

* Brady, S., Fowler, A., Stone, B., & Winbury, N. 

(1994). Training phonological awareness: A study with 

inner-city kindergarten children. Annals of Dyslexia, 44, 

26-59. 

* Brennan, F., & Ireson, J. (1997). Training 

phonological awareness: A study to evaluate the effects 

of a program of metalinguistic games in kindergarten. 

Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 9, 

241-263. 

* Bus, A. (1986). Preparatory reading instruction 

in kindergarten: Some comparative research into 

methods of auditory and auditory-visual training of 

phonemic analysis and blending. Perceptual and Motor 

Skills, 62, 11-24. 

* Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1991). 

Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness 

to young children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 

83, 451-455. 

* Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1993). 

Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness 

to young children: A 1-year follow-up. Journal of 

Educational Psychology, 85, 104-111. (First followup to 

Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991) 

* Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1995). 

Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness 

to young children: A 2- and 3-year follow-up and a new 

preschool trial. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 

488-503. (Second followup to Byrne & FieldingBarnsley, 1991) 

* Castle, J. M., Riach, J., & Nicholson, T. (1994). 

Getting off to a better start in reading and spelling: The 

effects of phonemic awareness instruction within a 

whole language program. Journal of Educational 

Psychology, 86, 350-359. 

* Cunningham, A. (1990). Explicit versus implicit 

instruction in phonemic awareness. Journal of 

Experimental Child Psychology, 50, 429-444. 

2-53 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

* Davidson, M., & Jenkins, J. (1994). Effects of 

phonemic processes on word reading and spelling. 

Journal of Educational Research, 87, 148-157. 

* Defior, S., & Tudela, P. (1994). Effect of 

phonological training on reading and writing acquisition. 

Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 6, 

299-320. 

* Ehri, L., & Wilce, L. (1987b). Does learning to 

spell help beginners learn to read words? Reading 

Research Quarterly, 22, 48-65. 

* Farmer, A., Nixon, M., & White, R. (1976). 

Sound blending and learning to read: An experimental 

investigation. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 

46, 155-163. 

* Fox, B., & Routh, D. (1976). Phonemic 

analysis and synthesis as word-attack skills. Journal of 

Educational Psychology, 68, 70-74. 

* Fox, B., & Routh, D. (1984). Phonemic 

analysis and synthesis as word-attack skills: Revisited. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 1059-1064. 

* Gross, J., & Garnett, J. (1994). Preventing 

reading difficulties: Rhyme and alliteration in the real 

world. Educational Psychology in Practice, 9, 235-240. 

* Haddock, M. (1976). Effects of an auditory and 

an auditory-visual method of blending instruction on the 

ability of prereaders to decode synthetic words. Journal 

of Educational Psychology, 68, 825-831. 

* Hatcher, P., Hulme, C., & Ellis, A. (1994). 

Ameliorating early reading failure by integrating the 

teaching of reading and phonological skills: The 

phonological linkage hypothesis. Child Development, 65, 

41-57. 

* Hohn, W., & Ehri, L. (1983). Do alphabet 

letters help prereaders acquire phonemic segmentation 

skill? Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 752-762. 

* Hurford, D., Johnston, M., Nepote, P., 

Hampton, S., Moore, S., Neal, J., Mueller, A., 

McGeorge, K., Huff, L., Awad, A., Tatro, C., Juliano, 

C., & Huffman, D. (1994). Early identification and 

remediation of phonological-processing deficits in 

first-grade children at risk for reading disabilities. 

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 27, 647-659. 

* Iversen, S., & Tunmer, W. (1993). Phonological 

processing skills and the Reading Recovery Program. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 112-126. 

* Kennedy, K., & Backman, J. (1993). 

Effectiveness of the Lindamood Auditory 

Discrimination in depth program with students with 

learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research and 

Practice, 8, 253-259. 

* Korkman, M., & Peltomaa, A. (1993). 

Preventive treatment of dyslexia by a preschool training 

program for children with language impairments. 

Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 22, 277-287. 

* Kozminsky, L., & Kozminsky, E. (1995). The 

effects of early phonological awareness training on 

reading success. Learning and Instruction, 5, 187-201. 

* Lie, A. (1991). Effects of a training program 

for stimulating skills in word analysis in first-grade 

children. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 234-250. 

* Lovett, M., Barron, R., Forbes, J., Cuksts, B., 

& Steinbach, K. (1994). Computer speech-based 

training of literacy skills in neurologically impaired 

children: A controlled evaluation. Brain and Language, 

47, 117-154. 

* Lundberg, I., Frost, J., & Petersen, O. (1988). 

Effects of an extensive program for stimulating 

phonological awareness in preschool children. Reading 

Research Quarterly, 23, 263-284. 

* McGuiness, D., McGuiness, C., & Donohue, J. 

(1995). Phonological training and the alphabet principle: 

Evidence for reciprocal causality. Reading Research 

Quarterly, 30, 830-852. 

* Murray, B. (1998). Gaining alphabetic insight: Is 

phoneme manipulation skill or identity knowledge 

causal? Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 461-475. 

* O’Connor, R., & Jenkins, J. (1995). Improving 

the generalization of sound/symbol knowledge: Teaching 

spelling to kindergarten children with disabilities. The 

Journal of Special Education, 29, 255-275. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-54 
Appendices 

* O’Connor, R., Jenkins, J., & Slocum, T. (1995). 

Transfer among phonological tasks in kindergarten: 

Essential instructional content. Journal of Educational 

Psychology, 87, 202-217. 

* O’Connor, R., Notari-Syverson, A., & Vadasy, 

P. (1996). Ladders to literacy: The effects of 

teacher-led phonological activities for kindergarten 

children with and without disabilities. Exceptional 

Children, 63, 117-130. 

* O’Connor, R., Notari-Syverson, A., & Vadasy, 

P. (1998). First-grade effects of teacher-led 

phonological activities in kindergarten for children with 

mild disabilities: Afollow-up study. Learning Disabilities 

Research and Practice, 13, 43-52. (followup to 

O’Connor et al., 1996) 

* Olofsson, A., & Lundberg, I. (1983). Can 

phonemic awareness be trained in kindergarten? 

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 24, 35-44. 

* Olofsson, A., & Lundberg, I. (1985). Evaluation 

of long-term effects of phonemic awareness training in 

kindergarten: Illustrations of some methodological 

problems in evaluation research. Scandinavian Journal 

of Psychology, 26, 21-34. (Followup to Olofsson & 

Lundberg, 1983) 

* Reitsma, P., & Wesseling, R. (1998). Effects of 

computer-assisted training of blending skills in 

kindergartners. Scientific Studies of Reading, 2, 

301-320. 

* Sanchez, E., & Rueda, M. (1991). Segmental 

awareness and dyslexia: Is it possible to learn to 

segment well and yet continue to read and write poorly? 

Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 3, 

11-18. 

* Schneider, W., Kuspert, P., Roth, E., Vise, M., 

& Marx, H. (1997). Short- and long-term effects of 

training phonological awareness in kindergarten: 

Evidence from two German studies. Journal of 

Experimental Child Psychology, 66, 311-340. 

* Solity, J. (1996). Phonological awareness: 

Learning disabilities revisited? Educational & Child 

Psychology, 13, 103-113. 

* Tangel, D., & Blachman, B. (1992). Effect of 

phoneme awareness instruction on kindergarten 

children’s invented spelling. Journal of Reading 

Behavior, 24, 233-261. 

* Torgesen, J., Morgan, S., & Davis, C. (1992). 

Effects of two types of phonological awareness training 

on word learning in kindergarten children. Journal of 

Educational Psychology, 84, 364-370. 

* Treiman, R., & Baron, J. (1983). 

Phonemic-analysis training helps children benefit from 

spelling sound rules. Memory and Cognition, 11, 

382-389. 

* Uhry, J., & Shepherd, M. (1993). 

Segmentation/spelling instruction as part of a first-grade 

reading program: Effects on several measures of 

reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 28, 218-233. 

* Vadasy, P., Jenkins, J., Antil, L., Wayne, S., & 

O’Connor, R. (1997). Community-based early reading 

intervention for at-risk first graders. Learning 

Disabilities Research and Practice, 12, 29-39. 

* Vadasy, P., Jenkins, J., Antil, L., et al. (1997). 

The effectiveness of one-to-one tutoring by community 

tutors for at-risk beginning readers. Learning Disability 

Quarterly, 20, 126-139. 

* Vellutino, F., & Scanlon, D. (1987). 

Phonological coding, phonological awareness, and 

reading ability: Evidence from a longitudinal and 

experimental study. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 33, 

321-363. 

* Warrick, N., Rubin, H., & Rowe-Walsh, S. 

(1993). Phoneme awareness in language-delayed 

children: Comparative studies and intervention. Annals 

of Dyslexia, 43, 153-173. 

* Weiner, S. (1994). Effects of phonemic 

awareness training on low- and middle-achieving first 

graders’ phonemic awareness and reading ability. 

Journal of Reading Behavior, 26, 277-300. 

* Williams, J. (1980). Teaching decoding with an 

emphasis on phoneme analysis and phoneme blending. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 1-15. 

2-55 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

* Wilson, J., & Frederickson, N. (1995). 

Phonological awareness training: An evaluation. 

Educational & Child Psychology, 12, 68-79. 

* Wise, B., King, J., & Olson, R. (1999). Training 

phonological awareness with and without explicit 

attention to articulation. Journal of Experimental Child 

Psychology, 72, 271-304. 

* Wise, B., King, J., & Olson, R. (in press). 

Individual differences in benefits from computerassisted remedial reading. Journal of Experimental Child 

Psychology. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-56 
 

 

Appendices 

Appendix B

Table 1: Dependent and Moderator Variables 

Included in the Meta-Analyses 

OUTCOME MEASURES 

1. Composite measures 

Phonemic awareness 

Reading 

Spelling 

2. 	Measures of phonemic awareness 

Segmentation 

Blending 

Deletion 

Other 

3. Measures of reading 

Standardized vs. experimenter-devised tests of word reading 

Standardized vs. experimenter-devised tests of nonword reading 

Reading comprehension 

4. Measures of spelling 

Standardized vs. experimenter-devised tests of spelling 

5. Measure of math achievement 

6. Test points 

Immediately after training 

First followup test (delay of 2 to 15 months) 

Second followup test (delay of 7 to 36 months) 

PROPERTIES OF PHONEMIC AWARENESS TRAINING 

1. PA skills taught: 

a. Single skill; 2 skills; 3 or more skills 

b. Segmenting and blending vs. 3 or more skills 

2. Use of letters: phonemes and letters manipulated vs. only phonemes manipulated 

3. Training unit: individuals; small groups (2 to 7 students); classrooms 

4. Identity of trainer: classroom teachers; computers; researchers/others 

5. Length of training: ranged from 1 hour to 75 hours 

CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPANTS 

1. Reader level: at-risk readers; disabled readers; normally progressing readers 

2. Grade level: preschool; kindergarten; 1st grade; 2nd through 6th grades 

3. Language: English; other (Dutch, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish) 

4. Socioeconomic status: low SES; middle-to-high SES 

2-57	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 1 (continued) (continued) (continued)

FEATURES OF THE DESIGN 

1. Group assignment: random; matched; non-equivalent 

2. Fidelity of trainers checked vs. not checked or not reported 

3. Control group: alternative treatment; no treatment 

4. Size of the sample: ranged from 9 to 383 students 

5. Internal validity (from Troia, 1999):
 

Percentage of criteria met
 

Number of critical flaws
 

6. External validity (from Troia, 1999):
 

Percentage of criteria met
 

Number of critical flaws
 

7. Methodological rigor (from Troia, 1999):
 

Overall ranking
 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE STUDY
 

Year of publication (1976 to 2000)
 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-58 
Appendices 

Appendix C 
 

Table 2: Phonemic Awareness Outcomes
 

Phonemic Awareness Outcomes: Mean Effect Sizes (d) as a Function of Moderator Variables and 

Tests to Determine Whether Effect Sizes Were Significantly Greater Than Zero at p < 0.05, Were 

Homogeneous at p < 0.05, and Differed From Each Other at p < 0.05. Effect Sizes Are 

Immediately After Training Unless Labeled as Followup. 

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Time of Posttest 

Immediate 72 0.86* No 0.79 to 0.92 ns 

Followup 14 0.73* Yes 0.61 to 0.85 

Outcome Measures of PA 

Segmentation (S) 51 0.87* No 0.79 to 0.94 S = D > B 

Blending (B) 33 0.61* No 0.52 to 0.69 S > O 

Deletion (D) 25 0.82* No 0.73 to 0.91 B = O 

Other (O) 37 0.72* No 0.64 to 0.81 D = O 

Characteristics of PA Training 

1 skill taught (1) 18 1.16* No 0.96 to 1.36 1 = 2 > 3 + 

2 skills (2) 24 1.03* No 0.92 to 1.14 

3 or more skills (3) 30 0.70* No 0.61 to 0.78 

Blend & segment only 18 0.81* No 0.67 to 0.95 ns 

3 or more skills 30 0.70* No 0.61 to 0.78 

Letters manipulated 39 0.89* No 0.80 to 0.98 ns 

Letters not manipulated. 33 0.82* No 0.73 to 0.91 

2-59 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table2(continued) (continued)(continued)

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Individual child (I) 24 0.60* Yes 0.47 to 0.72 S > I = C 

Small groups (S) 35 1.38* No 1.26 to 1.50 

Classrooms (C) 13 0.67* No 0.57 to 0.76 

Length of training 

1 to 4.5 hrs (1) 15 0.61* Yes 0.41 to 0.81 2 = 3 > 1 = 4 

5 to 9.3 hrs (2) 24 1.37* No 1.23 to 1.51 

10 to 18 hrs (3) 9 1.14* No 0.97 to 1.32 

20 to 75 hrs (4) 22 0.65* No 0.56 to 0.74 

Characteristics of Trainers 

Classroom teachers (CT) 19 0.78* No 0.70 to 0.87 RO > CT 

Researchers & others (RO) 53 0.94* No 0.84 to 1.03 

Computers (Com) 8 0.66* Yes 0.52 to 0.85 O > Com 

Others (O) 64 0.89* No 0.82 to 0.96 

Characteristics of Participants 

Reading level 

At risk (A) 15 0.95* No 0.76 to 1.14 A = N > D 

Disabled (D) 15 0.62* No 0.48 to 0.75 

Normal progress (N) 42 0.93* No 0.85 to 1.01 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-60 
Appendices 

Table2(continued) (continued)(continued)

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Grade 

Preschool (Pre) 2 2.37* No 1.93 to 2.81 Pre > K > 1 = 2 

Kindergarten (K) 39 0.95* No 0.87 to 1.04 

1st (1) 15 0.48* Yes 0.31 to 0.64 

2nd-6th (2) 16 0.70* Yes 0.56 to 0.83 

Socioeconomic status 

Low 12 1.07* No 0.93 to 1.20 ns 

Mid & High 17 1.02* No 0.87 to 1.18 

Language 

English (E) 61 0.99* No 0.90 to 1.07 E > O 

Other (O) 11 0.65* Yes 0.55 to 0.76 

Characteristics of Design 

Random assignment 33 0.87* No 0.77 to 0.97 ns 

Matched 18 0.92* No 0.75 to 1.09 

Non-equivalent 21 0.83* No 0.73 to 0.92 

Fidelity checked (FCh) 29 0.66* No 0.56 to 0.75 Not > FCh 

Not checked (Not) 43 1.02* No 0.93 to 1.11 

Treated controls 38 0.89* No 0.79 to 0.99 ns 

Untreated controls 34 0.83* No 0.75 to 0.92 

2-61 National Reading Panel 
Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table2(continued) (continued)(continued)

Size of sample 

9 to 22 students (1) 15 1.37* No 1.09 to 1.66 1 = 3 > 2 = 4 

24 to 30 students (2) 22 0.70* No 0.53 to 0.87 

31 to 53 students (3) 13 1.10* No 0.90 to 1.30 

56 to 383 students (4) 22 0.82* No 0.74 to 0.89 

Characteristics of Study 

Year of publication 

1976-1985 (1) 10 0.73* Yes 0.53 to 0.94 3 > 1 = 2 = 4 

1986-1990 (2) 16 0.72* No 0.59 to 0.85 

1991-1995 (3) 31 1.18* No 1.07 to 1.30 

1996-2000 (4) 15 0.70* No 0.59 to 0.81 

* indicates that effect size was 

significantly greater than zero at 

p < 0.05. ns indicates not 

significantly different from zero. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-62 
Appendices 

Table 3: Reading Outcomes

Reading Outcomes: Mean Effect Sizes (d) as a Function of Moderator Variables and Tests to Determine Whether 

Effect Sizes Were Significantly Greater Than Zero at p < 0.05, Were Homogeneous at p < 0.05, and Differed 

From Each Other at p < 0.05. Effect Sizes Are Immediately After Training Unless Labeled as Followup. 

Moderator Variables and 

Levels 

No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Characteristics of Outcome 

Measures 

Time of posttest 

Immediate (Im) 90 0.53* No 0.47 to 0.58 Im = 1 > 2 

1st followup (1) 35 0.45* No 0.36 to 0.54 

2nd followup (2) 8 0.23* No 0.11 to 0.34 

Type of word test 

Experimenter (E) 58 0.61* No 0.54 to 0.69 E > S 

Standardized (S) 39 0.33* No 0.24 to 0.42 

Type of pseudoword test 

Experimenter 47 0.56* No 0.48 to 0.64 ns 

Standardized 8 0.49* Yes 0.29 to 0.69 

Reading comprehension 18 0.32* No 0.18 to 0.46 

Math achievement 15 0.03ns No -0.11 to 0.16 

Characteristics of PA Training 

Immediate posttest 

1 skill taught (1) 32 0.71* No 0.58 to 0.84 1 = 2 > 3 + 

2 skills taught (2) 29 0.79* No 0.69 to 0.89 

3 or more skills (3) 29 0.27* Yes 0.19 to 0.35 

2-63 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 3 (continued) 

Moderator Variables and No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Levels 

Followup posttest 

1 skill taught (1) 11 0.55* Yes 0.37 to 0.73 2 > 1 > 3 + 

2 skills (2) 9 1.28* No 0.56 to 0.89 

3 or more skills (3) 15 0.23* Yes 0.11 to 0.37 

Blend & segment only 

(BS) 19 0.67* No 0.54 to 0.81 BS > 3 + 

3 or more skills (3) 29 0.27* Yes 0.19 to 0.35 

Immediate posttest 

Letters manipulated (L) 48 0.67* No 0.59 to 0.75 L > NoL 

Letters not manipulated 

(NoL) 42 0.38* No 0.30 to 0.46 

Followup posttest 

Letters manipulated (L) 16 0.59* No 0.45 to 0.74 L > NoL 

Letters not manipulated 

(NoL) 19 0.36* No 0.25 to 0.47 

Immediate posttest 

Individual child (I) 32 0.45* Yes 0.34 to 0.57 S > I = C 

Small groups (S) 42 0.81* No 0.71 to 0.92 

Classrooms (C) 16 0.35* No 0.26 to 0.44 

Followup posttest 

Individual child (I) 7 0.33* Yes 0.11 to 0.55 S > I = C 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-64 
Appendices 

Table 3 (continued) 

Moderator Variables and No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Levels 

Small groups (S) 18 0.83* No 0.66 to 1.00 

Classrooms (C) 10 0.30* Yes 0.18 to 0.42 

Length of training 

1 to 4.5 hrs (1) 17 0.61* Yes 0.42 to 0.79 1 = 2 = 3 > 4 

5 to 9.3 hrs (2) 23 0.76* No 0.62 to 0.89 

10 to 18 hrs (3) 19 0.86* No 0.72 to 1.00 

20 to 75 hrs (4) 25 0.31* No 0.22 to 0.39 

Characteristics of Trainers 

Immediate posttest 

Classroom teachers 

(CT) 22 0.41* No 0.33 to 0.49 RO > CT 

Researchers & others 

(RO) 68 0.64* No 0.56 to 0.73 

Followup posttest 

Classroom teachers 

(CT) 12 0.32* Yes 0.20 to 0.43 RO > CT 

Researchers & others 

(RO) 23 0.63* No 0.49 to 0.77 

Computers (Com) 8 0.33* Yes 0.16 to 0.49 O > Com 

Others (O) 82 0.55* No 0.49 to 0.61 

2-65 National Reading Panel 
Moderator Variables and No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Levels 

Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 3 (continued) 

Characteristics of Participants 

Reading level: Immediate 

posttest 

At risk (A) 27 0.86* No 0.72 to 1.00 A > D = N 

Disabled (D) 17 0.45* Yes 0.32 to 0.57 

Normal progress (N) 46 0.47* No 0.39 to 0.54 

Reading level: Followup 

posttest 

At risk 15 1.33* No 1.10 to 1.56 A > D = N 

Disabled 8 0.28* Yes 0.10 to 0.46 

Normal progress 12 0.30* Yes 0.19 to 0.42 

Grade 

Preschool (Pre) 7 1.25* No 1.01 to 1.50 Pre > K = 1 = 2 

Kindergarten (K) 40 0.48* No 0.40 to 0.56 

1st (1) 25 0.49* Yes 0.36 to 0.62 

2nd-6th (2) 18 0.49* Yes 0.35 to 0.62 

Socioeconomic status 

Low (L) 11 0.45* No 0.33 to 0.58 MH > L 

Mid & High (MH) 29 0.84* No 0.72 to 0.96 

Language 

Immediate posttest 

English (E) 72 0.63* No 0.55 to 0.70 E > O 

Other (O) 18 0.36* No 0.27 to 0.46 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-66 
Appendices 

Table 3 (continued) 

Moderator Variables and No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Levels 

Followup posttest 

English (E) 17 0.42* Yes 0.28 to 0.56 ns 

Other (O) 18 0.47* No 0.35 to 0.59 

Characteristics of Design 

Random assignment (R) 46 0.63* No 0.54 to 0.72 R > N 

Matched (M) 22 0.57* Yes 0.43 to 0.72 M = all 

Nonequivalent (N) 20 0.40* No 0.31 to 0.49 

Fidelity checked (FCh) 31 0.43* No 0.34 to 0.53 Not > FCh 

Not checked (Not) 59 0.59* No 0.51 to 0.66 

Immediate posttest 

Treated controls (T) 54 0.65* No 0.56 to 0.73 T > U 

Untreated controls (U) 36 0.41* No 0.33 to 0.49 

Followup posttest 

Treated contols (T) 20 0.62* No 0.48 to 0.75 T > U 

Untreated controls (U) 15 0.32* Yes 0.20 to 0.44 

Size of sample 

9 to 22 students (1) 24 0.72* No 0.51 to 0.92 1 = 3 > 4 

24 to 30 students (2) 22 0.54* Yes 0.37 to 0.70 2 = 1, 4 

31 to 53 students (3) 22 0.91* No 0.76 to 1.05 3 > 2 

2-67 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 3 (continued) 

Moderator Variables and No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Levels 

56 to 383 students (4) 22 0.40* No 0.33 to 0.48 

Characteristics of Study 

Year of publication 

1976-1985 (1) 20 0.77* No 0.62 to 0.93 1 = 3 > 2 = 4 

1986-1990 (2) 16 0.36* Yes 0.24 to 0.49 

1991-1995 (3) 41 0.77* No 0.67 to 0.87 

1996-2000 (4) 13 0.21* Yes 0.11 to 0.32 

* indicates that effect size was significantly greater than zero at p < 0.05. 

ns indicates not significantly different from zero. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-68 
Appendices 

Table 4: Spelling Outcomes 

Spelling Outcomes: Mean Effect Sizes (d) as a Function of Moderator Variables and Tests to 

Determine Whether Effect Sizes Were Significantly Greater Than Zero at p < 0.05, Were 

Homogeneous at p < 0.05, and Differed From Each Other at p < 0.05. Effect Sizes Are Immediately 

After Training Unless Labeled as Followup. 

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Characteristics of Outcome 

Measures 

Time of Posttest 

Immediate (Im) 39 0.59* No 0.49 to 0.68 Im > 1 = 2 

1st followup (1) 17 0.37* Yes 0.26 to 0.48 

2nd followup (2) 6 0.20* No 0.08 to 0.32 

Type of spelling test 

Experimenter (E) 24 0.75* No 0.62 to 0.89 E > S 

Standardized (S) 20 0.41* No 0.29 to 0.53 

Characteristics of PA Training 

1 skill taught (1) 17 0.74* No 0.56 to 0.92 1 = 2 > 3 + 

2 skills (2) 12 0.87* Yes 0.71 to 1.03 

3 or more skills (3) 10 0.23* No 0.07 to 0.38 

Blend & segment only (BS) 7 0.79* Yes 0.49 to 1.09 BS > 3 + 

3 or more skills (3) 10 0.23* No 0.07 to 0.38 

Letters manipulated (L) 27 0.61* No 0.50 to 0.72 L > NoL 

Letters not used (NoL) 12 0.34* No 0.25 to 0.42 

2-69 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 4: Spelling Outcomes (continued) 

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Individual child (I) 14 0.36* No 0.20 to 0.52 S > I 

Small groups (S) 20 0.77* No 0.63 to 0.90 C = all 

Classrooms (C) 5 0.56* No 0.33 to 0.78 

Length of training 

1 to 4.5 hrs (1) 0 Ñ Ñ Ñ 

5 to 9.3 hrs (2) 8 1.13* Yes 0.86 to 1.39 2 = 3 > 4 

10 to 18 hrs (3) 10 0.87* No 0.69 to 1.05 

20 to 75 hrs (4) 18 0.32* No 0.19 to 0.45 

Characteristics of Trainers 

Classroom teachers (CT) 9 0.74* No 0.58 to 0.90 CT > RO 

Researchers & others (RO) 30 0.51* No 0.39 to 0.62 

Yes 

-0.10 to 

0.28 

Computers (Com) 6 0.09ns O > Com 

Others (O) 33 0.74* No 0.63 to 0.85 

Characteristics of Participants 

Reading level 

At risk (A) 13 0.76* No 0.54 to 0.98 A = N > D 

Disabled (D) 11 0.15ns Yes -0.00 to 

0.31 

Normal progress (N) 15 0.88* No 0.74 to 1.02 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-70 
Appendices 

Table 4: Spelling Outcomes (continued) 

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Grade 

Preschool (P) 0 Ñ Ñ Ñ 

Kindergarten (K) 15 0.97* No 0.82 to 1.13 K > 1 > 2 

1st (1) 16 0.52* No 0.37 to 0.68 

2nd-6th (2) 8 0.14ns Yes -0.04 to 

0.33 

Socioeconomic status 

Low (L) 6 0.76* Yes 0.57 to 0.95 MH > L 

Mid & High (MH) 9 1.17* No 0.88 to 1.47 

Language 

English 32 0.60* No 0.49 to 0.70 ns 

Other 7 0.55* Yes 0.31 to 0.78 

Characteristics of Design 

Random assignment (R) 17 0.37* No 0.23 to 0.50 M = N > R 

Matched (M) 12 0.73* No 0.52 to 0.93 

Nonequivalent (N) 10 0.86* Yes 0.69 to 1.04 

Fidelity checked (FCh) 15 0.44* No 0.30 to 0.59 Not > FCh 

Not checked (Not) 24 0.69* No 0.57 to 0.81 

2-71 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 4: Spelling Outcomes (continued) 

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Treated controls (T) 24 0.43* No 0.30 to 0.55 U > T 

Untreated controls (U) 15 0.82* No 0.67 to 0.96 

Size of sample 

9 to 22 students (1) 15 0.85* Yes 0.59 to 1.10 2 > all 

24 to 30 students (2) 3 1.68* Yes 1.15 to 2.21 1 > 4 

31 to 53 students (3) 8 0.75* No 0.51 to 0.98 3 = 1, 4 

56 to 383 students (4) 13 0.45* No 0.34 to 0.56 

* indicates that effect size was significantly greater than zero at p < 0.05. 

 ns indicates not significantly different from zero 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-72 
Appendices 

Appendix D 
 

Table 5: Results 

Mean Effect Sizes (d) With Reading Disabled Comparisons Removed from the Data Base and Tests to 

Determine Whether Effect Sizes Were Significantly Greater Than Zero at p < 0.05, Were 

Homogeneous at p < 0.05, and Differed From Each Other at p < 0.05. 

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

SPELLING OUTCOMES 

PA Skills Taught 

1 skill taught 14 0.77* No 0.58 to 0.96 ns 

2 skills taught 11 0.89* Yes 0.72 to 1.05 

3 or more skills 3 0.93* No 0.52 to 1.33 

Blend & segment only 6 0.85* Yes 0.54 to 1.16 ns 

3 or more skills 3 0.93* No 0.52 to 1.33 

Letters manipulated (L) 17 1.00* Yes 0.85 to 1.15 L > NoL 

Letters not manipulated (NoL) 11 0.57* No 0.37 to 0.76 

Training Unit 

Individual child (I) 8 1.00* No 0.71 to 1.28 I = S > C 

Small groups (S) 15 0.94* Yes 0.78 to 1.10 

Classrooms (C) 5 0.56* No 0.33 to 0.78 

Length of training 

1 to 4.5 hrs 0 0 Ñ Ñ 

5 to 9.3 hrs 8 1.13* Yes 0.86 to 1.39 ns 

10 to 18 hrs 8 0.91* No 0.73 to 1.10 

20 to 75 hrs 9 0.75* Yes 0.50 to 1.01 

2-73 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 5: Results (continued) 

Moderator Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. 95% CI Contrasts 

Trainer 

Classroom teachers 8 0.74* No 0.58 to 0.91 ns 

Researchers and others 20 0.96* No 0.79 to 1.14 

Grade 

Preschool (Pre) 0 

Kindergarten (K) 15 0.97* No 0.82 to 1.13 K > 1 

1st (1) 13 0.66* No 0.48 to 0.85 

2nd-6th (2) 0 

Language 

English (E) 22 0.95* No 0.82 to 1.09 E > O 

Other (O) 6 0.51* Yes 0.28 to 0.75 

PHONEMIC AWARENESS 

OUTCOMES 

Letters manipulated (L) 25 1.11* No 0.99 to 1.23 L > NoL 

Letter not manipulated (NoL) 32 0.83* No 0.73 to 0.92 

* indicates that effect size was significantly greater than zero at p < 0.05. 

ns indicates not significantly different from zero. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-74 
Appendices 

Appendix E

Table 6 

Phonemic Awareness Outcomes: Mean Effect Sizes (d) Asssociated With Troia's 

Indicators of Methodological Rigor and Tests to Determine Whether Effect Sizes 

Were Significantly Greater than Zero at p < 0.05, Were Homogeneous at p < 0.05, 

and Differed From Each Other at p < 0.05. 

Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. Contrasts 

Internal Validity 

% of criteria met 

24-40% (1) 10 0.67* Yes 2 = 4 > 1 

47% (2) 5 1.35* No 4 > 3 

53% (3) 14 0.95* No 2 = 3 

59-82% (4) 14 1.66* No 

Critical Flaws 

1-2 (1) 18 1.63* No 1 > 3 > 2 

3 (2) 14 0.57* Yes 

4-5 (3) 11 0.97* No 

External Validity 

% of criteria met 

47-53% (1) 10 0.92* No 4 > 1 = 2 

56-60% (2) 14 0.81* No 3 = 2, 4, 1 

63-67% (3) 8 1.13* No 

73-81% (4) 11 1.40* No 

Critical flaws 

0 flaws 13 1.69* No 0 > all 

1 8 0.96* No 1 = 2 = 3 

2 13 0.61* Yes 

3 9 0.97* No 

2-75 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 6 (continued) 

Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. Contrasts 

Ranking 

High rigor (1-12) (1) 15 1.56* No 1 = 2 > 3 

Mid (13-24) (2) 11 1.40* No
 

Low (25-36) (3)
 17 0.69* Yes 

* indicates that effect size was significantly greater than zero at p < 0.05. 

ns indicates not significantly different from zero. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-76 
Appendices 

Table 7 

Reading Outcomes: Mean Effect Sizes (d) Asssociated With Troia's Indicators of 

Methodological Rigor and Tests to Determine Whether Effect Sizes Were 

Significantly Greater than Zero at p < 0.05, Were Homogeneous at p < 0.05, and 

Differed From Each Other at p < 0.05. 

Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. Contrasts 

Internal Validity 

% of criteria met 

24-40% (1) 11 0.49* No 2 > 1 

47% (2) 15 0.85* No 4 > 1 

53% (3) 16 0.63* No 2 = 3 = 4 

59-82% (4) 14 0.83* No 1 = 3 

Critical Flaws 

1-2 (1) 22 0.99* No 1 > 2 = 3 

3 (2) 18 0.59* Yes 

4-5 (3) 16 0.56* No 

External Validity 

% of criteria met 

47-53% (1) 16 0.98* No 1 > 2, 3 

56-60% (2) 14 0.58* Yes 1 = 4 

63-67% (3) 15 0.61* No 2 = 3 = 4 

73-81% (4) 11 0.66* No 

2-77 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Instruction 

Table 7 (continued) 

Variables and Levels No. Cases Mean d Homogen. Contrasts 

Critical Flaws 

0 flaws 17 0.90* No 0 = 3 > 1 

1 11 0.51* No 2 = all 

2 17 0.57* Yes
 

3
 11 0.92* No 

Ranking 

High rigor (1-12) (1) 19 1.00* No 1 > 2 = 3 

Mid (13-24) (2) 14 0.61* Yes
 

Low (25-36) (3)
 23 0.58* No 

* indicates that effect size was significantly greater than zero at p < 0.05. 

ns indicates not significantly different from zero. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-78 
Appendix F 
 

Studies in the Phonemic Awareness (PA) Database,
 

Their Characteristics, and Effect Sizes
 

2-79 National Reading Panel 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Participants Features of Design 

Author and Year, Treatment vs. Control No. skills Letters Tr.unit Trainer Length in hours Reader Grade Language SES Group Assign. Fidelity N (Case) 

Ball & Blachman, 1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

01 - Segment & categ. + let vs. Language,

LS 2 Yes SmG Other 9.33 Nor K lEng . R Yes 59 

02 - Segment & categ. + et vs. Nol

treatment 2 Yes SmG Other 9.33 Nor K lEng . R Yes 59 

Barker & Torgesen, 1995 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu t. PAl03 on computers vs. math on

computers 3+ No Ind Comp 13.33 AR 1st lEng . R No 36 Bentin & Leshem, 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

04 - Segment & categ. vs. Language 2 No SmG Other 10 AR K Hebr M-H R No 50 

05 - Segment & categ. vs. No treatment 2 No SmG Other 10 AR K Hebr M-H R No 41 

06 - Segment & categ. + let vs. Language 2 Yes SmG Other 10 AR K Hebr M-H R No 50 

07 - Segment & categ. + let vs. No treat. 2 Yes SmG Other 10 AR K Hebr M-H R No 41 

Blachman et al., 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

08 - Segment & categ. + let vs. No treat. 2 Yes SmG Teach 12.3 Nor K lEng Lo NE No 159 

Bradley & Bryant, 1983, 1985 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

09 - Phon. categ. vs. Semant c categ.i 1 No Ind Other 11.67 AR 1st lEng . M/R No 39 

10 - Phon. categ. vs. No treatment 1 No Ind Other 11.67 AR 1st lEng . M/R No 26 

11 - Phon. categ. + let vs. Semant c categ.i 1 Yes Ind Other 11.67 AR 1st lEng . M/R No 39 

12 - Phon. categ. + let vs. No treatment 1 Yes Ind Other 11.67 AR 1st lEng . M/R No 26 
Reports of the Subgroups 2-80 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Participants Features of Design 

Author and Year, Treatment vs. Control No. skills Letters Tr.unit Trainer Length in hours Reader Grade Language SES Group Assign. Fidelity N (Case) 

Appendix F (continued) 

Brady et al., 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mul13 t. PA vs. No treatment 3+ No aslC Teach 18 AR K lEng Lo NE Yes 42 

Brennan & Ireson, 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

14 - Segment & blend vs. No treatment 2 No aslC Teach 48 Nor K lEng M-H NE Yes 24 

Bus, 1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

15 - Segment & blend, LS vs. Pre-read

prep., LS 2 No aslC Teach 5 Nor K Dutch M-H R Yes 130 

16 - Segment & b +l lend et vs. Pre-read

prep., LS 2 Yes aslC Teach 5 Nor K Dutch M-H R Yes 134 

Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991, 95'93,' . . . . . . . . . . . . 

17 - Phon. categ. + let vs. Semant c categ.i 1 Yes SmG Other 6 Nor Pre lEng M-H R No 126 

Castle, et al., 1994, Experiment 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu PA +l18 lt. et vs. Language 3+ Yes SmG Other 5 Nor K lEng M-H M/R No 34 

- Mu PA +l19 lt. et vs. No treatment 3+ Yes SmG Other 5 Nor K lEng M-H M/R No 34 

Cunningham, 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

20 - Segment & b vs. Storl esiend 2 No SmG Other 6 Nor K lEng M-H M/R No 28 

21 - Segment, b end,l meta. vs. Stor esi 2 No SmG Other 6 Nor K lEng M-H M/R No 28 

22 - Segment & b vs. Storl esiend 2 No SmG Other 6 Nor 1st lEng M-H M/R No 28 

23 - Segment, blend, meta. vs. Stor esi 2 No SmG Other 6 Nor 1st lEng M-H M/R No 28 

Davidson & Jenkins, 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

24 - Segment, LS vs. Stor es, LSi 1 No SmG Other 8.33 Nor K lEng . NE No 20 
2-81 National Reading Panel 

Appendix F (continued) 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Participants Features of Design 

Author and Year, Treatment vs. Control No. skills Letters Tr.unit Trainer Length in hours Reader Grade Language SES Group Assign. Fidelity N (Case) 

- Bl25 end, LS vs. Stor es, LSi 1 No SmG Other 8.33 Nor K lEng . NE No 20 

26 - Segment & blend, LS vs. Stor es, LSi 2 No SmG Other 8.33 Nor K lEng . NE No 20 

Defior & Tudela, 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

27 - Categ. + let vs. Semant c categ.i 1 Yes SmG Other 30 AR 1st Span M-H R No 22 

28 - Categ. + let vs. Hand man oniatlpui 1 Yes SmG Other 30 AR 1st Span M-H R No 22 

29 - Categ. vs. Semant c categ.i 1 No SmG Other 30 AR 1st Span M-H R No 21 

30 - Categ. vs. Hand man oniatlpui 1 No SmG Other 30 AR 1st Span M-H R No 21 

Ehri & Wilce, 1987 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

31 - Segment + et vs. LSl 1 Yes Ind Other 5.6 Nor K lEng M-H M/R No 20 

Farmer et al., 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- B +l32 vs. Labelend cturesiplet 1 Yes Ind Other . Nor 1st lEng . R No 20 

- B +l33 vs. Labelend cturesiplet 1 Yes Ind Other . Nor K lEng . R No 40 

Fox & Routh, 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

34 - Read tra wini bing vs. Wlth thoutiend

endlb 1 No Ind Other 1 Nor Pre lEng M-H R No 20 

35 - Read tra wini bing vs. Wlth thoutiend

endlb 1 No Ind Other 1 AR Pre lEng M-H R No 20 

Fox & Routh, 1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Onset-ri36 me, LS vs. No treat., LS 1 No SmG Other 5 AR K lEng . R No 21 

- Onset-ri37 me, LS vs. No treat., LS 1 No SmG Other 5 AR K lEng . R No 21 
Reports of the Subgroups 2-82 Appendix F (continued) Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Participants Features of Design 

Author and Year, Treatment vs. Control No. skills Letters Tr.unit Trainer Length in hours Reader Grade Language SES Group Assign. Fidelity N (Case) 

Gross & Garnet, 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

38 - Categ. vs. No treatment 1 No SmG Other . AR K lEng Lo M/R No 12 

Haddock, 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Bl39 end, LS vs. LS 1 No aslC Teach 2.5 Nor Pre lEng . NE No 53 - B +l40 et vs. LSlend 1 Yes aslC Teach 2.5 Nor Pre lEng . NE No 48 

Hatcher et al., 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mul41 t. PA vs. No treatment 3+ No Ind Other 20 RD 1st lEng . M/R Yes 61 

- Mu PA +l42 ietlt. n Read Rec. vs. Read

Rec. 3+ Yes Ind Other 20 RD 1st lEng . M/R Yes 63 Hohn & Ehri, 1983 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

43 - Segment vs. No treatment 1 No Ind Other 2.58 Nor K lEng . M/R No 16 

44 - Segment + let vs. No treatment 1 Yes Ind Other 2.58 Nor K lEng . M/R No 16 

Hurford et al., 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- B & del45 +ietlend lon et vs. No treat. 2 Yes Ind Comp 12 AR 1st lEng M-H M/R No 99 

Iversen & Tunmer, 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu PA +l46 ietlt. n Read Rec. vs. Read

Rec. 3+ Yes Ind Other 20.88 RD 1st lEng . M/R Yes 64 Kennedy & Backman, 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu PA +l47 lt. et vs. No treatment 3+ Yes SmG Teach 75 RD 2nd+ lEng . M/R Yes 20 

Korkman & Peltoma, 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Bl48 end & categ. + let vs. Speech

therapy 2 Yes SmG Other . AR K niF . NE No 46 
2-83 National Reading Panel 

Appendix F (continued) 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Participants Features of Design 

Author and Year, Treatment vs. Control No. skills Letters Tr.unit Trainer Length in hours Reader Grade Language SES Group Assign. Fidelity N (Case) 

Kozminsky & Kozminsky, 1995 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu PA vs. Vl49 onintegratimotorlsuait. 3+ No aslC Teach 21.33 Nor K Hebr Lo NE No 61 

Lie, 1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

50 - Categ. vs. Conceptual 1 No aslC Teach . Nor 1st Norw . R No 96 

51 - Segment vs. Conceptual 1 No aslC Teach . Nor 1st Norw . R No 102 

Lovett et al., 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

52 - Segment & b +l vs. Wholend e wordlet 2 Yes Ind Comp 18 RD 2nd+ lEng . R No 13 

- Onset-r +i53 vs. Wholme e wordlet 1 Yes Ind Comp 18 RD 2nd+ lEng . R No 13 

Lundberg et al., 1988 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mul54 t. PA vs. No treatment 3+ No aslC Teach 48 Nor K Dan Lo NE No 383 

McGuinness et al., 1995, Study 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu PA +l55 Montessorietlt. vs. Noin

treat. 3+ Yes SmG Teach 66.67 Nor 1st lEng M-H NE Yes 27 

- Mu PA +l56 whoietlt. ang. vs. Noleln

treat. 3+ Yes SmG Teach 66.67 Nor 1st lEng M-H NE Yes 27 

Murray, 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

57 - Categ., LS vs. Language, LS 1 No SmG Other 4.5 Nor K lEng . R Yes 30 

58 - Segment & blend, LS vs. Language,

LS 2 No SmG Other 4.5 Nor K lEng . R Yes 30 

'O Connor & Jenkins, 1995 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

59 - Segment + to spel llet vs. LS, read 1 Yes Ind Other 3.33 AR K lEng . M/R No 10 

'O Connor et al., 1995 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

60 - Segment & blend, LS vs. LS 2 No SmG Other 5 AR K lEng Lo R Yes 45 
Reports of the Subgroups 2-84 Appendix F (continued) 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Participants Features of Design 

Author and Year, Treatment vs. Control No. skills Letters Tr.unit Trainer Length in hours Reader Grade Language SES Group Assign. Fidelity N (Case) 

- Mu t. PA, LSl61 vs. LS 3+ No SmG Other 5 AR K lEng Lo R Yes 45 

'O Connor et al., 1996, 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

62 - Segment & b +l lend et vs. No treat. 2 Yes aslC Teach 20 Nor K lEng . NE Yes 66 

63 - Segment & b +l lend et vs. No treat. 2 Yes SmG Teach 20 AR K lEng . NE Yes 14 

Olofsson & Lundberg, 1983, 1985 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mul64 t. PA scheduled vs. Nonverbal tasks 3+ No aslC Teach 12.25 Nor K Swed . NE Yes 38 

- Mul65 t. PA scheduled vs. No treatment 3+ No aslC Teach 12.25 Nor K Swed . NE Yes 26 

Reitsma & Wesseling, 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Bl66 end on computers vs. Vocab. comput. 1 No Ind Comp 4 Nor K Dutch . NE No 25 

- Bl67 end on computers vs. No treatment 1 No Ind Comp 4 Nor K Dutch . R No 56 

Sanchez & Rueda, 1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

68 - Segment + let vs. Percept-motor 1 Yes SmG Other 40 RD 2nd+ Span . R No 9 

Schneider et al., 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mul69 t. PA vs. No treatment 3+ No aslC Teach 43.75 Nor K Germ . NE No 371 

- Mul70 t. PA vs. No treatment 3+ No aslC Teach 20 Nor K Germ . NE Yes 331 

Solity, 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

71 - Segment & blend vs. Story 2 No SmG Other 14.75 Nor Pre lEng . M/R Yes 24 

Tangel & Blachman, 1992 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

72 - Segment & categ. + let vs. No treat. 2 Yes SmG Teach 13.2 Nor K lEng Lo NE No 149 
2-85 National Reading Panel 

Appendix F (continued) 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Participants Features of Design 

Author and Year, Treatment vs. Control No. skills Letters Tr.unit Trainer Length in hours Reader Grade Language SES Group Assign. Fidelity N (Case) 

Torgesen et al., 1992 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

73 - Segment & blend, LS vs. Story, LS 2 No SmG Other 7 AR K lEng Lo M/R No 31 

- Bl74 end, LS vs. Story, LS 1 No SmG Other 7 AR K lEng Lo M/R No 32 

Treiman & Baron, 1983 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Onset-ri75 me vs. Repeat sy eslabll 1 No Ind Other . Nor Pre lEng M-H Yes 8 

- Onset-ri76 me vs. Repeat sy eslabll 1 No Ind Other . Nor K lEng M-H Yes 20 

Uhry & Shepherd, 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

77 - Seg. & b +l et vs. Textlend 2 Yes SmG Comp 17.33 Nor 1st lEng M-H R No 22 

Vadasy et al., 1997 (LDRP) . . . . . . . . . . . . 

78 - Segment & categ. + let vs. No treat. 2 Yes Ind Other 54 AR 1st lEng Lo R Yes 35 

Vadasy et al., 1997 (LDQ) . . . . . . . . . . . . 

79 - Segment & b +l lend et vs. No treat. 2 Yes Ind Other 50 AR 1st lEng Lo R Yes 40 

Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987, Experiment 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu PA +l80 lt. et vs. No treatment 3+ Yes Ind Other 2.5 RD 2nd+ lEng . R No 30 

- Mu PA,l81 lt. et, word vs. Word 3+ Yes Ind Other 2.5 RD 2nd+ lEng . R No 30 

- Mu PA +l82 lt. et vs. No treatment 3+ Yes Ind Other 2.5 Nor 2nd+ lEng . R No 30 

- Mu PA,l83 lt. et, word vs. Word 3+ Yes Ind Other 2.5 Nor 2nd+ lEng . R No 30 

- Mu PA +l84 lt. et vs. No treatment 3+ Yes Ind Other 2.5 RD 2nd+ lEng . R No 30 

- Mu PA,l85 lt. et, word vs. Word 3+ Yes Ind Other 2.5 RD 2nd+ lEng . R No 30 

- Mu PA +l86 lt. et vs. No treatment 3+ Yes Ind Other 2.5 Nor 2nd+ lEng . R No 30 

- Mu PA,l87 lt. et, word vs. Word 3+ Yes Ind Other 2.5 Nor 2nd+ lEng . R No 30 
Reports of the Subgroups 2-86 

Appendix F (continued) 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Participants Features of Design 

Author and Year, Treatment vs. Control No. skills Letters Tr.unit Trainer Length in hours Reader Grade Language SES Group Assign. Fidelity N (Case) 

Warrick et al., 1993, Study II . . . . . . . . . . . . 

88 - Segment vs. No treatment 1 No SmG Other 5.33 AR K lEng . NE No 28 Weiner, 1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mul89 t. PA vs. No treatment 3+ No SmG Other 5 AR 1st lEng M-H R No 10 

- Mul90 t. PA vs. No treatment 3+ No SmG Other 5 Nor 1st lEng M-H R No 26 

Williams, 1980 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

91 - Segment & b +l lend et vs. No treat. 2 Yes aslC Teach 62.83 RD 2nd+ lEng . NE Yes 102 

92 - Segment & b +l lend et vs. No treat. 2 Yes aslC Teach 28.13 RD 2nd+ lEng . R Yes 102 

Wilson & Frederickson, 1995 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Onset-r +i93 lme et vs. No treatment 1 Yes SmG Other 26.67 RD 2nd+ lEng Lo NE Yes 48 

Wise et al., 1999 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu PA wl94 +iartit. vs. Artlc. c., LSiet 3+ Yes SmG Comp 42 RD 2nd+ lEng . R Yes 80 

- Mu PA +l95 vs. Artlt. c., LSiet 3+ Yes SmG Comp 42 RD 2nd+ lEng . R Yes 85 

Wise et al., in press . . . . . . . . . . . . 

- Mu PA +l96 vs. Reclt. p. Teachiet 3+ Yes Ind Comp 24.98 RD 2nd+ lEng . R No 200 

Abreviations:

LS = Letter-sound tra provini ing ded separate yl Mult = Mu PAlpitl. ie n 3 or more sk slli

Categ = Categor orizati. traidention nginity Recip. Teach Rec strategiteachlprocai= lesing earned and app to 

il 

ed

Meta. = Metacogn actiti itivive es to understand purposes, use of PA * E ff ect si= zes were drawn from fo ll owup test po nts.i

Read Rec. Readi= ng Recovery® program

Report

PART II: PHONICS INSTRUCTION 

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

Learning to read is a complex task for beginners. They 

must coordinate many cognitive processes to read 

accurately and fluently, including recognizing words, 

constructing the meanings of sentences and text, and 

retaining the information read in memory. An essential 

part of the process for beginners involves learning the 

alphabetic system, that is, letter-sound correspondences 

and spelling patterns, and learning how to apply this 

knowledge in their reading. Systematic phonics 

instruction is a way of teaching reading that stresses the 

acquisition of letter-sound correspondences and their 

use to read and spell words (Harris & Hodges, 1995). 

Phonics instruction is designed for beginners in the 

primary grades and for children having difficulty 

learning to read. 

In teaching phonics explicitly and systematically, several 

different instructional approaches have been used. 

These include synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, 

embedded phonics, analogy phonics, onset-rime phonics, 

and phonics through spelling. Although all explicit, 

systematic phonics approaches use a planned, 

sequential introduction of a set of phonic elements along 

with teaching and practice of those elements, they 

differ across a number of other features. For example, 

the content covered ranges from a limited to an 

elaborate set of letter-sound correspondences and 

phonics generalizations. In addition, the application 

procedures taught to children vary. Synthetic phonics 

programs teach children to convert letters into sounds 

or phonemes and then blend the sounds to form 

recognizable words. Analytic phonics avoids having 

children pronounce sounds in isolation to figure out 

words. Rather children are taught to analyze lettersound relations once the word is identified. Phonicsthrough-spelling programs teach children to transform 

sounds into letters to write words. Phonics in context 

approaches teach children to use sound-letter 

correspondences along with context cues to identify 

unfamiliar words they encounter in text. Analogy 

phonics programs teach children to use parts of written 

words they already know to identify new words. The 

distinctions between systematic phonics approaches are 

not absolute, however, and some phonics programs 

combine two or more of these types of instruction. In 

addition, these approaches differ with respect to the 

extent that controlled vocabulary (decodable text) is 

used for practicing reading connected text. Although 

differences exist, the hallmark of systematic phonics 

programs is that they delineate a planned, sequential set 

of phonic elements and they teach these elements 

explicitly and systematically. The goal in all phonics 

programs is to enable learners to acquire sufficient 

knowledge and use of the alphabetic code so that they 

can make normal progress in learning to read and 

comprehend written language. 

The purpose of this report is to examine the research 

evidence concerning systematic phonics instruction. 

The research literature was searched to identify 

experiments that compared the reading performance of 

children who had received systematic phonics 

instruction to the performance of children given 

nonsystematic phonics or no phonics instruction. The 

National Reading Panel (NRP) sought answers to the 

following questions: 

•	 Does systematic phonics instruction help children 

learn to read more effectively than nonsystematic 

phonics instruction or instruction teaching no 

phonics? 

•	 Are some types of phonics instruction more 

effective than others? Are some specific phonics 

programs more effective than others? 

•	 Is phonics instruction more effective when students 

are taught individually, in small groups, or as whole 

classes? 

•	 Is phonics instruction more effective when it is 

introduced in kindergarten or 1st grade to students 

not yet reading or in later grades after students 

have begun to read? 

•	 Is phonics instruction beneficial for children who 

are having difficulty learning to read? Is it effective 

in preventing reading failure among children who 

are at risk for developing reading problems in the 

future? Is it effective in remediating reading 

2-89	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

difficulties among children who have not made 

normal progress in learning to read? 

•	 Does phonics instruction improve children’s ability 

to read and comprehend text as well as their 

decoding and word-reading skills? 

•	 Does phonics instruction have an impact on 

children’s growth in spelling? 

•	 Is phonics instruction effective with children at 

different socioeconomic (SES) levels? 

•	 Does the type of instruction given to control groups 

as part of a study to evaluate phonics make a 

difference? 

•	 If phonics instruction is found to be more effective 

than less-phonics or no-phonics instruction, were 

the experiments that showed these effects well 

designed or poorly designed? 

Beginning reading programs that do not teach phonics 

explicitly and systematically may be of several types. In 

whole-language programs, the emphasis is upon 

meaning-based reading and writing activities. Phonics 

instruction is integrated into these activities but taught 

incidentally as teachers decide it is needed. Basal 

programs consist of a teacher’s manual and a complete 

set of books and materials that guide the teaching of 

beginning reading. Some basal programs focus on 

whole-word or meaning-based activities with limited 

attention to letter-sound constituents of words and little 

or no instruction in how to blend letters to pronounce 

words. In sight word programs, children begin by 

building a reading vocabulary of 50 to 100 words, and 

then later they learn about the alphabetic system. These 

types of non-phonics programs were among those 

taught to children in the control groups of experiments 

examined by the NRP. Distinctions among the various 

types of non-phonics programs are not absolute. 

However, their defining characteristic is that they do not 

provide explicit, systematic phonics instruction. 

Phonics programs have been used to teach young 

children to read as they progress through the primary 

grades and to remediate the reading difficulties of poor 

readers. The Panel analyzed studies that examined the 

effectiveness of phonics programs with three types of 

problem readers: children in kindergarten or 1st grade 

who were at risk for developing reading problems; older 

children of average or better intelligence who were not 

making normal progress in reading, referred to as 

disabled readers; older children who were progressing 

poorly in reading and who varied in intelligence with at 

least some of them achieving poorly in other academic 

areas, referred to as low-achieving readers. 

For children to learn to read, several capabilities must 

be developed. The focus of systematic phonics 

instruction is on helping children acquire knowledge of 

the alphabetic system and its use to decode new words, 

and to recognize familiar words accurately and 

automatically. Knowing how letters correspond to 

phonemes and larger subunits of words is essential for 

enabling beginning readers to sound out word segments 

and blend these parts to form recognizable words. 

Alphabetic knowledge is needed to figure out new 

words by analogy and to help beginners remember 

words they have read before. Knowing letter-sound 

relations also helps children to be more accurate in 

predicting words from context. In short, knowledge of 

the alphabetic system contributes greatly to children’s 

ability to read words in isolation or connected text. 

To study whether systematic phonics instruction 

improves children’s ability to read words in various 

ways, different measures have been used. Decoding 

was tested by having children read regularly spelled 

words. To test whether children could read novel 

words, pseudowords (e.g., gan, bloff, trusk) were used. 

Sight vocabulary was examined through sets of leveled, 

miscellaneous words, not all of which were spelled 

regularly. In addition to word-reading, children’s 

performance on measures of oral reading, text 

comprehension, and spelling was measured. 

To provide solid evidence, experiments to test the 

contribution of systematic phonics instruction to reading 

acquisition must be well designed. Random assignment 

of students to treatment and control groups is a 

procedure that controls for other factors and allows 

researchers to conclude that the treatment itself was 

the cause of any growth in reading. However, 

sometimes the realities of schools and teachers make it 

impossible to randomly assign students, so researchers 

have to use quasi-experimental designs, assigning 

treatment and control conditions to already existing 

groups. Although researchers should administer pretests 

to determine whether the treatment and control groups 

differed prior to treatment and then remove any 

differences statistically when outcomes are analyzed, 

this is not always done. Also, larger sample sizes 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-90 
Executive Summary 

provide more reliable findings, but access to many 

students is not always possible. In evaluating the 

evidence, the Panel attempted to rule out weak designs 

as the explanation for any positive effects that were 

produced by systematic phonics instruction. 

Methodology 

To evaluate the evidence, the NRP conducted a metaanalysis. The literature was searched electronically to 

locate potential studies. To qualify for the analysis, 

studies had to meet the following criteria: 

1.	 Studies had to adopt an experimental or quasiexperimental design with a control group. 

2.	 Studies had to appear in a refereed journal after 

1970. 

3.	 Studies had to provide data testing the hypothesis 

that systematic phonics instruction improves reading 

performance more than instruction providing 

unsystematic phonics or no phonics instruction. To 

be considered an instance of phonics instruction, the 

treatment had to teach children to identify or use 

symbol-sound correspondences systematically. 

4.	 Studies had to measure reading as an outcome. 

5.	 Studies had to report statistics permitting the 

calculation or estimation of effect sizes. 

6.	 Studies were not those already included in the 

NRP’s meta-analysis of phonemic awareness 

training studies. 

From the potentially relevant list of references, 75 

studies that appeared to meet the criteria were 

identified and located. These were carefully reviewed 

to determine their suitability for the meta-analysis. 

Studies of instructional interventions that might be found 

in schools were sought. Short-term laboratory studies 

and studies that taught only a limited set of processes 

were eliminated. Also eliminated were studies that 

simply compared different forms of phonics instruction 

but did not include a control group receiving reduced 

phonics or no phonics. Of the 75 studies screened, 38 

were retained and 37 were eliminated from the final set 

used to calculate effect sizes. 

The primary statistic used in the analysis of 

performance on outcome measures was effect size, 

indicating whether and by how much performance of 

the treatment group exceeded performance of the 

control group, with the difference expressed in standard 

deviation units. From the 38 studies entered into the 

database, 66 treatment-control group comparisons were 

derived. 

Studies were coded for several characteristics that 

were included as moderators in the meta-analysis: 

•	 Type of phonics program (synthetic programs 

emphasizing instruction in the sounding out and 

blending of words vs. programs teaching students to 

decode using larger subunits of words such as 

phonograms, as well as letters and sounds vs. 

miscellaneous programs), 

•	 Specific phonics programs that were evaluated in at 

least three different studies (Direct Instruction; 

Lippincott; Orton Gillingham; Sing Spell Read and 

Write; Benchmark Word ID; New Primary Grades 

Reading System) 

•	 Type of program taught to the control group (basal 

program, regular curriculum, whole language 

approach, whole word program, miscellaneous 

programs) 

•	 Group assignment procedure (random assignment 

or nonequivalent groups) 

•	 Number of participants (blocked into quartiles) 

•	 Grade level (kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd through 

6th grades) 

•	 Reading ability (normally developing, at risk, low 

achiever, reading disabled) 

•	 Socioeconomic status (low, middle, varied, not 

given) 

•	 Instructional delivery unit (class, small groups, 

1:1 tutoring). 

Children identified as being low achieving or at risk for 

reading failure were those tested and shown to have 

poor letter knowledge, poor phonemic awareness, or 

poor reading skills, or those in schools with low 

achievement, or those identified by teachers as needing 

special help in reading, or those who qualified for 

remedial programs in schools but the criteria for 

selection were not specified. Children classified as 

2-91	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

reading disabled were those identified according to IQreading discrepancy criteria in standard use by 

researchers or those given tests to determine that the 

disability was reading-specific. In some cases, 

exclusionary criteria were applied as well (e.g., no 

neurological, behavioral, or emotional disorders). 

Across the studies, the effects of phonics instruction on 

reading were most commonly assessed at the end of 

training. For programs lasting longer than one year, 

outcomes were measured at the end of each year in 

most cases. The primary outcome used in the metaanalysis was that assessed at the end of training or at 

the end of one year, whichever came first. Effect sizes 

were calculated on six types of outcome measures: 

•	 Decoding regularly spelled real words 

•	 Reading novel words in the form of pseudowords 

•	 Reading miscellaneous words some of which were 

irregularly spelled 

•	 Spelling words 

•	 Comprehending text read silently or orally 

•	 Reading text accurately aloud. 

The mean effect size across these measures was 

calculated to yield a general literacy measure for each 

comparison. A statistical program was employed to 

calculate effect sizes and to test the influence of 

moderator variables on effect sizes. An effect size of 

d = 0.20 is considered small; a moderate effect size is 

d = 0.50; an effect size of d = 0.80 or above is large. 

Results and Conclusions 

There were 38 studies from which 66 treatment-control 

group comparisons were derived. Although each 

comparison could contribute up to six effect sizes, one 

per outcome measure, few studies did. The majority 

(76%) of the effect sizes involved reading or spelling 

single words while 24% involved text reading. The 

imbalance favoring single words is not surprising given 

that the focus of phonics instruction is on improving 

children’s ability to read and spell words. Moroever, 

many of the studies were conducted with beginning 

readers whose reading development at the time of the 

study was too limited to assess textual reading. Studies 

limiting instructional attention to children with reading 

problems accounted for 65% of the comparisons, 38% 

involving poor readers considered at risk or low 

achieving, and 27% diagnosed as reading disabled 

(RD). Studies involving first graders were 

overrepresented in the database, accounting for 38% of 

the comparisons. Fewer kindergartners (12%) and 

children in 2nd through 6th grades (23%) were 

represented. Children in the RD group spanned several 

ages and grades, ranging from ages 6 to 13 and grades 

2 through 6. Most of the studies (72%) were recent, 

conducted in the last 10 years. 

Systematic phonics instruction typically involves 

explicitly teaching students a prespecified set of lettersound relations and having students read text that 

provides practice using these relations to decode words. 

Instruction lacking an emphasis on phonics instruction 

does not teach letter-sound relations systematically and 

selects text for children according to other principles. 

The latter form of instruction includes whole word 

programs, whole language programs, and some basal 

reader programs. 

The meta-analyses were conducted to answer several 

questions about the impact of systematic phonics 

instruction on growth in reading when compared to 

instruction that does not emphasize phonics. Findings 

provided strong evidence substantiating the impact of 

systematic phonics instruction on learning to read. 

1. Does systematic phonics instruction 

help children learn to read more 

effectively than nonsystematic phonics 

instruction or instruction teaching no 

phonics? 

Children’s reading was measured at the end of training 

if it lasted less than a year or at the end of the first 

school year of instruction. The mean overall effect size 

produced by phonics instruction was moderate in size 

and statistically greater than zero, d = 0.44. Findings 

provided solid support for the conclusion that systematic 

phonics instruction makes a bigger contribution to 

children’s growth in reading than alternative programs 

providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-92 
Executive Summary 

2. Are some types of phonics instruction 

more effective than others? Are some 

specific phonics programs more effective 

than others? 

Three types of phonics programs were compared in the 

analysis: (1) synthetic phonics programs which 

emphasized teaching students to convert letters 

(graphemes) into sounds (phonemes) and then to blend 

the sounds to form recognizable words; (2) larger-unit 

phonics programs which emphasized the analysis and 

blending of larger subparts of words (i.e., onsets, rimes, 

phonograms, spelling patterns) as well as phonemes; (3) 

miscellaneous phonics programs that taught phonics 

systematically but did this in other ways not covered by 

the synthetic or larger-unit categories or were unclear 

about the nature of the approach. The analysis showed 

that effect sizes for the three categories of programs 

were all significantly greater than zero and did not differ 

statistically from each other. The effect size for 

synthetic programs was d = 0.45, for larger-unit 

programs, d = 0.34, and for miscellaneous programs, d 

= 0.27. The conclusion supported by these findings is 

that various types of systematic phonics approaches are 

significantly more effective than non-phonics 

approaches in promoting substantial growth in reading. 

There were seven programs that were examined in 

three or more treatment-control group comparisons in 

the database. Analysis of the effect sizes produced by 

these programs revealed that all were statistically 

greater than zero and none differed statistically from 

the others in magnitude. Effect sizes ranged from d = 

0.23 to 0.68. In most cases there were only three or 

four comparisons contributing effect sizes, so results 

may be unreliable. The conclusion drawn is that specific 

systematic phonics programs are all significantly more 

effective than non-phonics programs; however, they do 

not appear to differ significantly from each other in their 

effectiveness although more evidence is needed to 

verify the reliability of effect sizes for each program. 

3. Is phonics taught more effectively when 

students are tutored individually or when 

they are taught in small groups or when 

they are taught as classes? 

All three delivery systems proved to be effective ways 

of teaching phonics, with effect sizes of d = 0.57 

(tutoring), d = 0.43 (small group), and d = 0.39 (whole 

class). All effect sizes were statistically greater than 

zero, and no one differed significantly from the others. 

This supports the conclusion that systematic phonics 

instruction is effective when delivered through tutoring, 

through small groups, and through teaching classes of 

students. 

4. Is phonics instruction more effective 

when it is introduced to students not yet 

reading, in kindergarten or 1st grade, 

than when it is introduced in grades 

above 1st after students have already 

begun to read? 

Phonics instruction taught early proved much more 

effective than phonics instruction introduced after first 

grade. Mean effect sizes were kindergarten d = 0.56; 

first grade d = 0.54; 2nd through 6th grades d = 0.27. 

The conclusion drawn is that phonics instruction 

produces the biggest impact on growth in reading when 

it begins in kindergarten or 1st grade before children 

have learned to read independently. These results 

indicate clearly that systematic phonics instruction in 

kindergarten and 1st grade is highly beneficial and that 

children at these developmental levels are quite capable 

of learning phonemic and phonics concepts. To be 

effective, systematic phonics instruction introduced in 

kindergarten must be appropriately designed for 

learners and must begin with foundational knowledge 

involving letters and phonemic awareness. 

2-93 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

5. Is phonics instruction beneficial for 

children who are having difficulty learning 

to read? Is it effective in preventing 

reading failure among children who are 

at risk for developing reading problems in 

the future? Is it effective in remediating 

reading difficulties in children who have 

been diagnosed as reading disabled and 

children who are low-achieving readers? 

Phonics instruction produced substantial reading growth 

among younger children at risk of developing future 

reading problems. Effect sizes were d = 0.58 for 

kindergartners at risk and d = 0.74 for 1st graders at 

risk. Phonics instruction also significantly improved the 

reading performance of disabled readers (i.e., children 

with average IQs but poor reading) for whom the effect 

size was d = 0.32. These effect sizes were all 

statistically greater than zero. However, phonics 

instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the 

reading performance of low-achieving readers in 2nd 

through 6th grades (i.e., children with reading 

difficulties and possibly other cognitive difficulties 

explaining their low achievement). The effect size was 

d = 0.15, which was not statistically greater than 

chance. Possible reasons might be that the phonics 

instruction provided to low-achieving readers was not 

sufficiently intense, or that their reading difficulties 

arose from sources not treated by phonics instruction 

such as poor comprehension, or there were too few 

cases (i.e., only eight treatment-control comparisons 

pulled from three studies) to yield reliable findings. 

The conclusion drawn from these findings is that 

systematic phonics instruction is significantly more 

effective than non-phonics instruction in helping to 

prevent reading difficulties among at risk students and 

in helping to remediate reading difficulties in disabled 

readers. No conclusion is drawn in the case of lowachieving readers because it is unclear why systematic 

phonics instruction produced little growth in their 

reading and whether the finding is even reliable. Further 

research is needed to determine what constitutes 

adequate remedial instruction for low-achieving 

readers. 

6. Does phonics instruction improve 

children’s reading comprehension ability 

as well as their decoding and wordreading skills? 

Systematic phonics instruction was most effective in 

improving children’s ability to decode regularly spelled 

words (d = 0.67) and pseudowords (d = 0.60). This was 

expected because the central focus of systematic 

phonics programs is upon teaching children to apply the 

alphabetic system to read novel words. Systematic 

phonics programs also produced growth in the ability to 

read irregularly spelled words although the effect size 

was significantly lower, d = 0.40. This is not surprising 

because a decoding strategy is less helpful for reading 

these words. However, alphabetic knowledge is useful 

for establishing connections in memory that help 

children read irregular words they have read before. 

This may explain the contribution of phonics. 

Systematic phonics instruction produced significantly 

greater growth than non-phonics instruction in younger 

children’s reading comprehension ability (d = 0.51). 

However, the effects of systematic phonics instruction 

on text comprehension in readers above 1st grade were 

mixed. Although gains were significant for the subgroup 

of disabled readers (d = 0.32), they were not significant 

for the older group in general (d = 0.12). 

The conclusion drawn is that growth in word-reading 

skills is strongly enhanced by systematic phonics 

instruction when compared to non-phonics instruction 

for kindergartners and 1st graders as well as for older 

struggling readers. Growth in reading comprehension is 

also boosted by systematic phonics instruction for 

younger students and reading disabled students. These 

findings should dispel the any belief that teaching 

phonics systematically to young children interferes with 

their ability to read and comprehend text. Quite the 

opposite is the case. Whether growth in reading 

comprehension is produced generally in students above 

1st grade is less clear. 

7. Does phonics instruction have an 

impact on children’s growth in spelling? 

Systematic phonics instruction produced much growth 

in spelling among the younger students, that is, 

kindergartners and 1st graders, d = 0.67, but not among 

the older students (above 1st grade), whose effect size 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-94 
Executive Summary 

of d = 0.09 did not differ significantly from zero. One 

factor contributing to the difference is that younger 

children were given credit for using phonics-based 

knowledge to produce letter-sound spellings of words as 

well correct spellings whereas older children were not. 

Another factor may be that as children move up in the 

grades, remembering how to spell words requires 

knowledge of higher level regularities not covered in 

phonics programs. A third reason for the poor showing 

among older students may be that the majority were 

poor readers, known to have difficulty learning to spell. 

The conclusion drawn is that systematic phonics 

instruction contributed more than non-phonics 

instruction in helping kindergartners and 1st graders 

apply their knowledge of the alphabetic system to spell 

words. However, it did not improve spelling in students 

above 1st grade. 

8. Is phonics instruction effective with 

children at different SES levels? 

Systematic phonics instruction helped children at all 

SES levels make significantly greater gains in reading 

than did non-phonics instruction. The effect size for low 

SES students was d = 0.66 and for middle-class 

students was d = 0.44. Both were statistically greater 

than zero and did not differ from each other. The 

conclusion drawn is that systematic phonics instruction 

is beneficial to students regardless of their SES. 

9. Does the type of control group used to 

evaluate the effectiveness of phonics 

instruction make a difference? 

The type of nonsystematic or non-phonics instruction 

given to control groups to evaluate the effectiveness of 

systematic phonics instruction varied across studies and 

included the following types: basal programs, regular 

curriculum, whole language approaches, whole word 

programs, and miscellaneous programs. The question of 

whether systematic phonics instruction produced better 

reading growth than each type of control group was 

answered affirmatively in each case. The effect sizes 

were all positive favoring systematic phonics, were all 

statistically greater than zero, and ranged from d = 0.31 

to 0.51. No single effect size differed from any of the 

others. 

The conclusion supported by these findings is that the 

effectiveness of systematic phonics instruction found in 

the present meta-analysis did not depend on the type of 

instruction that students in the control groups received. 

Students taught phonics systematically outperformed 

students who were taught a variety of nonsystematic or 

non-phonics programs, including basal programs, whole 

language approaches, and whole-word programs. 

10. Were studies reporting the largest 

effects of phonics instruction well 

designed or poorly designed 

experiments? That is, was random 

assignment used? Were the sample sizes 

sufficiently large? Might results be 

explained by differences between 

treatment and control groups that existed 

prior to the experiment rather than by 

differences produced by the experimental 

intervention? 

The effects of systematic phonics instruction were not 

diminished when only the best designed experiments 

were singled out. The mean effect size for studies using 

random assignment to place students in treatment and 

control groups, d = 0.45, was essentially the same as 

that for studies employing quasi-experimental designs, d 

= 0.43, which used existing groups to compare phonics 

instruction and non-phonics instruction. The mean 

effect size for studies administering systematic phonics 

and non-phonics instruction to large samples of students 

did not differ from studies using the fewest students. 

For studies using between 80 and 320 students, d = 

0.49; for studies using between 20 and 31students, d = 

0.48. There were some studies that did not use random 

assignment and either failed to address the issue of preexisting differences between treatment and control 

groups or mentioned that a difference existed but did 

not adjust for differences in their analysis of results. 

The effect sizes changed very little when these 

comparisons were removed from the database, from d 

= 0.44 to d = 0.46. 

The conclusion drawn is that the significant effects 

produced by systematic phonics instruction on children’s 

growth in reading were evident in the most rigorously 

designed experiments. Significant effects did not arise 

primarily from the weakest studies. 

2-95 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

11. Is enough known about systematic 

phonics instruction to make 

recommendations for classroom 

implementation? If so, what cautions 

should be kept in mind by teachers 

implementing phonics instruction? 

Findings of the Panel regarding the effectiveness of 

systematic phonics instruction were derived from 

studies conducted in many classrooms with typical 

classroom teachers and typical American or Englishspeaking students from a variety of backgrounds and 

SES levels. Thus, the results of the analysis are 

indicative of what can be accomplished when 

systematic phonics programs are implemented in 

today’s classrooms. Systematic phonics instruction has 

been used widely over a long period of time with 

positive results. A variety of phonics programs have 

proven effective with children of different ages, 

abilities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. These facts 

should persuade educators and the public that 

systematic phonics instruction is a valuable part of a 

successful classroom reading program. The Panel’s 

findings summarized above serve to illuminate the 

conditions that make phonics instruction especially 

effective. However, caution is needed in giving a 

blanket endorsement to all kinds of phonics instruction. 

It is important to recognize that the goals of phonics 

instruction are to provide children with some key 

knowledge and skills and to insure that they know how 

to apply this knowledge in their reading and writing. 

Phonics teaching is a means to an end. To be able to 

make use of letter-sound information, children need 

phonemic awareness. That is, they need to be able to 

blend sounds together to decode words, and they need 

to break spoken words into their constituent sounds to 

write words. Programs that focus too much on the 

teaching of letter-sounds relations and not enough on 

putting them to use are unlikely to be very effective. In 

implementing systematic phonics instruction, educators 

must keep the end in mind and insure that children 

understand the purpose of learning letter-sounds and 

are able to apply their skills in their daily reading and 

writing activities. 

In addition to this general caution, several particular 

concerns should be taken into consideration to avoid 

misapplication of the findings. One concern relates to 

the commonly heard call for “intensive, systematic” 

phonics instruction. Usually the term “intensive” is not 

defined, so it is not clear how much teaching is required 

to be considered “intensive.” Questions needing further 

answers are: How many months or years should a 

phonics program continue? If phonics has been taught 

systematically in kindergarten and 1st grade, should it 

continue to be emphasized in 2nd grade and beyond? 

How long should single instructional sessions last? How 

much ground should be covered in a program? That is, 

how many letter-sound relations should be taught and 

how many different ways of using these relations to 

read and write words should be practiced for the 

benefits of phonics to be maximum? These are among 

the many questions that remain for future research. 

Secondly, the role of the teacher needs to be better 

understood. Some of the phonics programs showing 

large effect sizes are scripted in such a way that 

teacher judgment is largely eliminated. Although scripts 

may standardize instruction, they may reduce teachers’ 

interest in the teaching process or their motivation to 

teach phonics. Thus, one concern is how to maintain 

consistency of instruction and at the same time 

encourage unique contributions from teachers. Another 

concern involves what teachers need to know. Some 

phonics programs require a sophisticated understanding 

of spelling, structural linguistics, and word etymology. 

Teachers who are handed the programs but are not 

provided with sufficient inservice training to use these 

programs effectively may become frustrated. In view 

of the evidence showing the effectiveness of systematic 

phonics instruction, it is important to ensure that the 

issue of how best to prepare teachers to carry out this 

teaching effectively and creatively is given high priority. 

Knowing that all phonics programs are not the same 

brings with it the implication that teachers must 

themselves be educated about how to evaluate different 

programs, to determine which are based on strong 

evidence and how they can most effectively use these 

programs in their own classrooms. 

As with any instructional program, there is always the 

question: “Does one size fit all?” Teachers may be 

expected to use a particular phonics program with their 

class, yet it quickly becomes apparent that the program 

suits some students better than others. In the early 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-96 
Executive Summary 

grades, children are known to vary greatly in the skills 

they bring to school. There will be some children who 

already know most letter-sound correspondences, some 

children who can even decode words, and others who 

have little or no letter knowledge. Should teachers 

proceed through the program and ignore these 

students? Or should they assess their students’ needs 

and select the types and amounts of phonics suited to 

those needs? Although the latter is clearly preferable, 

this requires phonics programs that provide guidance in 

how to place students into flexible instructional groups 

and how to pace instruction. However, it is common for 

many phonics programs to present a fixed sequence of 

lessons scheduled from the beginning to the end of the 

school year. 

Finally, it is important to emphasize that systematic 

phonics instruction should be integrated with other 

reading instruction to create a balanced reading 

program. Phonics instruction is never a total reading 

program. In 1st grade, teachers can provide controlled 

vocabulary texts that allow students to practice 

decoding, and they can also read quality literature to 

students to build a sense of story and to develop 

vocabulary and comprehension. Phonics should not 

become the dominant component in a reading program, 

neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor in the 

significance attached. It is important to evaluate 

children’s reading competence in many ways, not only 

by their phonics skills but also by their interest in books 

and their ability to understand information that is read to 

them. By emphasizing all of the processes that 

contribute to growth in reading, teachers will have the 

best chance of making every child a reader. 

Directions for Further Research 

Although phonics instruction has been the subject of a 

great deal of study, there are important topics that have 

received little or no research attention, and there are 

other topics that, although previously studied, require 

further research to refine our understanding. 

Three important but neglected questions are prime 

candidates for research: What are the 

“active ingredients” in effective systematic phonics 

programs? Is phonics instruction improved when 

motivational factors are taken into account—not only 

learners’ but also teachers’ motivation to teach? How 

does the use of decodable text as early reading material 

contribute to the effectiveness of phonics programs? 

1. Active Ingredients 

Systematic phonics programs vary in many respects. It 

is important to determine whether some properties are 

essential and others are not. Because instructional time 

during the school day is limited, teachers and publishers 

of beginning reading programs need to know which 

ingredients of phonics programs yield the most benefit. 

2. Motivation 

Phonics instruction has often been portrayed as 

involving “dull drill” and “meaningless worksheets.” 

Few if any studies have investigated the contribution of 

motivation to the effectiveness of phonics programs, not 

only the learner’s motivation to learn but also the 

teacher’s motivation to teach. The lack of attention to 

motivational factors by researchers in the design of 

phonics programs is potentially very serious because 

debates about reading instruction often boil down to 

concerns about the “relevance” and “interest value” of 

how something is being taught, rather than the specific 

content of what is being taught. Future research on 

phonics instruction should investigate how best to 

motivate children in classrooms to learn the letter-sound 

associations and to apply that knowledge to reading and 

writing. It should also be designed to determine which 

approaches teachers prefer to use and are most likely 

to use effectively in their classroom instruction. 

3. Decodable Text 

Some systematic phonics programs are designed so that 

children are taught letter-sound correspondences and 

then provided with little books written carefully to 

contain the letter-sound relations that were taught. 

Some programs begin with a very limited set and 

expand these gradually. The intent of providing books 

that match children’s letter-sound knowledge is to 

enable them to experience success in decoding words 

that follow the patterns they know. The stories in such 

books often involve pigs doing jigs and cats in hats. 

Systematic phonics programs vary in the percentage of 

decodable words in 1st-grade stories and in the 

2-97 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

percentage of sight words introduced holistically to 

make a good story. Surprisingly, very little research has 

attempted to determine the contribution of decodable 

books to the effectiveness of phonics programs. 

There are other important topics to be addressed in 

future research as well. These include the following: 

•	 Should systematic phonics instruction continue 

beyond 2nd grade? If so, what are the goals of 

more advanced forms of phonics instruction and 

does this instruction contribute to growth in 

reading? 

•	 Are there ways to improve the effectiveness of 

systematic phonics instruction for poor readers 

above 1st grade? Does this instruction need to take 

account of any maladaptive reading habits the 

students have acquired or any sources impeding the 

incorporation of alphabetic knowledge and decoding 

strategies into their reading? Does this instruction 

need to take account of the type of reading 

instruction they experienced in earlier years? Does 

decoding instruction need to be combined with 

comprehension instruction? 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-98 
Report

PART II: PHONICS INSTRUCTION 

Report 

Introduction 

Learning to read is a complex task for beginners. They 

must coordinate many cognitive processes to read 

accurately and fluently. Readers must be able to apply 

their alphabetic knowledge to decode unfamiliar words 

and to remember how to read words they have read 

before. When reading connected text, they must 

construct sentence meanings and retain them in 

memory as they move on to new sentences. At the 

same time, they must monitor their word recognition to 

make sure that the words activated in their minds fit 

with the meaning of the context. In addition, they must 

link new information to what they have already read, as 

well as to their background knowledge, and use this to 

anticipate forthcoming information. When one stops to 

take stock of all the processes that readers perform 

when they read and comprehend text, one is reminded 

how amazing the act of reading is and how much there 

is for beginners to learn. 

In teaching phonics explicitly and systematically, several 

different instructional approaches have been used. 

These include synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, 

embedded phonics, analogy phonics, onset-rime phonics, 

and phonics through spelling. Although these explicit 

and systematic phonics approaches all use a planned, 

sequential introduction of a set of phonic elements with 

teaching and practice of those elements, they differ 

across a number of other features. For example, the 

content covered ranges from a limited to an elaborate 

set of letter-sound correspondences and phonic 

generalizations. The application procedures taught to 

children vary. Synthetic phonics programs teach 

children to convert letters into sounds or phonemes and 

then blend the sounds to form recognizable words. 

Analytic phonics avoids having children pronounce 

sounds in isolation to figure out words. Rather, children 

are taught to analyze letter-sound relations once the 

word is identified. Phonics-through-spelling programs 

teach children to transform sounds into letters to write 

words. Phonics in context approaches teach children to 

use sound-letter correspondences along with context 

cues to identify unfamiliar words they encounter in text. 

Analogy phonics programs teach children to use parts 

of written words they already know to identify new 

words. The distinctions between systematic phonics 

approaches are not absolute, however, and some 

phonics programs combine two or more of these types 

of instruction. In addition, these approaches differ with 

respect to the extent that controlled vocabulary 

(decodable text) is used for practicing reading 

connected text. Although these differences exist, the 

hallmark of systematic phonics programs is that they 

delineate a planned, sequential set of phonic elements, 

and they teach these elements, explicitly and 

systematically. The goal is to enable learners to acquire 

sufficient knowledge and use of the alphabetic code so 

that they can make normal progress in learning to read 

and comprehend written language. 

A key feature that distinguishes systematic phonics 

instruction from nonsystematic phonics is in the 

identification of a full array of letter-sound 

correspondences to be taught. The array includes not 

only the major correspondences between consonant 

letters and sounds but also short and long vowel letters 

and sounds, and vowel and consonant digraphs (e.g., oi, 

ea, ou, sh, ch, th). Also, it may include blends of lettersounds that recur as subunits in many words, such as 

initial blends (e.g., st, sm, bl, pr), and final stems (e.g., 

-ack, -end, -ill, -op). Learning vowel and digraph 

spelling patterns is harder for children; therefore, 

special attention is devoted to learning these relations. It 

is not sufficient just to teach the alphabetic system. 

Children need practice in applying this knowledge in 

reading and writing activities. Programs provide 

practice in various ways. Phonics programs may teach 

children decoding strategies that involve sounding out 

and blending individual letters and digraphs, or 

pronouncing and blending larger subunits such as initial 

blends and final stems of words. Programs may provide 

children with text whose words can be decoded using 

the letter-sound relations already taught. Programs may 

have children write their own text using the lettersounds taught and then have children read their own 

and others’ stories. 

2-99 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

The purpose of literacy instruction in schools is to help 

children master the many challenges of written 

language. While teachers use a variety of activities to 

accomplish this purpose, one central approach is to 

teach the alphabetic code that represents oral language 

in writing. Children need to understand how letters, 

called graphemes, stand for the smallest sounds, called 

phonemes, in spoken words. Systematic phonics 

instruction teaches beginning readers the alphabetic 

code consisting of a large set of correspondences 

between graphemes and phonemes and perhaps larger 

sub-units of words and how to use this knowledge to 

read words. In some phonics programs, beginners are 

taught a routine for transforming spellings into blends of 

phonemes that are recognized as words. Learning about 

letter-sound associations helps beginners break the code 

in learning to read. However, the English writing system 

has other higher level, word-based regularities as well, 

so, although phonics instruction contributes, it is not the 

complete solution to word identification that it is in other 

written languages that are more fully phonemic (e.g., 

Spanish). 

Over the years educators have disagreed about how 

beginning reading should be taught. Some have 

advocated starting with a systematic phonics approach 

while others have argued for a whole word approach or 

a whole language approach. Disagreement has 

centered on whether teaching should begin with 

systematic explicit instruction in symbol-sound 

correspondences, whether it should begin with whole 

words, or whether initial instruction should be 

meaning-centered with correspondences taught 

incidentally in context as needed. Most recently the 

pendulum has swung toward providing children with 

more explicit phonics instruction. Educators advocating 

this shift have claimed that there is substantial research 

showing that approaches with an emphasis on phonics 

instruction are more effective than approaches that do 

not emphasize the teaching of phonics. 

The purpose of this report was to examine the research 

evidence concerning phonics instruction. The Panel 

sought answers to the following questions: 

•	 Does systematic phonics instruction help children 

learn to read more effectively than unsystematic 

phonics instruction or instruction teaching no 

phonics? 

•	 Are some types of phonics instruction more 

effective than others? Are some specific phonics 

programs more effective than others? 

•	 Is phonics instruction more effective when it is 

introduced to students not yet reading, in 

kindergarten or 1st grade, than when it is introduced 

in grades above 1st after students have already 

begun to read? 

•	 Is phonics instruction beneficial for children who 

are having difficulty learning to read? Is it effective 

in preventing reading failure among children who 

are at risk for developing reading problems in the 

future? Is it effective in remediating reading 

difficulties among children who have not made 

normal progress in learning to read? 

•	 Is phonics taught more effectively when students 

are tutored individually, or when they are taught in 

small groups, or when they are taught as classes? 

•	 Does phonics instruction improve children’s ability 

to read connected text as well as their decoding and 

word reading skills? 

•	 Does phonics instruction have an impact on 

children’s growth in spelling? 

•	 Is phonics instruction effective with children at 

different socioeconomic levels? 

•	 Does the type of instruction given to control groups 

and used to evaluate the effectiveness of phonics 

instruction make a difference? That is, is systematic 

phonics more effective than forms of instruction 

that do not emphasize phonics, such as the whole 

word approach or meaning-centered approaches? 

•	 If phonics instruction is found to be more effective 

than less-phonics or no-phonics instruction, were 

the experiments showing these effects well 

designed or poorly designed? 

To evaluate the evidence, a meta-analysis was 

conducted. The Panel searched the literature to locate 

experimental studies published after 1970 that 

administered systematic phonics instruction to one 

group of children and administered another type of 

instruction that involved unsystematic phonics or no 

phonics to a control group. Also the studies had to 

examine phonics programs of the sort used in schools 

rather than single-process-focused laboratory 

procedures. The studies had to measure reading as an 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-100 
Report 

outcome of instruction. In addition, studies were 

excluded if they were in the Panel’s other database 

used to conduct a meta-analysis examining effects of 

phonemic awareness instruction on reading. A total of 

38 studies meeting the NRP research criteria was 

found. The studies were coded for various 

characteristics of students, instruction, and experimental 

design. A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the 

size of effects that resulted when the performance of 

students receiving systematic phonics instruction was 

compared to that of students receiving another form of 

instruction that did not focus on phonics. The outcomes 

measured following instruction included children’s ability 

to read words and pseudowords, to read and 

comprehend text, and also to spell words. 

Background and Rationale for 

the Meta-Analysis 

Historical Overview

The question of whether instruction that includes an 

initial emphasis on systematic phonics is more effective 

than other forms of instruction in teaching children to 

read has been addressed many times in the literature. 

The particular issues underlying interest in this question 

have shifted over the years, but the topic has remained 

controversial, and this has spawned a number of 

reviews of research. 

In the 1960s, the Office of Education funded the 

Cooperative Research Program in First Grade Reading 

(Bond & Dykstra, 1967, 1998) and Project Literacy 

(Levin & Williams, 1970). The First Grade studies 

involved a wide-ranging research project, consisting of 

29 separate studies in different sites, all aimed at 

determining the “best” approach to teaching beginning 

reading. In contrast, Project Literacy attempted to 

identify the basic psychological and linguistic processes 

involved in learning to read and did not focus directly on 

the pedagogy of reading. At the same time, the 

Carnegie Foundation funded Jeanne Chall’s (1967) 

comprehensive review of beginning reading instruction, 

Learning to Read: The Great Debate. That review, like 

the present report, was intended to analyze the results 

of previous research. 

Concern about beginning reading instruction was not 

confined just to the educational community but was 

very much in public discourse. Flesch (1955) had 

authored a best selling book Why Johnny Can’t Read in 

which he argued that children were being abused by the 

then-current whole word methodology. Flesh asserted 

that if children were taught only the 44 letter-sound 

correspondences, they would be able to read any word 

they encountered, and there would be no reading 

problems. Spurred on partially by Flesch and partially by 

advances in linguistics, new phonics programs were 

developed and began achieving wider usage in reading 

instruction (Aukerman, 1981; Popp, 1975). 

Chall’s (1967) review examined both the underlying 

theory and the classroom realities of these new phonics 

programs. But the core of her study was a 

comprehensive analysis of the research up to the 

mid-1960s, including the then-unpublished First Grade 

Studies. Chall’s basic conclusion continues to be cited to 

this day, her finding that early and systematic instruction 

in phonics seems to lead to better achievement in 

reading than later and less systematic phonics 

instruction. 

It is important to note that Chall, in the 1967 edition of 

her review, did not recommend any particular type of 

phonics instruction. Common forms of phonics 

instruction in the 1960s included synthetic instruction, 

analytic instruction, and linguistic readers (Aukerman, 

1981). All of these challenged the sight word approach 

of the day. However, in the 1983 edition of her review, 

Chall did suggest that synthetic phonics instruction held 

a slight edge over analytic phonics instruction. Even in 

this, her recommendation was temperate. 

Chall’s (1967) basic finding has been reaffirmed in 

nearly every research review conducted since then 

(e.g., Adams, 1990; Anderson et al., 1985; Balmuth, 

1982). Also, one of the coordinators of the First Grade 

Studies (Dykstra, 1968) published an analysis in which 

he concluded that the results of that project supported 

Chall’s basic finding (Adams, 1990). Nevertheless, the 

controversy has persisted over this issue (Grundin, 

1994; Taylor, 1998; Weaver, 1998). Part of the reason 

that the debate has continued is that phonics instruction 

has become entangled with politics and ideology 

(Goodman, 1993; McKenna, Stahl, & Reinking, 1994; 

Stahl, 1999). Another reason has been philosophical 

disagreements about how children learn to read and 

confusions about the implications of these varied points 

of view. 

2-101 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Phonics and No-Phonics Instruction

At the time of Chall’s (1967) original review, the 

contrast between phonics and the alternative “look-say” 

methods was considerable. In the look-say approach, 

children were taught to read words as wholes much like 

Chinese logographs, and they practiced reading words 

until they had acquired perhaps 50 to 100 words in their 

sight vocabularies. Only after this accomplishment, 

which occurred toward the end of 1st grade, did 

phonics instruction begin. This was truly non-phonics 

instruction because discussion of letter-sound relations 

was delayed for a considerable length of time. The 

look-say approach contrasted with a variety of phonics 

programs. These included synthetic phonics programs 

which taught children to sound out and blend words, 

linguistic programs which taught decoding through 

patterned words and phonetically controlled texts, and 

analytic phonics programs which taught children to 

analyze letter-sound relations in previously learned 

words so as to avoid pronouncing sounds in isolation 

(Aukerman, 1971, 1984). 

In the present day, whole language approaches have 

replaced the whole word method as the alternative to 

systematic phonics programs. The shift has involved a 

change from very little letter-sound instruction in 1st 

grade to a modicum of letter-sounds taught 

unsystematically. In contrast to the whole word method, 

whole language teachers are not told to wait until a 

certain point before teaching children about letter-sound 

relationships. Whereas in the 1960s, it would have been 

easy to find a 1st grade reading program without any 

phonics instruction, in the 1980s and 1990s this would 

be rare. Baumann, Hoffman, Moon, and Duffy-Hester 

(1998), in a national survey of 1,207 elementary school 

teachers, found that 63% believed that phonics should 

be taught directly and that 89% believed that skills 

instruction should be combined with literature and 

language-rich activities. Fisher, Lapp, and Flood (1999), 

in a survey of 118 California teachers, found that 64% 

of the K through 2 teachers integrated phonics 

instruction into their lessons (with some extra isolated 

phonics), and the remainder taught phonics as a 

separate part of word study. 

Whole language teachers typically provide some 

instruction in phonics, usually as part of invented 

spelling activities or through the use of graphophonemic 

prompts during reading (Routman, 1996). However, 

their approach is to teach it unsystematically and 

incidentally in context as the need arises. The whole 

language approach regards letter-sound 

correspondences, referred to as graphophonemics, as 

just one of three cueing systems (the others being 

semantic/meaning cues and syntactic/language cues) 

that are used to read and write text. Whole language 

teachers believe that phonics instruction should be 

integrated into meaningful reading, writing, listening, and 

speaking activities and taught incidentally when they 

perceive it is needed. As children attempt to use written 

language for communication, they will discover naturally 

that they need to know about letter-sound relationships 

and how letters function in reading and writing. When 

this need becomes evident, teachers are expected to 

respond by providing the instruction. 

Although some phonics is included in whole language 

instruction, important differences have been observed 

distinguishing this approach from systematic phonics 

approaches. In several vignettes portraying phonics 

instruction in whole language contexts (Dahl, Sharer, 

Lawson, & Grogran, 1999; Freppon & Dahl, 1991; 

Freppon & Headings, 1996; Mills, O’Keefe, & 

Stephens, 1992), few if any instances of vowel 

instruction were found (Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Stahl, 

1998). This contrasts with systematic phonics programs 

where the teaching of vowels is central and is 

considered essential for enabling children to decode 

(Shankweiler & Liberman, 1972). 

Another practice that is found in some systematic 

phonics programs but is not found in whole language 

programs is that of teaching children to say the sounds 

of letters and blend them to decode unfamiliar words. 

Programs that teach this procedure are referred to as 

synthetic phonics programs. Systematic phonics 

programs also commonly teach children an extensive, 

pre-specified set of letter-sound correspondences or 

phonograms while whole language programs teach a 

more limited set, in context, as needed. Systematic 

phonics programs teach phonics explicitly by delineating 

a planned, sequential set of phonic elements and 

teaching these elements explicitly and systematically; 

some systematic phonics programs also use controlled 

vocabulary (decodable text) to provide practice with 

these elements. Whole language programs do not 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-102 
Report 

prespecify the relations to be taught. It is presumed that 

exposing children to letter-sound relations as they read 

text will foster incidental learning of the relations they 

need to develop as readers. 

The meta-analysis was conducted to compare the 

effectiveness of systematic phonics instruction to other 

forms of instruction lacking an emphasis on phonics. 

Included in the database were several studies that 

provided whole language instruction to control groups 

and studies teaching whole word programs to control 

groups. In fact, two studies in the database were 

conducted for the purpose of evaluating the effects of 

whole language programs, not phonics programs. In 

these studies, phonics was the form of instruction given 

to control groups (Klesius et al., 1991; Freppon, 1991). 

Not only whole language and whole word instruction 

but also other forms of control-group instruction were 

present in the database. Several control groups received 

some type of basal instruction, usually a program 

prescribed by the school or district. Basal programs 

consist of a whole package of books and supplementary 

materials that are used to teach reading. Teachers work 

from a thick manual that details daily lesson plans based 

on a scope and sequence of the reading skills to be 

taught. Students are given workbooks to practice on 

skills. Tests are used to place students in the proper 

levels of the program and to assess mastery of skills 

(Aukerman, 1981). Basal reading programs do vary, but 

one can assume that basal readers of the same era are 

roughly similar in their characteristics. The basal 

programs given to control groups provided only limited 

or no systematic phonics instruction. 

A few studies utilized as their baseline control the 

performance of comparable classes of students enrolled 

in the same schools the year prior to the treatment 

(Snider, 1990; Vickery et al., 1987). In one case, a basal 

program was used. In the other case, the type of 

program was not specified. Campbell and Stanley 

(1966) suggest that this design contains certain threats 

to external validity, especially the differential history of 

the two groups. 

Some studies in the database included more than one 

control group. The Panel selected for the meta-analysis 

the group receiving the least phonics instruction. 

The issue of the control group is crucial. A metaanalysis compares a treatment to what is supposedly a 

constant. However, in reality, the size of the effect is a 

result of what goes on in both the treatment and the 

control groups. A treatment can be very effective but 

yield only a small effect size if instruction in the control 

group is also effective. On the other hand, if the control 

group’s instruction is particularly ineffective, by design 

or by accident, then the effect size is inflated. One must 

consider the nature of the control group in order to 

interpret an effect size. The question addressed in the 

meta-analysis was whether phonics instruction 

produced greater growth in reading than each of the 

various types of instruction given to control groups. 

Types of Phonics Instruction

The hallmarks of systematic phonics programs are that 

children receive explicit, systematic instruction in a set 

of prespecified associations between letters and sounds, 

and they are taught how to use them to read, typically in 

texts containing controlled vocabulary. However, 

phonics programs vary considerably in exactly what 

children are taught and how they are taught (Adams, 

1990; Aukerman, 1981). Approaches to phonics 

instruction may differ in several important ways 

including the following: 

1.	 How many letter-sound relations are taught, how 

they are sequenced, whether phonics 

generalizations are taught as well (e.g., “When 

there are two vowels side by side, the long sound of 

the first one is heard and the second is usually 

silent.”), whether special marks are added to letters 

to indicate their sounds, for example, curved or 

straight lines above vowels to mark them as short 

or long 

2.	 The size of the unit taught (i.e., graphemes and 

phonemes, or larger word segments called 

phonograms, for example, -ing, or -ack which 

represent the rimes in many single-syllable words) 

3.	 Whether the sounds associated with letters are 

pronounced in isolation (synthetic phonics) or only 

in the context of words (analytic phonics) 

4.	 The amount and type of phonemic awareness that 

is taught, for example, blending or segmenting 

sounds orally in words 

2-103	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

5.	 Whether instruction is sequenced according to a 

hierarchical view of learning with the steps 

regarded as a series of prerequisites (i.e., letters, 

then letter-sound relations, then words, then 

sentences) or whether multiple skills are learned 

together 

6.	 The pace of instruction 

7.	 The word reading operations that children are 

taught, for example, sounding out and blending 

letters, or using larger letter subunits to read words 

by analogy to known words 

8.	 The involvement of spelling instruction 

9.	 Whether learning activities include extensive oral 

drill-and-practice, reciting phonics rules, or filling 

out worksheets 

10.	 The type of vocabulary control provided in text 

(e.g., is the vocabulary limited mainly to words 

containing familiar letter-sound associations or are 

sight words introduced to help create a meaningful 

story?) 

11.	 Whether phonics instruction is embedded in or 

segregated from the literacy curriculum 

12.	 The teaching approach, whether it involves direct 

instruction in which the teacher takes an active role 

and students passively respond, or whether a 

“constructivist” approach is used in which the 

children learn how the letter-sound system works 

through problemsolving 

13.	 How interesting and motivating the instructional 

activities are for teachers and for students. 

Systematic phonics programs included in the Panel’s 

database varied in many of these ways; so, it should not 

be assumed that the programs taught phonics uniformly. 

One purpose of the meta-analysis was to examine 

whether different properties of phonics programs 

influenced how effective they were in teaching children 

to read. However, this purpose was thwarted by the 

fact that most studies did not describe the phonics 

instruction in sufficient detail to permit coding the 

properties listed above. As a result, the Panel selected 

only one property for coding: whether programs 

emphasized a synthetic approach in teaching children to 

read words or whether the emphasis was on larger 

subunits of words. 

A majority of the programs in the database used a 

synthetic approach to teach phonics. This instruction 

typically begins by teaching children relations between 

individual letters and pairs of letters called digraphs 

(e.g., TH, AI, CH, OI) and all 44 sounds or phonemes 

of the language. These correspondences are introduced 

systematically and sequentially. Children are taught to 

decode unfamiliar words by sounding out the letters and 

blending them to pronounce a recognizable word. 

However, the synthetic strategy presents two 

difficulties for children. One is that blending words 

containing stop consonants requires deleting “extra” 

(schwa vowel) sounds produced when letters are 

pronounced separately, for example, blending “tuh-apuh” requires deleting the “uh” sounds to produce the 

blend “tap.” The second problem is that when the 

sounds to be blended exceed two or three, it becomes 

harder to remember and manage the ordering of all 

those sounds, for example, blending “s-tuh-r-ea-m” to 

say “stream.” 

Phonics programs have been developed to address 

these difficulties. One approach used has been to teach 

students to read larger subunits of words as well as 

phonemes. For example, children learn to recognize ST, 

AP, EAM, as blends so that there are not so many 

separate parts of words to sound out and remember in 

blending them. The larger units taught might include 

onsets (i.e., the consonants that precede the vowel such 

as “st” in stop) and rimes (i.e., the vowel and following 

consonants such as “op” in stop), also called 

phonograms, and spelling patterns characterizing the 

common parts of word families (e.g., -ack as in pack 

and stack, -oat as in goat and float). Teaching children 

to analyze and pronounce parts of words provides the 

basis for teaching them the strategy of reading new 

words by analogy to known words (e.g., reading stump 

by analogy to jump). In the database, these studies are 

distinguished and classified as teaching children to 

analyze and blend words by using larger phonological 

units. 

The database included 43 treatment-control 

comparisons that taught synthetic phonics to the 

treatment groups, 11 studies that used phonics 

treatments emphasizing larger subunits for blending 

words, two comparisons that combined both types of 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-104 
Report 

programs, and ten comparisons that fit neither category, 

referred to as miscellaneous. In the meta-analysis, 

effect sizes of the three larger sets of phonics types 

were compared. 

In the database were seven phonics programs whose 

effectiveness was assessed in at least three different 

treatment-control group comparisons. All but one of the 

programs, Lovett’s analogy program, taught synthetic 

phonics. These programs together with the dates of 

publication are listed below: 

•	 Direct Instruction, also referred to as DISTAR and 

Reading Mastery (1969, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1987, 

1988) 

•	 Lovett’s adaptation of Direct Instruction (1994) 

•	 Lovett’s adaptation of the Benchmark Word 

Identification program (1994) 

•	 The Lippincott Basic Reading program (1963, 1981) 

•	 Beck and Mitroff’s New Primary Grades Reading 

System (1972) 

•	 Orton Gillingham programs (1940, 1956, 1969, 1979, 

1984) 

•	 Sing, Spell, Read, and Write (1972). 

For each program, there were at least three treatmentcontrol group comparisons testing effects of that form 

of phonics instruction; so, effect sizes were examined 

separately in a meta-analysis. Most of these programs 

were developed over 20 years ago, providing 

researchers with more time to study them than recently 

developed programs. The question addressed in the 

meta-analysis was whether these programs were 

effective in promoting growth in reading and whether 

they differed in effectiveness. There was no apriori 

reason to expect any differences. Likewise there was 

no reason to expect these programs to be more 

effective than programs not in the set being compared. 

Grade and Reading Ability

A question of particular interest to the Panel was when 

should phonics instruction begin. Should it be introduced 

in kindergarten when children may know very little 

about letters, phonemic awareness, or should it be 

started in 1st grade after children have received 

prereading or emergent reading experiences in 

kindergarten? According to Chall (1996a, b), beginners 

need to develop foundational knowledge such as 

concepts about print, phonological awareness, and letter 

names prior to formal reading instruction. Studies 

indicate that knowing letters and having phonemic 

awareness are essential for learning to use the 

alphabetic system to read and spell words (see the 

NRP review of phonemic awareness instruction). Thus, 

formal, systematic phonics instruction that expects 

students to learn to decode words in kindergarten may 

be too much. 

On the other hand, in countries such as New Zealand 

and the United Kingdom, the practice of introducing 

children to reading and writing at the age of 5 in full-day 

programs has existed for many years. The Reading 

Recovery© program (Clay, 1993) is designed to pick up 

the stragglers having difficulty at the age of 6, when 

North American children are typically just beginning 

reading instruction. Thus, the notion that kindergartners 

are not ready for formal reading instruction at age 5 is 

questionable. 

In some studies in the database, a middle road was 

taken. Children were introduced to simplified reading 

and spelling activities using a basic set of letters and 

sounds that they were taught. Instruction began by 

providing a foundation for students and then building on 

this to ease students into reading when they became 

ready for it. (See Blachman et al., 1999; Vandervelden 

& Siegel, 1997). In the meta-analysis, the contribution 

of phonics instruction at the kindergarten level was 

examined across studies that varied in how much 

phonics material was covered. 

The most important grade for teaching phonics is 

thought to be 1st grade when formal instruction in 

reading typically begins in the United States. Children 

have foundational knowledge and are ready to put it to 

use in learning to read and write. In contrast, 

introducing phonics instruction in grades above 1st 

means that children who were taught to read in some 

other way may be required to switch gears in order to 

incorporate phonics procedures into their reading and 

writing. The database included studies that introduced 

phonics to students at various grade levels. The 

question addressed in the meta-analysis was whether 

the grade level in which phonics instruction was 

introduced made any difference in the outcomes 

observed. Another related question is whether phonics 

2-105	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

instruction that was started in kindergarten is more 

effective than phonics instruction begun in 1st or 2nd 

grade. Data were probed for an answer to this question 

as well. 

Phonics instruction has also been widely regarded as 

particularly beneficial to children with reading problems 

(e.g., Foorman et al., 1998). Many studies have shown 

that reading disabled children have exceptional difficulty 

decoding words (Rack, Snowling, & Olson, 1992). In 

fact, their level of performance falls below that of 

younger non-disabled readers who read at the same 

grade-equivalent level, indicating a serious deficit in 

decoding skill. Phonics instruction that teaches disabled 

readers to decode words should remediate this deficit 

and should enable these students to make better 

progress in learning to read. The meta-analysis 

evaluated the contribution made by phonics instruction 

to growth in reading among children having difficulty 

learning to read. 

Two types of children with reading problems have been 

distinguished by researchers, children who are 

unexpectedly poor readers because their intelligence 

(an index of learning aptitude for some academic skills) 

is higher than their reading ability, and children whose 

below-average reading is not surprising given that their 

intelligence is also below average. Various labels such 

as dyslexic or learning disabled or reading disabled have 

been applied to children whose higher IQs are 

discrepant with their poor reading skill. Children whose 

lower reading scores are consistent with their lower 

IQs have been referred to as low achievers or garden 

variety poor readers (Stanovich, 1986). The question of 

interest was whether phonics instruction helps to 

remediate reading difficulties for both types of poor 

readers. Studies in the database were brought to bear 

on this question. 

Delivery Systems for Teaching Phonics

There are various delivery systems that might be used 

to teach phonics. Tutoring one-on-one is regarded as 

the ideal form of instruction for students who are having 

difficulties because it allows teachers to tailor lessons to 

address individual students’ needs. One of the best 

known tutoring programs is Reading Recovery© (Clay, 

1993). The database included three studies that 

modified Reading Recovery© lessons to include 

systematic phonics instruction (Greaney et al., 1997; 

Santa & Hoien, 1999; Tunmer & Hoover, 1993). A total 

of eight studies taught phonics through tutoring. The 

remainder of the studies utilized small groups or whole 

classes to deliver instruction. Of interest was whether 

one type of delivery system produced greater gains in 

reading than the other types. In the Panel’s analysis of 

phonemic awareness training effects, comparison of 

instructional units revealed that small groups produced 

superior learning. However, it was expected that 

tutoring would be the most effective way to teach 

phonics. 

Word Reading Processes: Assessing Growth

It is important to distinguish between the methods of 

teaching reading and the processes that learners 

acquire as they receive instruction and learn to read. 

Sometimes the two may be confused. For example, the 

term “sight word” has a “methods” meaning and a 

“process” meaning. As a method, sight words are the 

high-frequency, irregularly spelled words students are 

taught to read as unanalyzed wholes, often on flash 

cards, for example, said, once, their, come. In contrast, 

the “process meaning” of sight words refers to words 

that are stored in readers’ heads and that enable them 

to read those words immediately upon seeing them. Not 

just high-frequency words but all words that readers 

practice reading become retained as sight words in 

memory. 

Methods of teaching reading are aimed at helping 

learners acquire the processes they need to develop 

skill as readers. In considering how phonics instruction 

promotes growth in reading, it is important to describe 

the reading processes that learners are expected to 

acquire. 

Learning to read can be analyzed as involving two basic 

processes (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 

1990). One process involves learning to convert the 

letters into recognizable words. The other involves 

comprehending the meaning of the print. When children 

attain reading skill, they learn to perform both of these 

processes so that their attention and thought are 

focused on the meaning of the text while word reading 

processes operate unobtrusively and out of awareness 

for the most part. Children acquire comprehension skill 

in the course of learning to speak. Comprehension 

processes that children use to understand spoken 

language are thought to be the same ones that they use 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-106 
Report 

to read and understand text. In contrast, children do not 

acquire word reading skill in the course of learning to 

speak. This achievement requires special experiences 

and instruction. 

Many mental processes are active when readers read 

and understand text. Readers draw on their knowledge 

of language to create sentences out of word sequences. 

They access their background knowledge to construct 

meaning from the text. They retain this information in 

memory and update it as they interpret more text. 

Readers monitor their comprehension to verify that the 

information makes sense. 

A central part of text processing involves reading the 

words. Four different ways can be distinguished (Ehri, 

1991, 1994): 

1.	 Decoding: Readers convert letters into sounds and 

blend them to form recognizable words; the letters 

might be individual letters, or digraphs such as TH, 

SH, OI, or phonograms such as ER, IGH, OW, or 

spellings of common rimes such as -AP, -OT, -ICK. 

Ability to convert letter subunits into sounds comes 

from readers’ knowledge of the alphabetic system. 

2.	 Sight: Readers retrieve words they have already 

learned to read from memory. 

3.	 Analogy: Readers access in memory words they 

have already learned and use parts of the spellings 

to read new words having the same spellings (e.g., 

using -ottle in bottle to read throttle). 

4.	 Prediction: Readers use context cues, their linguistic 

and background knowledge, and memory for the 

text to anticipate or guess the identities of unknown 

words. 

Text reading is easiest when readers have learned to 

read most of the words in the text automatically by sight 

because little attention or effort is required to process 

the words. When written words are unfamiliar, readers 

may decode them or read them by analogy or predict 

the words, but these steps take added time and shift 

attention at least momentarily from the meaning of text 

to figuring out the words. 

Readers need to learn how to read words in the various 

ways to develop reading skill. The primary way to build 

a sight vocabulary is to apply decoding or analogizing 

strategies to read unfamiliar words. These ways of 

reading words help the words to become familiar. 

Processing letter-sound relations in the words through 

decoding or analogizing creates alphabetic connections 

that establish the words in memory as sight words (Ehri, 

1992; Share, 1995). 

Systematic phonics instruction is thought to contribute to 

the process of learning to read words in these various 

ways by teaching readers use of the alphabetic system. 

Alphabetic knowledge is needed to decode words, to 

retain sight words in memory, and to call on sight word 

memory to read words by analogy. In addition, the 

process of predicting words from context benefits from 

alphabetic knowledge. Word prediction is made more 

accurate when readers can combine context cues with 

letter-sound cues in guessing unfamiliar words in text 

(Tunmer & Chapman, 1998). 

One purpose of the meta-analysis was to examine 

whether phonics instruction improves readers’ ability to 

decode words and to read words by sight. To study the 

impact of phonics instruction on the various ways to 

read words, different measures have been used. The 

ability to decode words is tested by giving children 

regularly spelled words to read. The ability to decode 

novel words never read before is tested by having 

children read pseudowords. Children’s sight vocabulary 

is examined by giving them miscellaneous words 

including irregularly spelled words that are ordered by 

grade level from preprimer to the highest grades. 

Methodology 

Database 

An electronic search was conducted in two databases, 

ERIC and PsycINFO. Three sets of terms were used 

in the search. These terms were derived by the Panel 

on the basis of analyses of various reference guides 

including the Literacy Dictionary (Harris & Hodges, 

1995), the Handbook of Research on Teaching the 

English Language Arts (Flood, Jensen, Lapp, & Squire, 

1991), the Encyclopedia of English Studies and the 

Language Arts (Purves, 1994), and the Handbook of 

Reading Research (Barr, Kamil, Mosenthal, & Pearson, 

1991; Pearson, Barr, Kamil, & Mosenthal, 1984). 

• Set 1: Alphabetic code, analogy approach, code 

emphasis, compare-contrast, decodable text, 

decoding, phonemic decoding, phonetic decoding, 

phonological decoding, direct code, direct 

instruction, Reading Mastery, explicit instruction, 

2-107	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

explicit phonological processes, grapheme-phoneme 

correspondences, graphophonic, Initial Teaching 

Alphabet, letter training, letter-sound 

correspondences, linguistic method, McCracken, 

Orton-Gillingham, phoneme analysis, phoneme 

blending, phoneme-grapheme correspondences, 

phonics, Alphabetic phonics, analytic phonics, 

embedded phonics, structured phonics, synthetic 

phonics, systematic phonics, phonological 

processing, Recipe for Reading, recoding, 

phonological recoding, Slingerland approach, 

Spaulding approach, word study, word sort, words 

by analogy. These were combined using “or” 

statements, meaning that all articles indexed by any 

of these terms would be located. 

•	 Set 2: Beginning reading, beginning reading 

instruction, instruction, intervention, learning to 

decode, reading improvement, reading instruction, 

remedial training, remedial reading, remediation, 

teaching, training, disabled readers, dyslexia, 

reading difficulties, reading disability, reading failure, 

reading problems. These were combined in the 

search using “or” statements. 

•	 Set 3: Miscues, oral reading, reading ability, reading 

achievement, reading acquisition, reading aloud, 

reading comprehension, reading development, 

reading processes, reading skills, silent reading, 

story reading, word attack, word identification, 

word recognition, word reading, nonword reading. 

These, too, were combined with “or” statements. 

The three sets of terms were used to locate potentially 

relevant studies in the two databases. Articles selected 

were those that included at least one term from each 

set. Because the term spelling had not been included in 

Set 1, the search was run a second time with spelling 

crossed with Set 2 and Set 3 terms. The first search 

uncovered 391 articles in PsycINFO and 520 articles in 

ERIC. The second search uncovered 252 articles in 

PsycINFO and 210 articles in ERIC. Abstracts were 

printed and screened. 

To qualify for the analysis, studies had to meet the 

following criteria: 

1.	 Studies had to adopt an experimental or quasiexperimental design with a control group. 

2.	 Studies had to appear in a refereed journal after 

1970. 

3.	 Studies had to provide data testing the hypothesis 

that systematic phonics instruction improves reading 

performance more than instruction providing 

unsystematic phonics or no phonics instruction. To 

be considered an instance of phonics instruction, the 

treatment had to teach children to identify or use 

symbol-sound correspondences systematically. 

4.	 Studies had to measure reading as an outcome. 

5.	 Studies had to report statistics permitting the 

calculation or estimation of effect sizes. 

6.	 Studies were not those already included in the 

National Reading Panel’s meta-analysis of 

phonemic awareness training studies. 

From the various lists of references, 75 studies that 

appeared to meet the criteria were identified and 

located. The goal was to analyze studies that resembled 

each other so that the corpus would be more 

homogeneous. Studies of instructional interventions that 

might be found in schools were sought. Short-term 

laboratory studies and studies that provided instruction 

on only a limited set of processes were eliminated. Also 

eliminated were studies that simply compared different 

forms of phonics instruction but did not include a control 

group receiving reduced phonics or no phonics. Of the 

75 studies screened, 38 were retained and 37 were 

eliminated from the final set used to calculate effect 

sizes. The reasons for eliminating studies and the 

numbers of studies eliminated are listed in Table 1 on 

the next page. 

Some minor deviations from the above procedures 

occurred. More recent studies that would not yet have 

appeared in electronic searches were obtained from 

current issues of journals and preprints of in press 

papers sent to members of the Panel. Also, Blachman 

et al. (1999) conducted a 3-year longitudinal study to 

evaluate the effects of phonemic awareness and 

phonics instruction on children as they progressed from 

kindergarten through 2nd grade. Results of the first 

year were published as a separate study and included in 

the Panel’s phonemic awareness meta-analysis. Results 

of the more extensive 3-year study were included in the 

phonics instruction database. This was the only study 

analyzed in both reports. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-108 
Report 

Table 1

Reasons for Excluding Studies From the Database 

BASIS FOR REJECTION NUMBER 

Control group missing or inadequate: 5 studies 

Short-term, focused too limited, or laboratory study: 14 studies 

Inadequate statistics: 8 studies 

Inadequate outcome measures: 3 studies 

Not a study of phonics instruction: 2 studies 

Duplicate data reported in another publication already considered: 5 studies 

Total: 37 studies 

The primary statistic used in the analysis of 

performance on outcome measures was effect size, 

indicating whether and by how much performance of 

the treatment group exceeded performance of the 

control group, with the difference expressed in standard 

deviation units. The formula used to calculate raw 

effect sizes for each treatment-control comparison 

consisted of the mean of the treatment group minus the 

mean of the control group divided by a pooled standard 

deviation. 

From the 38 studies entered into the database, 66 

treatment-control group comparisons were derived. 

There were six cases in which the same control group 

was compared to two different phonics treatment 

groups. There was one study in which the same control 

group was compared to four different treatments 

(Lovett et al., in press). Each comparison was treated 

as a separate case with separate effect sizes in the 

database. 

Studies were coded for several characteristics that 

were included as moderators in the meta-analysis: 

•	 Type of phonics program (synthetic vs. larger 

subunits vs. a combination of synthetic and larger 

subunits vs. miscellaneous) 

•	 Specific phonics program if replicated in at least 

three comparisons 

•	 Type of control group (basal, regular instruction, 

whole language, whole word, miscellaneous) 

•	 Group assignment procedure (random assignment 

or nonequivalent groups) 

•	 Number of participants (blocked into quartiles) 

•	 Grade level or age 

•	 Reading ability (normally developing, at risk/low 

achiever, reading disabled) 

•	 Socioeconomic status (low, middle, varied, not 

given) 

•	 Instructional delivery unit (class, small groups, 

1:1 tutoring). 

The studies, their properties, and effect sizes are listed 

in Appendix G. 

Although the length of treatment was coded, it was not 

used as a moderator variable. Many of the studies were 

vague about the amount of time devoted to phonics 

instruction; so, it was not possible to calculate precise 

amounts of time spent, particularly in classroom studies 

which provided instruction regularly throughout the 

school year. Also, treatment length was confounded 

with other variables considered to be more important, 

2-109	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

such as whether students were tutored or taught in 

classes, whether students were poor or normally 

developing readers, whether students were beginners or 

older readers when they began instruction. 

Some studies in the database selected normally 

developing readers to include in their experiments 

whereas other studies singled out poor readers. These 

students were grouped into four types of readers for 

analysis: 

1.	 Normally developing readers: this category included 

studies in which poor readers were excluded and 

studies where no attempt was made to distinguish 

children by reading ability. 

2.	 Disabled readers: this category included children 

who were identified as reading disabled according 

to IQ-reading discrepancy criteria in standard use 

by researchers, or were given tests to determine 

that the disability was reading-specific; in some 

cases, exclusionary criteria were applied as well 

(e.g., no neurological, behavioral, economic, or 

emotional disorders); most of these children were 

above 1st grade. 

3.	 Children at risk for developing reading difficulties in 

the future (kindergartners and 1st graders). 

4.	 Children who were below average in their reading 

referred to as low achievers (children above 1st 

grade). 

The latter two groups included children who exhibited 

poor letter knowledge, poor phonemic awareness, or 

poor reading skills, or those in schools with low 

achievement, or those identified by teachers as needing 

special help in reading, or those who qualified for 

remedial programs in schools but the criteria for 

selection were not specified. The at-risk label was 

applied to children in kindergarten and 1st grade 

because they were still at a beginning level in their 

learning. Children labeled low achievers in reading were 

those in 2nd grade and above whose identity as poor 

readers was considered to be better established. Both 

groups included children who also had lower than 

average IQs qualifying them as garden variety poor 

readers with generally low academic achievement, but 

the groups were not limited to children with low IQs 

because researchers either did not measure IQ or did 

not use it to limit the readers selected for study. 

Six types of outcomes assessing growth in reading or 

spelling were distinguished: 

•	 Decoding of real words chosen to contain regular 

spelling-to-sound relationships 

•	 Reading nonsense words or pseudowords chosen to 

represent regular spelling-to-sound relationships. 

•	 Word identification (in some cases, words were 

chosen to represent irregular spelling-to-sound 

relationships) 

•	 Spelling, assessed using either developmental stages 

for younger children (Bear et al., 2000) or number 

of words correct 

•	 Comprehension of material read silently or orally 

•	 Oral reading of connected text (accuracy). 

Measures reported in studies were classified into these 

types, and effect sizes were computed for each type of 

outcome. Some studies included several measures of an 

outcome type and reported means on each measure. In 

these cases, effect sizes were calculated on each 

measure and then averaged. This step insured that no 

single treatment-control comparison contributed more 

than one effect size to any single outcome category. 

Some studies included tests to assess whether students 

were able to read or spell words that were taught 

directly during phonics instruction. These results were 

not included as outcomes in the database. 

For each comparison, the mean effect size was 

calculated across whichever of the six measures had 

been assessed in that study. This yielded an overall 

outcome measure for each comparison. When studies 

reported performance on a general reading test but no 

more specific tests, the overall effect size was based on 

the general measure. Outcomes that did not fit into the 

above categories were not entered into the database. 

Performance of students was measured at various 

points before, during, and after instruction. Entered into 

the database were outcomes of posttests measured at 

three points in time: at the end of training, at the end of 

the first school year if the program was taught for more 

than one year, after a delay following training to assess 

long-term effects. The type of posttest most commonly 

given was that occurring at the end of the program or at 

the end of the school year when the program continued; 

so, this was the outcome used in most of the analyses 

of moderator variables. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-110 
Report 

In the categorization of outcome measures, no 

distinction was drawn between standardized and 

experimenter-devised tests. Comprehension measures 

tended to be standardized. Oral reading measures 

tended to be informal reading inventories that were 

neither standardized nor developed specifically for the 

study. Word lists were both standardized and 

experimenter-devised. Standardized tests of word 

reading most commonly came from the Woodcock 

Johnson Achievement series, the Woodcock Reading 

Mastery Test, and the Wide Range Achievement 

(WRAT) test. In general, standardized measures tend to 

produce smaller effect sizes than experimenter-devised 

measures. This was observed in the NRP’s analysis of 

effects of phonemic awareness instruction on measures 

of word reading and spelling. One reason is that 

standardized tests are designed to assess reading across 

a wide range of ability levels and hence are less 

sensitive to differences at any one level in the range. 

Thus, aggregating the two types of tests would be 

expected to underestimate effect sizes slightly. 

The information and statistics required to generate and 

analyze effect sizes were entered into a separate 

database using Microsoft Excel and SPSS. The data 

entered included identification of the study, codes for 

the information listed above, means and standard 

deviations of treatment and control groups on outcome 

measures, pooled standard deviations, raw effect sizes 

(g) and effect sizes weighted for the size of the sample 

(d). When means and standard deviations were not 

available in the article, DSTAT was used to estimate 

effect sizes based on t or F values. When pretest 

differences between treatment and control groups were 

reported, effect sizes were calculated to eliminate these 

differences as far as possible. 

The DSTAT statistical package (Johnson, 1989) was 

employed to calculate effect sizes and to test the 

influence of moderator variables on effect sizes. Each 

moderator variable had at least two levels. Tests were 

conducted to determine whether the mean weighted 

effect size (d) at each level was significantly greater 

than zero at p < 0.05, whether the individual effect sizes 

at each level were homogeneous (p < 0.05), and 

whether effect sizes differed significantly at different 

levels of the moderator variables (p < 0.05). 

Consistency With the Methodology of the 

National Reading Panel 

The methodology approved by the National Reading 

Panel was adopted. The search was conducted in 

accordance with most of the prescribed procedures. 

Studies that were not published in peer-reviewed 

journals were excluded. All of the studies in the data 

base utilized experimental or quasi-experimental 

designs. (Studies using a multiple baseline design were 

not included.) The studies were coded for most of the 

specified categories plus some additional categories of 

interest for this particular analysis. Properties left 

uncoded were those where information was rarely 

provided. More properties were coded than were 

considered in the analysis. One reason for not analyzing 

effects of moderator (coded) variables on outcomes 

was that there were insufficient numbers of 

comparisons to provide a valid analysis of these effects. 

The Panel determined that a meaningful meta-analysis 

could be conducted on the data. The means and 

standard deviations that were used to calculate effect 

sizes were verified by checking all of them at least 

twice. Intercoder reliability was conducted on the 

variables used in the meta-analysis and exceeded the 

prescribed level of 90%. Disagreements were resolved 

by discussion and consensus. 

Results 

Characteristics of Studies in the Data Set 

There were 38 studies from which 66 treatment-control 

group comparisons were derived. Each comparison 

could contribute a maximum of six effect sizes, one per 

outcome measure. However, few studies included 

measures of all the outcomes. The most commonly 

assessed outcome (i.e., at the end of training or at the 

end of one year, whichever came first) was word 

identification consisting of 59 effect sizes. The least 

common outcome was oral reading with 16 effect sizes. 

The other outcomes ranged from 30 to 40 effect sizes. 

Whereas 76% of the effect sizes involved reading or 

spelling single words, only 24% involved text reading. 

Although there is a marked imbalance favoring single 

words, this is not surprising given that phonics 

instruction is aimed primarily at improving children’s 

ability to read and spell words. 

2-111 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Many of the studies limited instructional attention to 

children with reading problems. These studies 

accounted for 65% of the comparisons, with 38% 

involving poor readers considered “at risk” or low 

achieving, and 27% involving children diagnosed as 

reading disabled (RD). Studies involving 1st graders 

were overrepresented in the database compared to 

other grades and accounted for 38% of the 

comparisons. Fewer studies involved kindergartners and 

children in 2nd through 6th grades, with these groups 

contributing 12% and 23% of the comparisons, 

respectively. Children in the RD group spanned several 

ages and grades, ranging from ages 6 to 13 and grades 

2 to 6. Several properties of the studies in our database 

were examined. Of interest was whether the studies 

were older or more recent. A tally revealed the 

following distribution: 

1970 to 1979: 1 study 

1980 to 1989: 9 studies 

1990 to 2000: 28 studies 

Thus, the majority of the studies were conducted over 

the last 10 years. Most (66%) were carried out in the 

United States, but 24% were done in Canada, and the 

remainder in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New 

Zealand. Thus, the evidence came from a variety of 

locales. Other properties of comparisons in the 

database are listed in Table 2 in Appendix D. 

Effects of Phonics Instruction on Outcome 

Measures 

The statistic used to assess the effectiveness of phonics 

instruction on children’s growth in reading was effect 

size which measures how much the mean of the 

phonics group exceeded the mean of the control group 

in standard deviation units. An effect size of 1.0 

indicates that the treatment group mean was one 

standard deviation higher than the control group mean, 

suggesting a strong effect of training. An effect size of 

0 indicates that treatment and control group means 

were identical, suggesting that training had no effect. To 

judge the strength of an effect size, values suggested by 

Cohen (1988) are commonly used. An effect size of 

0.20 is considered small; a moderate effect size is 0.50; 

an effect size of 0.80 or above is large. 

An overall effect size was calculated for each of the 66 

treatment-control group comparisons. This was the 

average of the six specific outcome effect sizes (i.e., 

decoding, word reading, comprehension, etc.) or the 

effect size from a general reading measure if no 

specific outcomes were measured. In the analyses, this 

overall effect size is interpreted as assessing the impact 

of phonics instruction on growth in reading. Although 

one of the six was a spelling measure, spelling effect 

sizes contributed only 16% of the effect sizes that were 

averaged and reading measures contributed the rest 

(84%). Mean effect sizes obtained on various outcomes 

associated with levels of the moderator variables are 

reported in Table 3 (Appendix E). Effect sizes were 

tested statistically to determine whether each was 

significantly greater than zero, indicating that superior 

performance of phonics-trained groups over control 

groups was not a result of chance at p < 0.05. 

Inspection across the effect sizes listed in Table 3 

reveals that the vast majority were significantly greater 

than zero (those marked with an asterisk). This 

indicates that systematic phonics instruction was 

effective across a variety of conditions and 

characteristics. The overall mean effect size of phonics 

instruction on reading was d = 0.41 when effects of 

programs were tested at their conclusion. A few 

programs lasted longer than 1 school year. To obtain 

another index of effects, outcomes measured either at 

the end of the program or the end of the first school 

year, whichever came first, were calculated. Results 

revealed an effect size of d = 0.44. These findings 

indicate that the effect produced by phonics instruction 

on reading was moderate in size. Unless otherwise 

stated, the test point used to assess effects of 

moderator variables in the meta-analyses was that 

occurring at the end of training or at the end of the first 

school year, whichever came first. 

Phonics instruction in most of the studies lasted 1 school 

year or less. However, there were four treatmentcontrol comparisons in which longer training was 

provided. In these studies, children at risk for reading 

problems began phonics instruction in kindergarten or 

1st grade and continued for 2 or 3 years. Outcomes 

were measured at the end of each school year 

(Blachman et al., 1999; Brown & Felton, 1990; 

Torgesen et al., 1999). Characteristics and results of the 

four comparisons drawn from these studies are 

presented in Table 4. Mean effect sizes across the four 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-112 
Report 

comparisons were sizeable and their strength was 

maintained across the grades: kindergarten d = 0.46; 1st 

grade d = 0.54; 2nd grade d = 0.43. This indicates the 

value of starting phonics early and continuing to teach it 

for 2 to 3 years. (See results below for additional 

evidence regarding the value of teaching phonics early.) 

In the Blachman et al. (1999) study, instruction was not 

given to all 2nd graders but only to those who had not 

attained the goals of the program after 2 years of 

instruction. These findings point to the importance of 

programs providing tests for teachers to use to 

determine which children need additional systematic 

phonics instruction and which have mastered the 

processes taught. 

A few studies examined effects of phonics instruction 

several months after the treatment had ended. The 

specific comparisons together with their properties are 

listed in Table 4 (Appendix E). Followup tests were 

administered from 4 months to 1 year after training. As 

shown in Table 3, the effect size remained significantly 

greater than zero, indicating that the impact of phonics 

instruction lasted well beyond the end of training 

although its size was somewhat diminished (from d = 

0.51 to d = 0.27). 

The aim of phonics instruction is to help children 

acquire knowledge and use of the alphabetic system to 

read and spell words. Phonics was expected to exert its 

greatest impact on the ability to decode regularly spelled 

words and nonwords. Phonics instruction was also 

expected to exert a large effect when spelling was 

measured using a developmental spelling scale, which 

gives credit for letter-sound spellings as well as correct 

spellings (e.g., Bear et al., 2000; Blachman et al., 1999). 

These capabilities all benefit directly from alphabetic 

knowledge. Phonics instruction was expected to exert a 

significant but smaller impact on the ability to read 

miscellaneous words that included irregularly spelled 

words. Although alphabetic knowledge is not helpful for 

decoding irregularly spelled words, it does help children 

remember how to read these words (Ehri, 1998). 

Phonics instruction was expected to impact text reading 

processes. The effect was expected to be significant 

but smaller because its influence is indirect. 

From Table 3 (Appendix E), it is apparent that effect 

sizes for all six types of measures were statistically 

greater than zero, indicating that phonics instruction 

significantly improved performance on all of the 

outcome measures examined, not only word reading 

and spelling but also text processing. Inspection of the 

size of the effects provided support for the various 

hypotheses. The strongest effects occurred on 

measures of decoding regularly spelled words (d = 

0.67) and pseudowords (d = 0.60). These effects were 

statistically larger than effects observed on the other 

measures which did not differ from each other. This 

indicates that phonics instruction was especially 

effective in teaching children to decode novel words, 

one of the main goals of phonics. 

Effect sizes on comprehension measures (d = 0.27) and 

oral reading measures (d = 0.25) were statistically 

greater than zero, indicating that phonics instruction 

significantly improved children’s text processing skills as 

well as their word reading skills. The fact that effects 

of phonics instruction on reading comprehension were 

positive serves to dispel any belief that teaching phonics 

to children interferes with their ability to read and 

comprehend text. Quite the opposite is the case. 

Several reasons explain why effects were somewhat 

smaller on text processing measures than on word 

reading measures. The tests of comprehension were 

predominantly standardized tests which are less 

sensitive when the range of performance is limited. The 

target of phonics instruction is teaching children how to 

read words. Although word recognition skill influences 

how well children can read and comprehend text, there 

are other processes that are important as well. 

Moreover, readers can still get meaning from text even 

when they cannot read some of the words. 

Analysis of Moderator Variables 

Studies in the database varied in several respects that 

were coded and analyzed as moderator variables. Of 

interest was whether these moderator variables 

enhanced or limited the effectiveness of systematic 

phonics instruction on growth in reading. It is important 

to recognize the limitations of this type of analysis and 

the tentative nature of any conclusions that are drawn. 

Findings involving the impact of moderator variables on 

effect sizes cannot support strong claims about 

moderators being the cause of the difference. 

Moderator findings are no more than correlational. The 

biggest source of uncertainty is whether there is a 

hidden variable that is confounded with the moderator 

and is the true cause of the difference. 

2-113 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Characteristics of Students 

The students who received phonics instruction across 

the studies varied in two important ways that were 

expected to make a difference on the effect sizes 

produced by phonics instruction: their age or grade in 

school, and their reading ability. Kindergartners, 

particularly those at risk, know little about letters and 

sounds. Typically they are nonreaders. For them, 

phonics instruction begins by teaching letter shapes, 

letter sounds, phonemic awareness, and how to apply 

these in simplified reading and writing tasks. Later in 

kindergarten or at the beginning of 1st grade, formal 

reading instruction begins with much ground to cover. 

Children typically start as emergent readers and by the 

end of 1st grade are able to read text independently. In 

systematic phonics programs, extensive instruction is 

provided to develop children’s knowledge of the 

alphabetic system and how to use this knowledge to 

read words in and out of text. The greatest impact of 

phonics instruction is expected to occur in helping 1st 

graders get off the ground in learning to read. 

Designers of phonics programs to teach beginning 

reading expect children to start receiving instruction in 

their programs when the children are in kindergarten or 

1st grade before they have acquired any reading skill. 

Programs are designed so that children usually continue 

receiving instruction at least through 2nd grade. What 

happens when these programs are taught to children 

above 1st grade who have already acquired some 

reading skill with some other program is less clear. Are 

the older children given 1st grade catch-up instruction? 

Do the phonics strategies that they are taught compete 

or conflict with the reading skills and strategies that 

they have already acquired? If so, what is done about 

this instructionally? There are many uncertainties 

surrounding the introduction of phonics instruction to 

children in the upper grades who have already moved 

into reading. 

The database that the Panel analyzed included several 

studies with older children beyond 1st grade. Many of 

these studies involved disabled readers or low achieving 

readers who received remedial instruction designed to 

address the problems of poor readers. However, there 

were also a few studies in which phonics instruction 

was provided to normally developing readers who had 

already received instruction in other unspecified 

programs in the earlier grades. It is important to 

recognize that the question addressed in the metaanalysis of these studies was whether introducing 

phonics instruction presumably as a new program for 

these older children was effective in promoting their 

growth in reading. 

Younger vs. Older Children

To analyze the impact of age and grade combined, two 

groups of children were distinguished: the younger 

children in kindergarten and 1st grade; and the older 

students in 2nd through 6th grades. The latter group 

included the mixed age/grade comparisons involving 

reading disabled (RD) children and low achieving 

readers. The outcome variable was the effect sizes on 

the immediate posttest given either at the end of training 

or at the end of the first year of the program, whichever 

came first. 

From Table 3 (Appendix E), it is apparent that 

systematic phonics instruction produced a significant 

impact on children’s growth as readers in both groups, 

as indicated by effect sizes statistically greater than 

zero. However, phonics instruction made a larger 

contribution to younger children’s growth as readers (d 

= 0.55) than to older children’s growth (d = 0.27). The 

difference in effect sizes favoring younger children was 

statistically significant. 

The pool of effect sizes among the younger students 

was not homogeneous; so, effects were examined 

separately for kindergartners and 1st graders. From 

Table 2, it is evident that effect sizes were very similar, 

d = 0.56 for kindergartners and d = 0.54 for 1st graders. 

This shows that a moderate and significant effect size 

typified children in both grades. According to Chall 

(1992), phonics instruction should exert its greatest 

impact in the early grades. These findings show that 

effects were equally strong in both kindergarten and 1st 

grade, indicating that “early” includes both of these 

grades. There were many more studies of the impact of 

phonics in 1st grade than in kindergarten, so the 1st 

grade findings are more reliable than the kindergarten 

findings. 

Whereas the database on phonics instruction included 

only seven comparisons involving kindergartners, the 

National Reading Panel’s database of phonemic 

awareness training studies included 40 kindergarten 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-114 
 

Report 

comparisons that measured reading as an outcome. In 

the PA analysis, effects were moderate in size and 

statistically significant. The effect size in the PA 

analysis (d = 0.48) was close to the effect size 

produced by phonics instruction (d = 0.58). Combined, 

these findings clearly support the importance of 

teaching phonemic awareness and grade-appropriate 

phonics in kindergarten. Indeed, some of the phonemic 

awareness training studies that taught children to 

analyze phonemes using letters would have qualified as 

phonics studies. If these PA studies had not been 

excluded from the phonics database, there would have 

been more kindergarten comparisons. 

The above findings suggest that when phonics 

instruction is introduced and taught in kindergarten or 

1st grade to readers who have little reading ability, it 

produces a larger effect than when phonics is 

introduced in grades above 1st grade with readers who 

have already acquired some reading skills. However, 

before concluding that phonics is truly less effective 

with older children, it is important to consider several 

mitigating factors. The majority of the comparisons in 

the older group, 78%, involved either low achieving or 

disabled readers. Remediating their reading problems 

may be especially difficult. In addition, there were only 

seven comparisons involving older, normally developing 

readers, and four of these came from one study using 

the Orton-Gillingham method, a program developed for 

disabled readers, not for non-disabled upper elementary 

level readers. Perhaps other types of phonics programs 

designed expressly to improve reading in older nondisabled children might prove more effective. This 

question awaits more research. 

The set of effect sizes for the older students proved to 

be homogeneous, indicating that chance, rather than 

other moderator variables, explains the variation in 

effect sizes. The two types of poor readers, low 

achievers and RDs, contributed the majority of the 

effect sizes to this pool. These findings indicate that low 

achieving readers and disabled readers do not differ in 

their response to phonics instruction. 

Specific Outcomes in Younger Readers

Because the younger and older children differed in their 

response to phonics instruction, the question of whether 

phonics instruction impacted children’s ability to decode 

and spell words and to read text was answered 

separately for the two groups. Results in Table 3 

(Appendix E) show that, among kindergartners and 1st 

graders, phonics instruction produced significant growth 

on all six outcome measures whose effect sizes were 

statistically greater than zero. Because a central goal in 

phonics programs is to teach students to decode novel 

words, one would expect the strongest effects to be 

evident in decoding tasks. This is what was found. The 

largest effect size was produced on the measure of 

decoding regularly spelled words (d = 0.98). Moderately 

large effects were also produced on measures of 

decoding pseudowords (d = 0.67) and spelling words (d 

= 0.67). The effect size was somewhat reduced on the 

word identification outcome (d = 0.45). This is not 

surprising since tests of word identification often 

included irregularly spelled words not amenable to 

decoding. 

Phonics instruction with its emphasis on teaching lettersound relations would be expected to improve beginning 

readers’ ability to spell words by writing the sounds 

they hear. Studies with younger children commonly 

employed developmental spelling scoring systems that 

gave credit for phonetically plausible spellings, for 

example, spelling feet as FET or car as KR (Tangel & 

Blachman, 1995; Morris & Perney, 1984). This may 

explain the sizeable effect observed on the spelling 

outcome (d = 0.67). 

Among beginning readers, phonics instruction exerted a 

significant impact on reading comprehension. The 

effect size, based on ten 1st grade and one kindergarten 

comparisons, was moderate (d = 0.51). However, the 

effect size on another measure of text reading, oral 

reading, was smaller but also significantly greater than 

zero (d = 0.23 based on two kindergarten and four 1st 

grade comparisons). Why phonics skills facilitated 

reading comprehension more than oral reading is not 

clear. It may have to do with the nature of the tests. 

Standardized comprehension tests at this level generally 

use extremely short (usually one sentence) “passages.” 

On these short passages, the effects of decoding should 

be strong. Some tests, such as the Gates-MacGinitie, 

favor phonetically regular words in these passages. 

Oral reading measures, on the other hand, use longer 

passages, sometimes containing pictures which would 

enhance the utility of context. 

2-115 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

One would expect effect sizes on text reading and word 

reading to be similar because 1st graders’ ability to read 

and understand text is heavily influenced by their ability 

to read the words in the text, perhaps somewhat more 

so than in later grades. This is supported by Juel (1994) 

who found a very high correlation between word 

recognition and reading comprehension in 1st grade 

(r = 0.87) and found that the correlation was somewhat 

lower in 2nd grade (r = 0.73). 

In sum, these findings show that systematic phonics 

instruction helped beginning readers acquire and use the 

alphabetic system to read and spell words in and out of 

text. Children who were taught phonics systematically 

benefited significantly more than beginners who did not 

receive phonics instruction in their ability to decode 

regularly spelled words and nonwords, in their ability to 

remember how to read irregularly spelled words, and in 

their ability to invent phonetically plausible spellings of 

words. In addition, phonics instruction contributed 

substantially to students’ growth in reading 

comprehension and somewhat less to their oral text 

reading skill. 

Specific Outcomes in Older Readers

Students above the 1st grade were introduced to 

phonics instruction in their classes or in pull-out 

programs for periods lasting up to a school year. These 

students included children who were low achieving 

readers as well as children diagnosed as reading 

disabled. Effects of phonics instruction on six outcome 

measures were compared. Results in Table 3 

(Appendix E) show that substantial growth occurred in 

learning to decode regularly spelled words (d = 0.49) 

and pseudowords (d = 0.52), with effect sizes 

statistically greater than zero in the moderate range. 

This shows that phonics programs were significantly 

more effective than control programs in improving these 

students’ knowledge and use of the alphabetic system 

which is the focus of phonics programs. Growth in the 

reading of miscellaneous words with irregularities was 

somewhat smaller but significant (d = 0.33), indicating 

that phonics improved students’ ability to read 

irregularly spelled words, presumably by improving their 

memory for these words. 

In contrast to strong positive effects of phonics 

instruction on measures of word reading, these 

programs were not more effective than other forms of 

instruction in producing growth in spelling (d = 0.09). 

This effect size was not statistically different from zero. 

Likewise, phonics programs did not produce significant 

growth in reading comprehension (d = 0.12) although a 

small, statistically significant effect was observed on 

oral reading (d = 0.24). 

Because the comparisons involving older children 

included a large number focusing on disabled readers, 

the 17 RD comparisons were analyzed separately. 

Effect sizes proved almost identical to those for the 

larger group reported in Table 3 (Appendix E) with one 

important exception. The effect size on the measure of 

reading comprehension, though small, was statistically 

greater than zero (d = 0.27, based on eight comparisons 

that were homogeneous). This indicates that, contrary 

to the general finding of no effect, systematic phonics 

instruction did help reading disabled students 

comprehend text more successfully than nonsystematic/ 

no-phonics programs. 

Because most of the comparisons above 1st grade 

involved poor readers (78%), the conclusions drawn 

about the effects of phonics instruction on specific 

reading outcomes pertain mainly to them. Findings 

indicate that phonics instruction helps poor readers in 

2nd through 6th grades improve their word reading 

skills. However, phonics instruction appears to 

contribute only weakly, if at all, in helping poor readers 

apply these skills to read text and to spell words. There 

were insufficient data to draw any conclusions about 

the effects of phonics instruction with normally 

developing readers above 1st grade. 

The absence of effects on spelling is noteworthy since 

the same finding was detected in the Panel’s metaanalysis of phonemic awareness instruction. In the PA 

review, the Panel found that younger readers 

experienced growth in spelling as a result of phonemic 

awareness training, but the older disabled readers did 

not show improvement over controls. One possible 

explanation is that poor readers experience special 

difficulty learning to spell (Bruck, 1993). Remediation of 

this difficulty may require special instruction targeted at 

spelling. Another explanation may be that as readers 

move up in the grades, remembering the spellings of 

words is less a matter of applying letter-sound 

correspondences and more a matter of knowing more 

advanced spelling patterns and morphologically based 

regularities which is not typically addressed in phonics 

instruction. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-116 
Report 

Further research is needed to explore the value of 

phonics instruction in grades beyond 1st grade. Perhaps 

phonics instruction could be made stronger by 

combining it with instruction that helps children learn to 

read words in other ways, specifically, reading words 

from memory, reading words by analogy to known 

words, and reading words using spelling patterns and 

multisyllabic decoding strategies. Some phonics 

programs in the database did teach children about 

spelling patterns and the use of an analogy strategy to 

read words (see results presented below). Also it may 

be important for phonics programs to include systematic 

instruction in reading fluency and automaticity when 

phonics is taught to older students. A few of the 

programs in the database included exercises to promote 

fluency. Very likely, phonics programs that emphasize 

decoding exclusively and ignore the other processes 

involved in learning to read will not succeed in making 

every child a skilled reader. 

Separation of Reader Ability Groups

at Each Grade Level

To clarify whether and how readers with different 

reading abilities across the different grades responded 

to phonics instruction, treatment-control group 

comparisons were grouped by grade and reading ability. 

There were 62 comparisons with posttests administered 

when the program was completed or at the end of the 

first year of the program, whichever came first. Table 5 

(Appendix E) shows how these comparisons were 

distributed across the grade-by-reader-ability cells. 

Six groups were formed for the meta-analysis: 

• 1st grade normally achieving readers 

• 2nd through 6th grade normally achieving readers 

• kindergarten children at risk for reading problems 

• 1st grade children at risk 

• 2nd through 6th grade low achievers 

• disabled readers. 

More precise grade and age information is given in 

Table 2 (Appendix D), which lists characteristics of 

each treatment-control group comparison. 

The outcome measure was the overall effect size 

averaged across the six specific measures. Effect sizes 

significantly greater than zero were evident for five of 

the six groups of readers. From Table 3, it is apparent 

that phonics instruction contributed to growth in reading 

in all groups but the 2nd through 6th grade low achiever 

group. Among the at-risk and normal readers in 

kindergarten and 1st grades, effect sizes were 

moderate to high, ranging from d = 0.48 to d = 0.74. 

Effect sizes were smaller for 2nd though 6th grade 

normal readers (d = 0.27) and disabled readers (d = 

0.32). These findings extend the analysis above by 

revealing effect sizes for specific reader ability groups 

at each grade level. Findings indicate that the strong 

impact of phonics instruction was evident in normally 

developing 1st graders as well as at-risk kindergartners 

and 1st graders. 

There was one group for whom phonics instruction 

failed to exert a statistically significant impact on the 

students’ growth in reading. This occurred in the eight 

comparisons involving low achievers in 2nd through 6th 

grades (d = 0.15). Although smaller, the effect size for 

low achievers did not differ significantly from the effect 

size of disabled readers (d = 0.32). 

Alternative explanations for the ineffectiveness of 

phonics instruction with older poor readers in 2nd 

through 6th grades can be offered. Their reading 

difficulties may have arisen from sources other than 

decoding, such as lack of fluency or poor reading 

comprehension skills (see other sections of the NRP 

report for elaboration of these reading processes). The 

fact that the IQs of some of the children in these 

studies were below normal points to comprehension 

difficulties as a possibility. Another explanation may be 

that these children were not given sufficiently intensive 

phonics instruction to remediate their difficulties. In 

Table 4 are listed properties of the treatment-control 

group comparisons involving low achievers. Inspection 

of the characteristics of these studies reveals that only 

one provided tutoring, thought to be the most effective 

way to teach phonics (but see below), whereas seven 

involved class instruction. However, there may be too 

few studies of low achieving readers in the database 

(only eight) to draw firm conclusions. Further research 

is needed to explore how best to remediate their reading 

difficulties. 

Effects of Phonics Instruction Lasting 2 to 3 Years

The evidence on older readers above 1st grade 

reviewed so far provides no information about the 

effects of phonics instruction on older students who 

began phonics instruction in kindergarten or 1st grade. 

2-117 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

However, there is relevant evidence in the database. 

For four comparisons, phonics instruction was 

introduced in kindergarten or 1st grade to at-risk 

readers and continued beyond 1 year (Blachman et al., 

(1999); Brown & Felton, 1990; Torgesen et al., 1999). 

These treatment-control group comparisons are listed in 

Table 4 (Appendix E). At the end of 2nd grade, after 2 

to 3 years of instruction, the mean effect size was d = 

0.43. This is substantially higher than the mean effect 

size observed for older children receiving only 1 year of 

phonics instruction in grades beyond 1st (d = 0.27). 

Because there are so few cases contributing effect 

sizes, the results are mainly suggestive. They suggest 

that when phonics instruction is taught to children at the 

outset of learning to read and continued for 2 to 3 years, 

the children experience significantly greater growth in 

reading at the end of training than children who receive 

phonics instruction for only 1 year after 1st grade. 

SES

One additional characteristic of children was examined 

as a moderator variable, their socioeconomic status. 

Two different levels were represented in the database, 

low SES and middle SES. Also present were studies 

where SES was stated to vary and studies where it was 

not given. Table 3 shows that effect sizes were greater 

than zero in all cases. Phonics instruction exerted its 

strongest impact on low SES children (d = 0.66). Its 

impact was somewhat less in middle SES students (d = 

0.44) although these two values did not differ 

statistically. These findings indicate that phonics 

instruction contributes to growth in reading in both lowand middle-class students. 

Characteristics of Phonics Instruction 

The treatment-control group comparisons were 

categorized by the type of systematic phonics 

instruction taught. In all studies, the programs were 

identified in sufficient detail to determine that 

systematic phonics was taught. However, some reports 

provided less description than others. For programs that 

were well known or were fully described, the Panel 

was able to make judgments about their characteristics 

and fit them into categories. Programs that were not 

described sufficiently were included in the 

miscellaneous category. (Publications describing 

programs are referenced in Appendix C.) 

Types of Programs

It is important to recognize that the systematic phonics 

programs in the database varied not just in the way that 

the Panel categorized them but also in many other 

potentially important ways. However, the Panel’s 

choice of categories was limited by the information 

provided in studies. Most authors mentioned whether 

the program emphasized synthetic phonics or the 

teaching of blending using larger subunits of words. 

However, other properties of programs were not 

consistently mentioned. Some especially important 

properties, such as the set of letter-sound relations 

covered were rarely mentioned. The four categories 

that were employed are listed in Table 2 (Appendix D) 

along with the specific treatment-control group 

comparisons in each category. (For the future, the 

Panel urges researchers to provide full descriptions of 

programs that are studied. Journal editors also should 

insist on this.) 

Programs that emphasized systematic synthetic phonics 

were placed in one category. These programs taught 

students to transform letters into sounds (phonemes) 

and to blend the sounds to form recognizable words. 

This was by far the most common type of program, 

utilized in 39 of the comparisons. Some of the programs 

were developed by researchers while others were 

published programs, some widely used in schools, for 

example, Jolly Phonics, the Lindamood ADD program, 

the Lippincott program, Open Court, Orton Gillingham, 

Reading Mastery (also known as Direct Instruction or 

DISTAR), and Sing Spell Read & Write. 

The second category of programs did not emphasize a 

synthetic approach at the phonemic level. Rather 

children were taught to analyze and blend larger 

subunits of words such as onsets, rimes, phonograms, or 

spelling patterns along with phonemes. Some of these 

programs were referred to as embedded code programs 

because grapheme-phoneme relations were taught in 

the context of words and text. Teaching children to 

segment and blend words using onsets and rimes taught 

them about units as small as graphemes and phonemes 

because onsets (i.e., the initial consonants in words) are 

very often single phonemes. In some programs, 

recognizing rimes in words provided the basis for 

teaching students the strategy of reading new words by 

analogy to known words sharing the same rimes. Words 

in texts were built from linguistic patterns. Writing 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-118 
Report 

complemented reading in most programs. The programs 

in this category included Edmark, Hiebert’s embedded 

code program, three Reading Recovery© programs 

modified to include systematic phonics, and a program 

derived from the Benchmark Word Identification 

program. 

One of the 11 studies in the Larger Unit category, that 

by Tunmer and Hoover (1993), produced an atypical 

effect size, d = 3.71, which was much larger than the 

other effects. It should be noted that this study was 

atypical in that it was more intensive than most others. 

It involved one-on-one tutoring by highly trained 

teachers, and it combined phonemic awareness, 

phonics, and Reading Recovery© instructional 

strategies. To reduce the influence of this comparison 

on the overall mean, its effect size was reduced to 

equal the next largest effect size in the set, d = 1.41. 

(This method of adjusting effect sizes to deal with 

outliers was only applied in analyses that involved a 

small number of comparisons.) 

The third category, referred to as miscellaneous, 

consisted of phonics programs that did not fit into the 

synthetic or larger unit categories. In some studies, the 

descriptions of programs did not state that a synthetic 

strategy was taught. If the program was not known to 

teach this decoding strategy, then it was placed in the 

miscellaneous category. Also, if the scope of instruction 

was limited and did not constitute a full phonics program 

(i.e., Haskell et al., 1992; Lovett et al., 1990), it was 

considered to be miscellaneous. This set included a 

spelling program, traditional phonics basal programs, 

and some researcher-devised instruction that focused 

on word analysis procedures. 

The fourth category, referred to as combination 

programs, included only two comparisons. However, 

these could not be fit into the other categories because 

they examined the effects of teaching two of the other 

categories, a synthetic phonics program and a largerunits word analogy program (Lovett et al., in press). 

The comparisons differed in the order that the two 

programs were taught. The mean effect size for the 

combined programs was d = 0.42. 

Effect sizes reported in Table 3 show that programs in 

all three categories produced effect sizes that were 

significantly greater than zero. This verifies that the 

three types of phonics programs were more effective 

than control programs in helping children learn to read. 

The 39 synthetic phonics programs produced a 

moderate impact on growth in reading (d = 0.45). The 

11 programs that emphasized larger units created a 

somewhat smaller impact (d = 0.34) and likewise the 

ten miscellaneous programs’ effect was smaller (d = 

0.27). However, the three effect sizes did not differ 

statistically from each other (p > 0.05). There were 

relatively few comparisons in the larger unit group. 

Additional research would be useful for determining 

whether the small difference between the synthetic and 

larger unit approaches is a reliable one. 

Specific Phonics Programs

There were seven phonics programs that were studied 

in three or more treatment-control comparisons. The 

identities of programs and properties of the comparisons 

testing their effectiveness are listed in Table 6 

(Appendix F). Descriptions of the programs are 

provided in Table 7 (Appendix E). Effect sizes of these 

comparisons were subjected to a meta-analysis. Results 

in Table 3 (Appendix F) reveal that all effect sizes were 

statistically greater than zero, indicating that all the 

phonics programs produced significantly greater growth 

in reading than control group programs. The sets of 

effect sizes for all but one of the programs proved to be 

homogeneous. Effect sizes ranged from a high of d = 

0.68 for the Lippincott program to a low of d = 0.23 for 

the Orton-Gillingham-based programs. Possible reasons 

for lower effect sizes in the case of Orton Gillingham 

comparisons are evident in Table 6 (Appendix F). 

Class-based instruction predominated, and this 

instruction was tested exclusively with older students 

(2nd through 6th graders) many of whom were poor 

readers. These conditions may have made it harder to 

produce substantial growth in reading. 

Although there appear to be sizeable differences in 

effect sizes distinguishing the programs, the statistical 

test was not significant. However, drawing the 

conclusion that these programs are equally effective is 

premature because there were too few comparisons 

assessing each program to yield reliable results. Rather, 

findings should be considered suggestive in need of 

more studies for verification. 

2-119 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Evaluation of these separate programs was undertaken 

in the meta-analysis solely because of their prevalence 

in the database. The programs are older and hence 

more frequently studied than newer programs. But this 

does not mean that they are considered to be any better 

than newer programs that were not analyzed. 

Impact of Synthetic Phonics Programs on

Different Groups of Readers

Because there were so many comparisons (39) 

assessing the effects of synthetic phonics programs, it 

was possible to examine whether this type of program 

was more beneficial for some grade and reader ability 

groups than for others. Two groups, at-risk 

kindergartners and at-risk 1st graders, had the same 

effect size so they were combined into one group 

comprising nine comparisons. As evident in Table 3, all 

groups but one showed effect sizes significantly greater 

than zero, and all but one group had homogeneous sets 

of effects. This indicates that synthetic phonics 

programs produced stronger growth in reading than 

control programs in most of the different reader groups. 

Possible reasons why low-achieving readers in 2nd 

through 6th grades did not benefit were suggested 

earlier. 

Effect sizes varied across the groups. A test to 

determine whether some groups benefited more from 

synthetic phonics than other groups showed that effects 

were significantly greater for at-risk kindergartners and 

first graders (d = 0.65) than for the two groups of older 

2nd through 6th grade readers. These findings indicates 

that synthetic phonics programs were especially 

effective for younger, at-risk readers. 

Instructional Delivery Unit

Another property of systematic phonics instruction 

expected to influence growth in reading was the 

delivery unit. Three types were distinguished. There 

were eight treatments in which students received oneto-one tutoring. This was expected to be the most 

effective form of phonics instruction, particularly for 

low achieving and disabled readers, because it was 

tailored to individual students. Small group instruction 

was also expected to be especially effective because 

attention to individual students was still possible, and in 

addition, the social setting was expected to enhance 

motivation to perform and opportunities for 

observational learning. In the Panel’s review of 

phonemic awareness training studies, findings indicated 

that effect sizes were significantly greater with small 

groups than with classrooms or tutoring. Because 

classrooms involve a much higher ratio of students to 

teachers, phonics instruction delivered in this setting 

was expected to be less effective than in the other two 

settings. 

In categorizing studies, it was easiest to determine 

when tutoring was used because this was clearly stated 

and described. Identifying whether studies used small 

groups was also straightforward because training 

procedures included this descriptive although it was not 

always clear that this was the only way that instruction 

was delivered. However, in the case of whole class 

instructional, sometimes this category was attributed to 

studies by default. In many reports, descriptions made 

clear that the phonics program was taught by teachers 

to their classrooms of students, but the unit of 

instruction they used to teach the phonics part of 

programs was not explicitly stated; so, it was inferred to 

be the class. 

Before the meta-analysis was conducted, an adjustment 

was made to one effect size in the tutoring 

comparisons. This was considered important because 

there were only eight comparisons in this set. One of 

the tutoring studies (Tunmer & Hoover, 1993) produced 

an atypical effect size, d = 3.71, which was much larger 

than the other effects. To limit the influence of this 

comparison on the overall mean, its value was reduced 

to equal the next largest effect size in the set, d = 1.99. 

Results of the analysis of effect sizes for the three 

types of instructional units revealed that all produced 

positive effects that were statistically greater than zero, 

indicating that tutoring, small groups and classes were 

all effective ways to deliver phonics instruction to 

students (see Table 3). In addition, the set of effect 

sizes for comparisons involving small groups was 

homogeneous, indicating that small group effects are 

not explained by additional moderator variables and that 

the mean is a good estimate of the actual effect size, d 

= 0.43. 

Tutoring produced an effect size of d = 0.57 which was 

greater than the effect size for small groups, d = 0.43, 

and for classrooms, d = 0.39. However, none of these 

effects differed statistically from each other. This 

evidence falls short in supporting the expectation that 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-120 
Report 

tutoring would prove especially effective for teaching 

phonics. However, perhaps there were too few 

comparisons assessing the effects of tutoring (only 

eight) to yield reliable findings. On the other hand, it 

might be noted that the instructional delivery given to 

the control groups against which tutoring was compared 

did not involve tutoring in the majority (62%) of the 

cases. This inequality should have given tutoring an 

extra advantage. However, it did not. 

Inspection of effect sizes for individual studies in Table 

2 reveals that some whole class programs produced 

effect sizes as large, and sometimes larger, than those 

produced by small groups or tutoring. Given the 

enormous expense and impracticality of delivering 

instruction in small groups or individually—except for 

children who have serious reading difficulties— 

research is needed to determine what makes whole 

class phonics instruction effective. 

It is interesting to note that the same comparison of 

instructional units was conducted in the meta-analysis 

of phonemic awareness training effects. Results 

showed that small groups were significantly more 

effective than tutoring or classrooms. Why small groups 

were more effective for teaching phonemic awareness 

but not phonics is not clear and awaits further research. 

Type of Control Group

To test whether systematic phonics programs produced 

superior growth in reading, researchers utilized control 

groups that received unsystematic phonics or nophonics instruction. The types of control groups chosen 

by researchers varied across the studies. As mentioned 

earlier, some studies included more than one type of 

control group. Selected for analysis were the control 

groups that were taught the least amount of phonics. 

These were categorized into five types based on 

descriptions and labels provided in the studies: basal, 

regular curriculum, whole language, whole word, and 

miscellaneous. 

Usually basal programs were those already in use at 

schools. “Regular curriculum” was the label covering 

cases in which controls received the traditional 

curriculum or the regular class curriculum in use at 

schools with no further specification of its contents 

other that asserting it did not teach phonics 

systematically. This category covered cases where 

performance in that grade at that school during previous 

years was used as a baseline without additional 

description of the actual program taught. In 

comparisons involving students identified as at risk by 

schools, control groups received the standard 

intervention offered by the schools to treat reading 

problems. 

Whole language was the label used by authors to 

characterize programs. In two studies (Freppon, 1991; 

Klesius et al., 1991), the purpose was to examine the 

effectiveness of whole language programs, not phonics 

programs that were taught to control groups. In both 

cases, phonics was taught with a “skill and drill” basal 

program that was not well described. Control groups 

that were taught with a Big Books program and with 

language experience were labeled as whole language. 

There were a few programs given to control groups 

that taught whole words or sight words without much 

attention to letter-sound relations. These were classed 

as whole word programs. 

Control group programs that did not fit into one of these 

categories were placed in a miscellaneous category. 

These included programs teaching traditional spelling, 

academic study skills, and tutoring in academic subjects. 

In one case, as a control for parents teaching their own 

children systematic phonics, the children spent time 

reading books to their parents (Leach & Siddall, 1990). 

Of interest was whether phonics instruction would 

produce superior growth in reading regardless of the 

type of control group, and whether phonics instruction 

would appear more effective when compared to some 

types of control groups than to others. There were no a 

priori reasons for expecting effect sizes to be influenced 

by the type of control group, particularly since the 

criteria of standard-classroom instruction with minimal 

phonics had been applied consistently across studies in 

selecting control groups. 

Results in Table 3 (Appendix E) reveal that all of the 

control groups yielded effect sizes that were statistically 

greater than zero and all favored the phonics treatment. 

Effects sizes ranged from d = 0.31 for whole language 

controls to d = 0.51 for whole word controls. Effect 

sizes for basal and miscellaneous control groups were 

homogeneous. Additional tests revealed that none of the 

2-121 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

effect sizes differed significantly from the others. These 

findings indicate that systematic phonics instruction 

proved effective regardless of the type of control group 

that was used. 

Design of Studies 

Studies in the database varied in methodological rigor. It 

is important to rule out the possibility that the positive 

effects of phonics instruction detected in the metaanalysis arose from poorly designed studies. Three 

features of the studies were coded and analyzed to 

determine whether more rigorous designs yielded larger 

or smaller effect sizes: assignment of participants to 

treatment and control groups, potential presence of preexperimental differences between groups, and sample 

size. 

Random Assignment

Experimental designs that randomly assign students to 

treatment and control groups have stronger internal 

validity than designs that assign already existing groups 

to the treatment and control conditions. The latter 

procedure is referred to as nonequivalent group 

assignment. The goal of experiments is to provide solid 

evidence that the treatment or lack of it, rather than 

anything else, explains gains observed in performance 

following the treatment. Random assignment serves to 

reduce the likelihood that pre-experimental differences, 

rather than treatment effects, explain differences 

between treatment and control groups on outcome 

measures. When nonequivalent groups are used, 

statistical techniques can be applied to eliminate pretest 

differences between groups when outcome measures 

are analyzed. However, this is not as satisfactory a 

solution as random assignment. 

Most studies in the database provided information 

regarding how students were assigned to treatment and 

control groups. If this was not mentioned, then the study 

was considered to have used nonequivalent groups. 

Table 3 (Appendix E) shows that studies using random 

assignment and studies using nonequivalent groups 

yielded very similar effect sizes, both of which were 

statistically greater than zero. These findings confirm 

that the positive effects of systematic phonics 

instruction did not arise primarily from studies with 

weaker nonequivalent group designs. 

Pre-Experimental Differences

Studies were also coded for the presence of possible or 

actual pretest differences between treatment and 

control groups. Effect sizes for questionable studies 

were calculated separately from studies that were not 

questionable in this regard. There were 15 comparisons 

for which no information about pretests was provided 

and the groups were not randomly assigned. The mean 

effect size was d = 0.49. There were ten studies that 

reported pretest differences and did not use random 

assignment. The mean effect size in this case was d = 

0.37. When studies containing potential or actual pretest 

differences were removed from the dataset, effect 

sizes changed very little and in fact increased slightly, 

from d = 0.44 to d = 0.46. These findings indicate that 

pretreatment differences between experimental and 

control groups did not explain why phonics-trained 

groups outperformed control groups on outcome 

measures across studies. It was the phonics instruction 

itself that very likely produced the greater gains in 

reading. 

Sample Size

Another factor indexing the rigor of studies and the 

reliability of outcomes is sample size, with results of 

larger studies producing stronger results than smaller 

studies. The number of students participating in 

comparisons included in the database varied from 20 to 

320. Sample sizes were used to group the comparisons 

into quartiles, and effect sizes were calculated for each 

quartile. From Table 3, it is apparent that effect sizes 

were very similar across quartiles and were all 

statistically greater than zero. The largest effect size, d 

= 0.49, emerged in studies having the largest samples. 

These findings show that the positive effects of 

systematic phonics instruction were not limited to 

studies that produced effects with relatively few 

students. 

Discussion 

Findings of the meta-analysis allow us to conclude that 

systematic phonics instruction produces gains in reading 

and spelling not only in the early grades (kindergarten 

and 1st grades) but also in the later grades (2nd through 

6th grades) and among children having difficulty 

learning to read. Effect sizes in the early grades were 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-122 
Report 

significantly larger (d = 0.55) than effect sizes above 

1st grade (d = 0.27). These results support Chall’s 

(1967) assertion that early instruction in systematic 

phonics is especially beneficial to growth in reading. 

Although there was some thought that kindergartners 

might not be ready for phonics instruction because they 

first need to acquire extensive knowledge about how 

print works (e.g., Stahl & Miller, 1989; Chall, 1996a, b), 

findings did not support this possibility. Phonics 

instruction produced similar effect sizes in kindergarten 

(d = 0.58) and 1st grade (d = 0.54). 

Phonics instruction can be described in terms of the 

method used to teach children about letter-sound 

relations and how to use letter-sounds to read or spell. 

There are synthetic, analytic, analogy, spelling-based, 

and embedded approaches to teaching phonics. Phonics 

instruction can also be described in terms of the content 

covered, for example, short vowels, long vowels, 

digraphs, phonics generalizations, onsets and rimes, 

phonograms, and so forth. In the present meta-analysis, 

only the types of methods were compared in terms of 

the effect sizes produced, and no significant differences 

among methods were detected. 

Stahl et al. (1998) suggest that the benefits of phonics 

instruction and differences among phonics approaches 

may arise from the amount of content covered and 

learned by students rather than from properties 

distinguishing the various methods. Synthetic methods 

tend to be efficient in covering content and tend to 

cover an ambitious number of sound-symbol 

correspondences in the 1st grade year. Other 

approaches vary considerably in the amount that they 

cover. To understand phonics instruction and its effects 

on student learning, research is needed to study 

separately the effects of teaching methods from the 

effects of content coverage. Systematic phonics 

instruction is focused on teaching children the 

alphabetic system and explicitly how to apply it to read 

and spell words. Phonics skills would be expected to 

show effects on text comprehension to the extent that 

phonics skills help children read the words in texts. This 

is one reason why phonics instruction may have exerted 

less impact on text comprehension outcomes than on 

word reading outcomes, because the impact is indirect. 

In addition, although phonics programs do give children 

practice reading connected text, the purpose of this 

practice is centered on word recognition rather than on 

comprehending and thinking about the meaning of what 

is being read. This may be another reason why effect 

sizes on text comprehension were smaller than effect 

sizes on word reading. 

In the present analysis, systematic phonics instruction 

exerted a lower than expected impact on reading 

growth in low achieving readers (d = 0.15) and disabled 

readers (d = 0.32). The Panel’s meta-analysis of 

phonemic awareness training studies included 

comparisons involving poor readers. Most of these 

studies would qualify as phonics studies because lettersound manipulations were part of the phonemic 

awareness training. The studies were not included in 

the phonics database in order to avoid duplication of 

studies across meta-analyses. The effect size on 

reading outcomes in the PA meta-analysis involving 

poor readers was d = 0.45, a value quite a bit higher 

than the effect sizes produced by phonics instruction. It 

may be that including more phonemic awareness 

training with letters might improve the quality of phonics 

instruction given to poor readers. However, there may 

be other factors that explain the difference as well. 

Closer scrutiny of the two sets of studies is needed to 

identify possible reasons. For example, RD students in 

the phonics analysis may have been older than students 

in the PA analysis. 

The overall effect size of systematic phonics instruction 

in 1st grade was d = 0.54. Although moderate in size, 

this value is somewhat low when compared to effect 

sizes found in other similar reviews. Stahl and Miller 

(1989) conducted a meta-analysis of phonics instruction 

and drew their comparisons from the Cooperative First 

Grade Studies (Bond & Dykstra, 1967, 1998) whose 

participants should be similar to 1st graders in the 

present database. Stahl and Miller found effect sizes of 

0.91 on the Stanford Word Reading subtest and 0.36 on 

the Paragraph Meaning subtest for children who 

received phonics instruction similar to that studied here. 

Overall, these are higher effect sizes than those 

detected in the present meta-analysis. 

The discrepancy may arise from differences in the way 

the Panel created its database. Whereas the Panel’s 

review was limited to studies published in peerreviewed journals, authors of the previous metaanalyses made a great effort to find “fugitive” or 

unpublished studies to include. One reason to search 

widely for studies is that the publishing process tends to 

2-123 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

screen out studies reporting null effects, and this runs 

the risk of biasing the data set towards positive effects. 

However, such a bias would be expected to favor a 

larger effect size using National Reading Panel 

procedures, and this did not happen. Another possible 

reason for the discrepancy is that the previous analyses 

included unpublished studies, thus running the risk of 

admitting studies of poor quality with inflated effect 

sizes. Limiting studies to those passing the test of peer 

review minimizes this risk. 

Another possible explanation for the Panel’s smaller 

effect size is that the database involved more recent 

studies. There may have been more of a tendency for 

later studies to focus on at-risk, low-achieving, and 

disabled readers for whom growth in reading may be 

harder to achieve. Perhaps the reading instruction 

experienced by students in control groups included more 

phonics than the reading instruction received by control 

groups in earlier years. In the 1960s, basal readers used 

a whole word methodology whereas the control 

conditions in more recent studies are presumably more 

eclectic. Table 2 identifies the control groups used by 

studies in the corpus. Whereas some groups were true 

“no-phonics” controls, other groups received some 

phonics instruction. It may be that, instead of examining 

the difference between phonics instruction and no 

phonics instruction, a substantial number of studies 

actually compared more systematic phonics instruction 

to less phonics instruction. This would produce smaller 

differences between treatment and control groups and 

hence smaller effect sizes. 

In one of the studies in the database, Evans and Carr 

(1985) conducted extensive observations of the 

instruction received by treatment and control groups 

and reported their observations numerically. They found 

that the phonics classes spent 13.38% of the group time 

and 11.94% of independent work time on word analysis, 

whereas the control group spent 5.37% of the group 

time and 1.84% of the independent time on word 

analysis. Although there is a difference favoring the 

phonics group, the finding shows that control classes did 

spend some time on word analysis as well. Chall and 

Feldmann (1966) found that there was considerable 

variation in instruction, even in classes professing to be 

using the same methods. This underscores the 

importance of researchers taking steps not only to 

assess outcomes of instructional treatments but also to 

document the nature of the instruction received by 

treatment and control groups to verify whether and how 

they actually differed. 

Studies to Illustrate Systematic Phonics 

Instruction and Its Contribution to Growth 

in Reading 

Some of the studies in the database are described to 

provide a glimpse of the experiments contributing effect 

sizes and to portray various types of phonics instruction 

that were examined. 

Phonics Instruction in Kindergarten

Systematic phonics instruction in kindergarten was 

studied in six articles. The main goals included teaching 

children the shapes of letters and their sounds, how to 

analyze sounds in words (phonemic awareness), and 

how to use letter sounds to perform various reading or 

writing tasks appropriate for children just starting out. In 

the study by Stuart (1999), three kindergarten teachers 

utilized the Jolly Phonics program (Lloyd, 1993), and 

three teachers centered their instruction around 

Holdaway’s (1979) Big Book approach. Teachers 

taught these programs 1 hour per day for 12 weeks 

during the latter half of kindergarten. 

Big Book instruction included work with letters. 

Teachers drew children’s attention to written words in 

the books and they talked about letters in words. Also, 

teachers employed various “imaginative and fun 

activities” to help children learn letters and their sounds. 

However, the instruction was not systematic; the 

sequence of teaching letters was not prescribed, and no 

special system for remembering letter-sound relations 

was taught. 

The Jolly Phonics program was more systematic and 

prescribed in its teaching of letters. This program was 

developed by Lloyd (1993), a teacher, for 4- and 5­

year-olds in their first year of schooling in the United 

Kingdom. Central to the program is the use of 

meaningful stories, pictures, and actions to reinforce 

recognition and recall of letter-sound relationships, and 

precise articulation of phonemes. There are five key 

elements to the program: (1) learning the letter sounds, 

(2) learning letter formation, (3) blending for reading, 

(4) identifying the sounds in words for writing, and (5) 

tricky words that are high frequency and irregularly 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-124 
 

Report 

spelled. The program includes activities and instruction 

specifically designed to address those skills most 

needed in the development of early literacy. Unlike 

many older phonics approaches, however, Jolly Phonics 

promotes playful, creative, flexible teaching that fits 

well with whole language practice and leads directly to 

authentic reading and writing. 

At the end of training in either Jolly Phonics or Big 

Books, children were given various tests to compare 

effects of the programs. Results showed that Jolly 

Phonics at-risk kindergartners were able to read 

significantly more words and pseudowords and to write 

more words than the Big Book group. The overall 

effect size was d = 0.73. A year later, the children were 

retested. The Jolly Phonics group outperformed the 

control group in reading and spelling words but not in 

reading comprehension. These results show that 

phonics instruction in kindergarten is effective in 

boosting children’s progress in learning to read and 

write words. 

One interesting feature of the Jolly Phonics program is 

that children are taught hand gestures to help them 

remember the letter-sound associations. For example, 

they make their fingers crawl up their arm portraying an 

ant as they chant the initial sound of “ant” associated 

with the letter a. The value of mnemonics for teaching 

letter-sound relations to kindergartners is supported by 

evidence. In a study by Ehri, Deffner, and Wilce (1984), 

children were shown letters drawn to assume the shape 

of a familiar object, for example, s drawn as a snake, h 

drawn as a house (with a chimney). Memory for the 

letter-sound relations was mediated by the name of the 

object. Children were taught to look at the letter, be 

reminded of the object, say its name, and isolate the 

first sound of the name to identify the sound (i.e., s ­

snake - /s/). With practice they were able to look at the 

letters and promptly say their sounds. Children who 

were taught letters in this way learned them better than 

children who were taught letters by rehearsing the 

relations with pictures unrelated to the letter shapes 

(e.g., house drawn with a flat roof and no chimney) and 

also better than children who simply rehearsed the 

associations without any pictures. 

Application of this principle can be found in Letterland 

(Wendon, 1992), a program that teaches kindergartners 

letter-sound associations. In this program, all the letters 

are animate characters that assume the shape of the 

letters and have names prompting the relevant sound, 

for example, Sammy Snake, Hairy Hat Man, Fireman 

Fred, Annie Apple. The task of learning the shapes and 

sounds of all the alphabet letters is difficult and timeconsuming, particularly for children who come to school 

knowing none. The relations are arbitrary and 

meaningless. Techniques to speed up the learning 

process are valuable in helping kindergartners prepare 

for formal reading instruction. 

The motivational value of associating letters with 

interesting characters or hand motions and incorporating 

this into activities and games that are fun is important 

for promoting young children’s learning. If the task of 

teaching letters is stripped bare to one of memorizing 

letter shapes and sounds, children will become bored 

and easily distracted and will take much longer to learn 

the associations. 

A Developmental Approach to Phonics

Instruction in Kindergarten

Another phonics program for kindergartners was 

studied by Vandervelden and Siegel (1997). The 

interesting feature of their approach was to tailor the 

intervention to individual children’s level of knowledge. 

This is important because kindergartners vary greatly in 

how much they already know about letters when they 

enter school. The instruction lasted 12 weeks, with 

children receiving two sessions per week. There were 

15 children that received phonics instruction and 15 that 

received the same instructional format but focused on 

classroom activities and materials. Children were 

pretested. The three children who showed the least 

knowledge received one-on-one tutoring, the next eight 

lowest scoring children were instructed in pairs, and the 

four highest scoring children worked in a small group. 

The skills taught to phonics-treated children who lacked 

them included the following: learning sounds for 

consonant letters; use of initial letter-sound matches to 

recognize, spell, and read words; segmenting words into 

sounds and spelling the sounds; orally reading text 

containing the words learned in this way; learning 

correct spellings of words by analyzing letter-sound 

constituents; and use of rime analogy in reading and 

spelling words. Easier skills were taught before harder 

skills. Instruction began at levels appropriate for 

individual learners. 

2-125 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

In the control group, children engaged in activities used 

in their classrooms. This included letter learning and 

phonemic awareness. However, children were not 

explicitly guided in the use of these skills to read and 

write. 

Results showed that the phonics groups outperformed 

the control group on tests of phonemic awareness and 

letter-sound relations but not letter names. Also, the 

phonics group did better on tests of speech-print 

matching of words and pseudowords (e.g., which 

written word, milk, monk, or mask says “mask”), on 

tests of writing the sounds in words, and on some but 

not all measures of word reading. The overall effect 

size was d = 0.47. It is important to recognize, however, 

that these kindergartners were still at a rudimentary 

level in their development as readers. For example, at 

the end of the treatment, they were able to match 43% 

of the written and spoken words correctly; they read 

only a mean of 10 out of 60 high frequency words such 

as up, yes, and book, and they spelled only 46% of the 

sounds in words. This suggests that teaching students to 

use phonics skills to read and spell words at the 

kindergarten level may yield only limited success. 

However, perhaps this program was not optimally 

designed or did not last long enough. 

A 2.5-Year Phonics Program Beginning With

Phonemic Awareness

A lengthier, more comprehensive program lasting more 

than 2 years was studied by Blachman et al. (1999). 

Classroom teachers used the program with low SES, 

inner-city children. Instruction began in kindergarten 

with a focus on phonemic awareness training lasting 11 

weeks. In 1st grade, explicit, systematic instruction in 

the alphabetic code was taught. This instruction 

continued in 2nd grade for children who did not 

complete the program in 1st grade. Control children 

participated in the school’s regular basal reading 

program that included a phonics workbook that children 

used independently. 

The phonemic awareness instruction taught children to 

perform a “say it and move it” procedure in which they 

moved a disk down a page as they pronounced each 

phoneme in a word. They practiced segmenting twoand three-phoneme words in this way. Then a limited 

set of eight letter-sound relations was taught, and 

children moved the letters rather than the disks. It is 

noteworthy that when children began this program, they 

knew on average only two letter sounds and could not 

yet write their names. Thus, the participants were 

starting from zero in their alphabetic learning. By the 

end of kindergarten, children knew on average 19 letter 

names and 13 letter-sounds, indicating that substantial 

learning had occurred. 

At the beginning of 1st grade, there was still wide 

variation in children’s letter knowledge and phonemic 

awareness. This underscores the fact that even though 

children receive the same instruction, they still differ in 

how quickly they learn what they are taught. To 

address the variation, children were assigned to ability 

groups. The core of the reading program involved daily, 

30-minute lessons consisting of five steps that 

emphasized the alphabetic code: 

1.	 Teaching new sound-symbol correspondences with 

vowels highlighted in red 

2.	 Teaching phoneme analysis and blending 

3.	 Reading regularly spelled, irregularly spelled, and 

high-frequency words on flash cards to develop 

automaticity 

4.	 Reading text containing phonetically controlled 

words 

5.	 Writing four to six words and a sentence to 

dictation. 

By the end of the program, children had been 

introduced to all six syllable types: closed (fat), final E 

(cake), open (me), vowel team (pain), vowel + r (burn), 

and consonant le (table). Vocabulary development and 

work on reading comprehension was incorporated as 

well, with more time spent reading text as the year 

progressed and children’s reading vocabulary grew. 

Inservice workshops held once a month were used to 

instruct teachers how to implement the program. The 

instruction presented information about how children 

acquire literacy skills and the role of phonological 

processes in learning to read. Teachers learned how to 

provide explicit instruction in the alphabetic code. The 

issue of pacing was stressed. Developing students’ 

phonemic awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and word 

recognition skills was identified as being more important 

than “covering the material.” 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-126 
Report 

To assess how far children had progressed in their 

reading and writing, various tests were given at the end 

of kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade. Results 

showed that kindergartners receiving PA training 

outperformed control students, with d = 0.72. At the 

end of 1st grade, children who received explicit phonics 

training achieved significantly higher scores than 

controls, with d = 0.64. During 2nd grade, children in 

the phonics group who had not met the program’s goals 

received additional instruction while the rest received 

regular classroom instruction. On posttests at the end of 

the year, the phonics-trained group continued to 

outperform the control group, with d = 0.36. 

These findings show that the explicit systematic 

instruction in phonics provided by the Blachman 

program improved low SES children’s ability to read 

words more than a basal program less focused on 

teaching children alphabetic knowledge and word 

reading skills. Several features of this program are 

noteworthy and may underlie its effectiveness. The 

same program continued over three grades, thus 

insuring consistency and continuity in children’s learning 

the alphabetic system and how to use it to read and 

spell. The program began in kindergarten with 

alphabetic code instruction that was appropriate for 

children’s level of knowledge. They were taught 

phonemic awareness and a limited set of letter-sound 

relations which they used to make and break words. 

Both PA and letter knowledge are known to be the 

strongest predictors of how well children will succeed in 

learning to read. Delivery of instruction was tailored to 

enable all students to complete the program. Tests were 

given to assess children’s progress and to distinguish 

those children who needed further instruction from 

those who did not. Instruction in the alphabetic code 

included various kinds of reading and writing skills, not 

only sounding out and blending words but also building 

memory for words, spelling words, and reading words in 

text. An extensive set of letter-sound relations including 

vowels was taught and applied to various types of 

words organized by syllable structure. Teachers were 

provided with inservice workshops during the school 

year to help them not only provide instruction correctly 

but also to understand the reading processes and their 

course of acquisition in students. These properties of 

the Blachman phonics program may account for its 

effectiveness. Further research to examine the 

contribution of such properties is needed. 

An Intensive 3-Year Tutoring Program: Synthetic

vs. Embedded Phonics Instruction

Another study in the database, by Torgesen et al. 

(1999), also provided phonics instruction throughout the 

primary grades. In this study, two different forms of 

phonics instruction were compared, one which provided 

very explicit and intensive instruction in PA and 

phonemic decoding called PASP (phonological 

awareness plus synthetic phonics), while the other 

provided systematic but less explicit instruction in 

phonemic decoding in the context of more instruction 

and practice in text comprehension, called EP 

(embedded phonics). Instruction was provided by tutors 

rather than classroom teachers. Kindergarten children 

with poor PA and letter knowledge received 88 hours of 

tutoring over 2.5 years, with sessions lasting 20 minutes 

and scheduled four times per week. Instruction was 

individually paced according to the progress that 

children made. This instruction was added to the 

reading instruction they received in the classroom. 

There were two control groups, one that received 

tutoring that supported regular classroom instruction, 

and one in which children received only regular 

classroom instruction. Instruction in the tutoring control 

condition included some phonics oriented activities. 

There were 180 children from 13 schools. Children 

were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. 

The PASP children received the Auditory 

Discrimination in Depth program (Lindamood & 

Lindamood, 1984). This program began by teaching 

children phonemic awareness in a unique way. Children 

were led to discover and label the articulatory gestures 

associated with each phoneme by analyzing their own 

mouth movements as they produced speech. For 

example, children learned that the word beat consists of 

a lip popper, a smile sound, and a tongue tapper. 

Children learned to track the sounds in words with 

mouth pictures as well as colored blocks and letters. 

Most of the time in this program was spent building 

children’s PA and their decoding skills although some 

attention was given to the recognition of high frequency 

words, text reading, and comprehension. 

The EP program began by teaching children to 

recognize whole words. Instruction in letter-sounds 

occurred in the context of learning to read words from 

memory (by sight). Also, children wrote sentences and 

read what they wrote. In this context, phonemic 

2-127 National Reading Panel 
 

 

Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

awareness was taught by having children segment the 

sounds in words before writing them. When children 

had sufficient reading vocabulary, they began reading 

short stories to build their reading vocabulary further. 

The emphasis was on acquiring word level reading 

skills, including sight words and phonemic decoding 

skills. Also, attention was given to constructing the 

meanings of stories that were read. 

One step taken in the Torgesen et al. study was to 

videotape 25% of the PASP and EP tutorial sessions 

and analyze the interaction to verify how phonics 

instruction differed in the two programs. The 

percentages of time spent on the following types of 

activity were 

•	 PA, letter-sounds, phonemic reading/writing of 

words: 74% (PASP) vs. 26% (EP) 

•	 Sight word instruction: 6% (PASP) vs. 17% (EP) 

•	 Reading/writing connected text: 20% (PASP) 

vs. 57% (EP). 

In comparing the groups’ performance on outcomes 

measures across the grades, Torgesen et al. found that 

the PASP group read significantly more real words and 

nonwords and spelled more words than one or both of 

the control groups. However, the EP group did not 

outperform the control groups on any of the measures. 

There was a significant overall effect of interventions 

on the comprehension measures, but individual contrasts 

between groups were not statistically significant. 

Comparison of the PASP and EP groups revealed 

superior performance by PASP on measures of 

phonological awareness, phonemic decoding accuracy 

and efficiency, and word reading accuracy. However, 

the groups did not differ in word reading efficiency 

(taking account of speed as well as accuracy) or in the 

individual contrasts for reading comprehension. Thus, 

findings revealed that intensive training in phonics 

produced superior word reading skills compared to 

embedded phonics training or training given to control 

groups. Interestingly, neither of the two instructional 

control groups, embedded phonics or supported 

classroom instruction, produced significant effects 

compared to the no treatment control group, while the 

explicit PASP group did. Based on comparisons to the 

classroom control group, effect sizes for the two 

phonics groups were 

•	 PASP: d = 0.33 (kindergarten), 0.75 (1st grade), 

0.67 (2nd grade) 

•	 EP: d = 0.32 (kindergarten), 0.28 (1st grade), 0.17 

(2nd grade). 

Clearly, effects of synthetic phonics instruction 

persisted more strongly over the grades than effects of 

embedded phonics instruction. Left unclear is whether 

PASP’s effectiveness resulted from the greater time 

spent teaching alphabetic and phonological processes, 

or the specific content of the instruction, or a 

combination of both factors. 

Although the comparisons between individual groups 

were not significant for the comprehension measures, 

when the outcomes for the PASP group were 

compared to those of the EP and RCS groups 

combined, the effect size for the passage 

comprehension test of the Woodcock Reading Mastery 

Test-Revised was 0.43. The corresponding effect size 

for the comprehension measure for the Gray Oral 

Reading Test–3 was 0.21. While reading 

comprehension depends upon other processes besides 

word reading, one would expect to see transfer, 

particularly in the primary grades where text reading is 

heavily influenced by word recognition skills. One 

possible explanation is that the tests of comprehension 

were standardized and hence were not sufficiently 

sensitive to detect small within-grade differences. This 

is because standardized tests are designed to detect 

differences across the whole range of grades; so, there 

are only a small number of items at each grade level. 

Another possibility is that compensatory processes are 

sufficiently strong to dilute the contribution that superior 

word recognition skill makes to text reading. That is, 

children read and comprehend text by utilizing their 

linguistic and background knowledge combined with 

their word reading skill. When word reading skill is 

somewhat weaker, children can rely more heavily on 

their knowledge about the subject and memory for what 

they have read to still make sense of the text. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 2-128 
Report 

The kindergartners selected to be tutored in reading in 

the Torgesen et al. (1999) study were severely at risk 

for becoming disabled readers based on very poor letter 

knowledge and phonemic awareness which are the two 

best kindergarten-entry predictors of future reading 

achievement (Share et al., 1984). However, these 

children varied greatly in verbal intelligence, with IQs 

ranging from 76 to 126 in kindergarten and from 57 to 

130 in 2nd grade. Thus, the sample in this study 

included two kinds of potentially poor readers, children 

who were unexpectedly poor readers because their 

IQs were higher than their reading potential scores and 

children whose below-average reading was not 

surprising given that their IQs were also below average. 

These two types of poor readers have been 

distinguished in other studies by researchers. Various 

labels, such as dyslexic or learning disabled or reading 

disabled, have been applied to children whose higher 

IQs are discrepant with their lower reading skill. 

Children whose lower reading scores are consistent 

with their lower IQs have been called low achievers or 

garden variety poor readers. These children would be 

expected to display low achievement not only in reading 

but also in other academic areas requiring cognitive or 

verbal capabilities. 

Torgesen et al. (1999) observed that children in their 

study varied greatly in their response to instruction. 

Even in the strongest phonics group, almost one-fourth 

of the children remained significantly impaired in their 

decoding or word reading ability at the end of 

instruction. Torgesen et al. conducted a regression 

analysis to examine what characteristics of the children 

predicted how well or poorly they responded to 

instruction as indexed by their growth in word reading 

over 2.5 years. They found that the important variables 

explaining growth were home background (parent 

occupation and education), kindergarten classroom 

behavior (activity level, attention, adaptability, social 

behavior) and phonological capabilities (i.e., phonemic 

awareness, short-term memory, naming speed). The 

variable involving IQ differences among the children did 

not explain any further growth over and above these 

other variables. Torgesen et al. suggest that whether or 

not children’s IQ is discrepant with their reading 

potential is probably not relevant in determining their 

need for special help in acquiring word reading skills. 

Modified Reading Recovery© Studies

There were three studies in the database that adopted 

the Reading Recovery© (RR) format developed by Clay 

(1993) and altered it to include more systematic work in 

phonics. The type of phonics instruction involved an 

emphasis on larger subunits as well as phonemes. The 

RR program developed by Clay is adminstered by a 

tutor to children who have fallen behind in reading after 

a year of instruction. The 30-minute RR lesson includes 

several activities: rereading two familiar books, reading 

the previous day’s new book, practicing letter 

identification, writing a story by analyzing sounds in 

words, re-assembling the words of a cut-up story, 

reading a new book. 

Greaney, Tunmer, and Chapman (1997) modified the 

RR program by providing explicit instruction in letterphoneme patterns once children had learned the 

majority of letters. This work consumed 5 minutes of 

each session and was substituted for the letter segment 

of the RR lesson. Children were taught to read pairs of 

nouns containing common spellings of rimes (e.g., meat) and then words with the rime embedded in it (e.g., 

h-eat-er). They practiced reading and also writing 

words with these larger rime units referred to as “eggs” 

because the unit was written in an egg-shaped space. 

Attention was drawn to the egg units and their utility for 

reading words. During the final book reading segment 

of each session, children were encouraged to use the 

eggs to identify unfamiliar words in the book. This 

treatment was referred to as rime analogy training. 

Children in the control group followed the same RR 

format and read the same words. However, no attention 

was drawn to rime units in the words, and the words 

were mixed up rather than taught in sets having the 

same rimes. 

The study was conducted in New Zealand. Both the 

modified RR and the unmodified RR programs lasted 

for 12 weeks. The children in the study were from 

grades 2 through 5 and were the poorest readers in 

their class. Results showed that the children who 

received rime training outperformed control children on 

tests of word and pseudoword reading but not on tests 

of reading comprehension. The overall effect size was 

d = 0.37. These findings reveal that the rime-analogy 

phonics program produced greater growth in word 

reading than the whole word program. 

2-129 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Tunmer and Hoover (1993) performed a similar study in 

which the letter segment of the RR lesson was replaced 

by more systematic phonics instruction. Children were 

taught to make, break, and build new words that had 

similar letters and sounds. Instruction began by focusing 

on phonograms or rime spellings in words (e.g., make, 

bake, cake, take). A metacognitive strategy training 

approach rather than a skill and drill approach was used 

to make children aware of how letters and sounds work 

in words and how to use their alphabetic knowledge to 

read and spell. 

Two control groups were included in the study. One 

group received unmodified RR lessons. The other group 

received the standard treatment given to poor readers 

by the school district. This was a pull-out program in 

which teachers worked with children in small groups. 

Some word analysis activities were included. The 

children were all 1st graders in their 2nd year of reading 

instruction. They were the poorest readers in their 

class. Posttests were given when RR children achieved 

the goals of the program. Results showed that the 

modified RR group outperformed the group receiving 

the standard small-group instruction on all measures. 

The overall effect size was d = 3.71, indicating that the 

modified RR phonics program produced an enormous 

advantage over the treatment received by the standard 

control group. 

In contrast, the modified RR group performed very 

similarly to the unmodified RR group on the reading 

measures following training. The only difference was 

that it took significantly fewer sessions for the modified 

RR group to achieve the goals of RR than the 

unmodified RR group. The effect size showing the 

advantage in reduced time was d = 1.40. The same 

advantage in time, but not in reading outcomes, was 

uncovered by Iversen and Tunmer (1993) who 

conducted a very similar study. (The Iversen and 

Tunmer data were included in the Panel’s meta-analysis 

of phonemic awareness instruction.) Findings of both 

studies show that Clay’s Reading Recovery© program 

produced the same growth in reading even though it 

provided less systematic phonics instruction than the 

modified program and provided it mainly through writing 

exercises rather than decoding activities. Although 

reading outcomes were the same, the fact that one 

program took less time makes the more intensive 

phonics approach preferable. Because the RR program 

requires one-on-one tutoring delivered in schools by a 

few highly trained RR teachers, it is expensive; so, a 

savings in time can mean either that more students are 

helped or that fewer teachers are required. 

A third study in the database also modified the RR 

format to include more systematic phonics instruction. 

In the study by Santa and Hoien (1999), at-risk 1st 

graders received tutoring that involved story reading, 

writing, and phonological skills based on a program 

developed by Morris (1992). The unique part of this 

phonics program was that it used word study activities 

to develop phonological awareness and decoding skill. 

Word study consumed 5 to 6 minutes of the 30-minute 

lesson. Children were given cards to sort into 

categories. They might sort picture cards that shared 

the same initial sounds, or word cards sharing the same 

vowel sounds. The typical sort involved three patterns 

with four words in each pattern. Initially, children 

worked with phonograms (e.g., -at in hat, cat, sat, rat) 

and then advanced to shared phonemes as the basis for 

sorting words. Children also were taught to spell by 

writing letters for the sounds heard in words. 

Metacognitive strategies were taught including an 

analogy strategy in which children were urged to use 

words they know to read words they don’t know. 

The control group received small group, guided reading 

instruction. They practiced reading and rereading books 

in 30-minute lessons but did not receive any word study 

activities. Results showed that the word study program 

produced much greater growth in reading than the 

guided reading program, d = 0.76. Gains were greater in 

reading comprehension as well as word reading. These 

findings provide evidence for the effectiveness of 

teaching children phonics through the use of larger units 

along with phonemes. 

Systematic Phonics to Remediate the Reading

Difficulties of Disabled Readers

Children who have been diagnosed as reading disabled 

have severe reading difficulties that are not explained 

by low intelligence. Systematic phonics programs have 

been developed to remediate their reading difficulties. 

RD children have special problems in acquiring word 

reading skills. Not only do they struggle to read 

pseudowords, but they also have trouble remembering 

how to read words they have read before. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-130 
Report 

Maureen Lovett and her associates (Lovett et al., 1994; 

Lovett & Steinbach, 1997; Lovett et al., in press) have 

conducted several studies to examine how to improve 

the word reading skills of severely disabled readers. 

They have explored the effectiveness of two types of 

phonics programs, a synthetic program they call PHAB 

and a larger-unit program, which teaches children to 

use subparts of words they know to read new words, 

referred to as WIST. 

The PHAB synthetic phonics program adopted the 

Direct Instruction model developed by Engelmann and 

his colleagues (see Appendix) to remediate the 

decoding and phonemic awareness difficulties of the 

disabled readers. Children were taught to segment and 

blend words orally. They were taught letter-sound 

associations in the context of word recognition and 

decoding instruction. The program taught a left-to-right 

decoding strategy to sound out and blend letters into 

words. Special marks on letters and words provided 

visual cues to aid in decoding, such as symbols over 

long vowels, letter size variations, and connected letters 

to identify digraphs. Cumulative, systematic review and 

many opportunities for overlearning were used. New 

material was not introduced until the child had fully 

mastered previously instructed material. Children were 

taught in small groups. 

The larger-unit, word analogy program called WIST 

was adapted from the Benchmark Word Identification/ 

Vocabulary Development program developed by 

Gaskins et al. (1986). This program had a strongly 

metacognitive focus. It taught children how to use four 

metacognitive strategies to decode words: reading 

words by analogy, detecting parts of words that are 

known, varying the pronunciations of vowels to maintain 

flexibility in decoding attempts, and “peeling off” 

prefixes and suffixes in words. Children learned a set of 

120 key words exemplifying high-frequency spelling 

patterns, five words per day. They learned to segment 

the words into subunits so that they could use known 

words and their parts to read other similarly spelled 

words. They learned letter-sound associations for 

vowels and affixes. Various types of texts provided 

children with practice applying the strategies that were 

taught. 

The children participating in the studies were referred 

to Lovett’s clinic because they had severe reading 

problems. Children were randomly assigned to receive 

the PHAB program, the WIST program, or a nonreading control program that involved teaching students 

academic survival skills such as organization and 

problem solving relevant to the classroom. The students 

ranged in age from 6 to 13 years or grades 2nd through 

6th. The three programs took the same amount of time. 

In one study, it was 35 hours; in another study, 70 hours. 

To evaluate the effectiveness of the programs, 

performance of students receiving either PHAB or 

WIST were compared to performance of the control 

group. There were four comparisons assessing effects 

of PHAB and four assessing WIST in the database. 

Although the effect sizes were somewhat variable, the 

average effect size across the comparisons indicated 

that both programs produced about the same growth in 

reading, d = 0.41 for PHAB and d = 0.48 for WIST. In 

two of the comparisons, both reading comprehension 

and word reading were measured. Substantial gains 

were evident on both measures. These findings indicate 

that the two approaches to teaching systematic phonics, 

one teaching synthetic phonics, and one teaching the 

use of larger subunits of words to read by analogy, 

were quite effective in helping disabled readers improve 

their reading skills. 

Conclusions 

There were 38 studies from which 66 treatment-control 

group comparisons were derived. Although each 

comparison could contribute up to six effect sizes, one 

per outcome measure, few studies did. The majority 

(76%) of the effect sizes involved reading or spelling 

single words, whereas 24% involved text reading. The 

imbalance favoring single words is not surprising given 

that the focus of phonics instruction is on improving 

children’s ability to read and spell words. Studies 

limiting instructional attention to children with reading 

problems accounted for 65% of the comparisons, 38% 

involving poor readers considered “at risk” or low 

achieving and 27% diagnosed as reading disabled (RD). 

Studies involving 1st graders were overrepresented in 

the database, accounting for 38% of the comparisons. 

Fewer kindergartners (12%) and children in 2nd 

through 6th grades (23%) were represented. Children in 

2-131 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

the RD group spanned several ages and grades, ranging 

from ages 6 to 13 and grades 2nd through 6th. Most of 

the studies (72%) were recently conducted, in the past 

10 years. 

Systematic phonics instruction typically involves 

explicitly teaching students a prespecified set of lettersound relations and having students read text that 

provides practice using these relations to decode words. 

Instruction lacking an emphasis on phonics instruction 

does not teach letter-sound relations systematically and 

selects text for children according to other principles. 

The latter form of instruction includes whole-word 

programs, whole language programs, and some basal 

reader programs. 

The meta-analyses were conducted to answer several 

questions about the impact of systematic phonics 

instruction on growth in reading when compared with 

instruction that does not emphasize phonics. Findings 

provided strong evidence substantiating the impact of 

systematic phonics instruction on learning to read. 

1. Does systematic phonics instruction 

help children learn to read more 

effectively than unsystematic phonics 

instruction or instruction teaching no 

phonics? 

Children’s reading was measured at the end of training 

if it lasted less than a year or at the end of the first 

school year of instruction. The mean overall effect size 

produced by phonics instruction was significant and 

moderate in size (d = 0.44). Findings provided solid 

support for the conclusion that systematic phonics 

instruction makes a more significant contribution to 

children’s growth in reading than do alternative 

programs providing unsystematic or no phonics 

instruction. 

2. Are some types of phonics instruction 

more effective than others? Are some 

specific phonics programs more effective 

than others? 

Three types of phonics programs were compared in the 

analysis: (1) synthetic phonics programs that 

emphasized teaching students to convert letters 

(graphemes) into sounds (phonemes) and then to blend 

the sounds to form recognizable words; (2) larger-unit 

phonics programs that emphasized the analysis and 

blending of larger subparts of words (i.e., onsets, rimes, 

phonograms, spelling patterns) as well as phonemes; 

and (3) miscellaneous phonics programs that taught 

phonics systematically but did this in other ways not 

covered by the synthetic or larger-unit categories or 

were unclear about the nature of the approach. The 

analysis showed that effect sizes for the three 

categories of programs were all significantly greater 

than zero and did not differ statistically from each other. 

The effect size for synthetic programs was d = 0.45; 

for larger-unit programs, d = 0.34; and for 

miscellaneous programs, d = 0.27. The conclusion 

supported by these findings is that various types of 

systematic phonics approaches are more effective than 

non-phonics approaches in promoting substantial growth 

in reading. 

There were seven programs that were examined in 

three or more treatment-control group comparisons in 

the database. Analysis of the effect sizes produced by 

these programs revealed that all were statistically 

greater than zero and none differed statistically from 

the others in magnitude. Effect sizes ranged from d = 

0.23 to 0.68. In most cases there were only three or 

four comparisons contributing effect sizes, so results 

may be unreliable. The conclusion drawn is that specific 

systematic phonics programs are all more effective than 

non-phonics programs and they do not appear to differ 

significantly from each other in their effectiveness 

although more evidence is needed to verify the 

reliability of effect sizes for each program. 

3. Is phonics taught more effectively when 

students are tutored individually, when 

they are taught in small groups, or when 

they are taught as classes? 

All three delivery systems proved to be effective ways 

of teaching phonics, with effect sizes of d = 0.57 

(tutoring), d = 0.43 (small group), and d = 0.39 (whole 

class). All effect sizes were statistically greater than 

zero, and no one differed significantly from the others. 

This supports the conclusion that systematic phonics 

instruction is effective when delivered through tutoring, 

through small groups, and through teaching classes of 

students. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-132 
Report 

4. Is phonics instruction more effective 

when it is introduced to students not yet 

reading, in kindergarten or 1st grade, 

than when it is introduced in grades 

above 1st after students have already 

begun to read? 

Phonics instruction taught early proved much more 

effective than phonics instruction introduced after 1st 

grade. Mean effect sizes were kindergarten d = 0.56; 

1st grade d = 0.54; and 2nd through 6th grades d = 

0.27. The conclusion drawn is that systematic phonics 

instruction produces the biggest impact on growth in 

reading when it begins in kindergarten or 1st grade 

before children have learned to read independently. To 

be effective, phonics instruction introduced in 

kindergarten must be appropriately designed for 

learners and must begin with foundational knowledge 

involving letters and phonemic awareness. 

5. Is phonics instruction beneficial for 

children who are having difficulty learning 

to read? Is it effective in preventing 

reading failure among children who are 

at risk for developing reading problems in 

the future? Is it effective in remediating 

reading difficulties in children who have 

been diagnosed as reading disabled and 

children who are low-achieving readers? 

Phonics instruction produced substantial reading growth 

among younger children at risk of developing future 

reading problems. Effect sizes were d = 0.58 for 

kindergartners at risk and d = 0.74 for 1st graders at 

risk. Phonics instruction also improved the reading 

performance of disabled readers (i.e., children with 

average IQs but poor reading) for whom the effect size 

was d = 0.32. These effect sizes were all statistically 

greater than zero. However, phonics instruction failed to 

exert a significant impact on the reading performance 

of low-achieving readers in 2nd through 6th grades (i.e., 

children with reading difficulties and possibly other 

cognitive difficulties explaining their low achievement). 

The effect size was d = 0.15, which was not statistically 

greater than chance. Possible reasons might be that the 

phonics instruction provided to low-achieving readers 

was not sufficiently intense, that their reading 

difficulties arose from sources not treated by phonics 

instruction such as poor comprehension, or that there 

were too few cases (i.e., only eight treatment-control 

comparisons pulled from three studies) to yield reliable 

findings. 

The conclusion drawn from these findings is that 

systematic phonics instruction is significantly more 

effective than non-phonics instruction in helping to 

prevent reading difficulties among at-risk students and 

in helping to remediate reading difficulties in disabled 

readers. No conclusion is drawn in the case of lowachieving readers because it is unclear why systematic 

phonics instruction produced little growth in their 

reading and whether the finding is even reliable. Further 

research is needed to determine what constitutes 

adequate remedial instruction for low-achieving 

readers. 

6. Does systematic phonics instruction 

improve children’s reading 

comprehension ability as well as their 

decoding and word-reading skills? 

Systematic phonics instruction was most effective in 

improving children’s ability to decode regularly spelled 

words (d = 0.67) and pseudowords (d = 0.60). This was 

expected because the central focus of phonics 

programs is upon teaching children to apply the 

alphabetic system to read novel words. Phonics 

programs also produced growth in the ability to read 

irregularly spelled words although the effect size was 

significantly lower, d = 0.40. This is not surprising 

because a decoding strategy is less helpful for reading 

these words. However, alphabetic knowledge is useful 

for establishing connections in memory that help 

children read irregular words they have read before. 

This may explain the contribution of phonics. 

Systematic phonics instruction produced significantly 

greater growth than non-phonics instruction in younger 

children’s reading comprehension ability (d = 0.51). 

However, the effects of systematic phonics instruction 

on text comprehension in readers above 1st grade were 

mixed. Although gains were significant for the subgroup 

of disabled readers (d = 0.32), they were not significant 

for the older group in general (d = 0.12). 

The conclusion drawn is that growth in word-reading 

skills is strongly enhanced by systematic phonics 

instruction when compared to non-phonics instruction 

for kindergartners and 1st graders as well as for older 

2-133 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

struggling readers. Growth in reading comprehension is 

also boosted by systematic phonics instruction for 

younger students and reading disabled students. 

Whether growth in reading comprehension is produced 

generally in students above 1st grade is less clear. 

7. Does systematic phonics instruction 

have an impact on children’s growth in 

spelling? 

Systematic phonics instruction produced much growth 

in spelling among the younger students, that is, 

kindergartners and 1st graders, d = 0.67, but not among 

the older students above 1st grade, whose effect size of 

d = 0.09 did not differ from zero. One factor 

contributing to the difference is that younger children 

were given credit for using phonics-based knowledge to 

produce letter-sound spellings of words as well as 

correct spellings whereas older children were not. 

Another factor may be that as children move up in the 

grades, remembering how to spell words requires 

knowledge of higher level regularities not covered in 

systematic phonics programs. A third reason for the 

poor showing among older students may be that the 

majority were poor readers who are known to have 

difficulty learning to spell. 

The conclusion drawn is that systematic phonics 

instruction contributed more than non-phonics 

instruction in helping kindergartners and 1st graders 

apply their knowledge of the alphabetic system to spell 

words. However, it did not improve spelling in students 

above 1st grade. 

8. Is systematic phonics instruction 

effective with children at different 

socioeconomic levels? 

Systematic phonics instruction helped children at all 

SES levels make greater gains in reading than did nonphonics instruction. The effect size for low-SES 

students was d = 0.66, and for middle-class students it 

was d = 0.44. Both were statistically greater than zero 

and did not differ from each other. The conclusion 

drawn is that systematic phonics instruction is beneficial 

to students regardless of their socioeconomic status. 

9. Does the type of control group used to 

evaluate the effectiveness of systematic 

phonics instruction make a difference? 

The type of nonsystematic or non-phonics instruction 

given to control groups to evaluate the effectiveness of 

systematic phonics instruction varied across studies and 

included the following types: basal programs, regular 

curriculum, whole language approaches, whole word 

programs, and miscellaneous programs. The question of 

whether phonics produced better reading growth than 

each type of control group was answered affirmatively 

in each case. The effect sizes were all positive favoring 

systematic phonics, were all statistically greater than 

zero, and ranged from d = 0.31 to 0.51. No single effect 

size differed from any of the others. 

The conclusion supported by these findings is that the 

effectiveness of systematic phonics instruction found in 

the present meta-analysis did not depend on the type of 

instruction that students in the control groups received. 

Students taught systematic phonics outperformed 

students who were taught a variety of nonsystematic or 

non-phonics programs, including basal programs, whole 

language approaches, and whole word programs. 

10. Were studies reporting the largest 

effects of systematic phonics instruction 

well designed or poorly designed 

experiments? That is, was random 

assignment used? Were the sample sizes 

sufficiently large? Might results be 

explained by differences between 

treatment and control groups that existed 

prior to the experiment rather than by 

differences produced by the experimental 

intervention? 

The effects of systematic phonics instruction were not 

diminished when only the best designed experiments 

were singled out. The mean effect size for studies using 

random assignment to place students in treatment and 

control groups, d = 0.45, was essentially the same as 

that for studies employing quasi-experimental designs, 

d = 0.43, which utilized existing groups to compare 

phonics instruction and non-phonics instruction. The 

mean effect size for studies administering systematic 

phonics and non-phonics instruction to large samples of 

students did not differ from studies using the fewest 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-134 
Report 

students: for studies using between 80 and 320 students, 

d = 0.49; for studies using between 20 and 31 students, 

d = 0.48. There were some studies that did not use 

random assignment and either failed to address the 

issue of pre-existing differences between treatment and 

control groups or mentioned that a difference existed 

but did not adjust for differences in their analysis of 

results. The effect sizes changed very little when these 

comparisons were removed from the database, from 

d = 0.44 to d = 0.46. 

The conclusion drawn is that the significant effects 

produced by systematic phonics instruction on children’s 

growth in reading were evident in the most rigorously 

designed experiments. Significant effects did not arise 

primarily from the weakest studies. 

11. Is enough known about systematic 

phonics instruction to make 

recommendations for classroom 

implementation? If so, what cautions 

should be kept in mind by teachers 

implementing phonics instruction? 

Findings of the panel regarding the effectiveness of 

systematic phonics instruction were derived from 

studies conducted in many classrooms with typical 

classroom teachers and typical American or Englishspeaking students from a variety of backgrounds and 

SES levels. Thus, the results of the analysis are 

indicative of what can be accomplished when 

systematic phonics programs are implemented in 

today’s classrooms. Systematic phonics instruction has 

been used widely over a long period with positive 

results. A variety of phonics programs have proven 

effective with children of different ages, abilities, and 

SES backgrounds. These facts should persuade 

educators and the public that systematic phonics 

instruction is a valuable part of a successful classroom 

reading program. The Panel’s findings summarized 

above serve to illuminate the conditions that make 

systematic phonics instruction especially effective. 

However, caution is needed in giving a blanket 

endorsement to all kinds of phonics instruction. 

It is important to recognize that the goals of phonics 

instruction are to provide children with some key 

knowledge and skills and to ensure that they know how 

to apply this knowledge in their reading and writing. 

Phonics teaching is a means to an end. To be able to 

make use of letter-sound information, children need 

phonemic awareness. That is, they need to be able to 

blend sounds together to decode words, and they need 

to break spoken words into their constituent sounds to 

write words. Programs that focus too much on the 

teaching of letter-sounds relations and not enough on 

putting them to use are unlikely to be very effective. In 

implementing systematic phonics instruction, educators 

must keep the end in mind and ensure that children 

understand the purpose of learning letter-sounds and 

are able to apply their skills in their daily reading and 

writing activities. 

In addition to this general caution, several particular 

concerns should be taken into consideration to avoid 

misapplication of the findings. One concern relates to 

the commonly heard call for “intensive, systematic” 

phonics instruction. Usually the term “intensive” is not 

defined, so it is not clear how much teaching is required 

to be considered intensive. Questions needing further 

answers are: How many months or years should a 

phonics program continue? If phonics has been taught 

systematically in kindergarten and 1st grade, should it 

continue to be emphasized in 2nd grade and beyond? 

How long should single instructional sessions last? How 

much ground should be covered in a program? That is, 

how many letter-sound relations should be taught and 

how many different ways of using these relations to 

read and write words should be practiced for the 

benefits of phonics to be maximum? These are among 

the many questions that remain for future research. 

Second, the role of the teacher needs to be better 

understood. Some of the phonics programs showing 

large effect sizes are scripted so that teacher judgment 

is largely eliminated. Although scripts may standardize 

instruction, they may reduce teachers’ interest in the 

teaching process or their motivation to teach phonics. 

Thus, one concern is how to maintain consistency of 

instruction and at the same time encourage unique 

contributions from teachers. Another concern involves 

what teachers need to know. Some systematic phonics 

programs require a sophisticated understanding of 

spelling, structural linguistics, and word etymology. 

Teachers who are handed the programs but are not 

provided with sufficient inservice training to use these 

programs effectively may become frustrated. In view 

of the evidence showing the effectiveness of systematic 

phonics instruction, it is important to ensure that the 

issue of how best to prepare teachers to carry out this 

2-135 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

teaching effectively and creatively is given high priority. 

Knowing that all phonics programs are not the same 

brings with it the implication that teachers must 

themselves be educated about how to evaluate different 

programs and to determine which are based on strong 

evidence and how they can most effectively use these 

programs in their own classrooms. 

As with any instructional program, there is always the 

question: “Does one size fit all?” Teachers may be 

expected to use a particular phonics program with their 

class, yet it quickly becomes apparent that the program 

suits some students more than others. In the early 

grades, children are known to vary greatly in the skills 

they bring to school. There will be some children who 

already know most letter-sound correspondences, some 

children who can even decode words, and others who 

have little or no letter knowledge. Should teachers 

proceed through the program and ignore these 

students? Or should they assess their students’ needs 

and select the types and amounts of phonics suited to 

those needs? Although the latter is clearly preferable, 

this requires phonics programs that provide guidance in 

how to place students into flexible instructional groups 

and how to pace instruction. However, it is common for 

many phonics programs to present a fixed sequence of 

lessons scheduled from the beginning to the end of the 

school year. 

Finally, it is important to emphasize that systematic 

phonics instruction should be integrated with other 

reading instruction to create a balanced reading 

program. Phonics instruction is never a total reading 

program. In 1st grade, teachers can provide controlled 

vocabulary texts that allow students to practice 

decoding, and they can also read quality literature to 

students to build a sense of story and to develop 

vocabulary and comprehension. Phonics should not 

become the dominant component in a reading program, 

neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor in the 

significance attached. It is important to evaluate 

children’s reading competence in many ways, not only 

by their phonics skills but also by their interest in books 

and their ability to understand information that is read to 

them. By emphasizing all of the processes that 

contribute to growth in reading, teachers will have the 

best chance of making every child a reader. 

Directions for Further Research 

Although phonics instruction has been the subject of a 

great deal of study, there are certain extremely 

important topics that have received little or no research 

attention, and there are other topics that, although 

previously studied, require further research to refine our 

understanding. 

Neglected Topics 

Three important but neglected questions are prime 

candidates for research: 

(1) What are the “active ingredients” in effective 

systematic phonics programs? (2) Is phonics instruction 

improved when motivational factors are taken into 

account—not only learners’ motivation to learn but also 

teachers’ motivation to teach? (3) How does the use of 

decodable text as early reading material contribute to 

the effectiveness of phonics programs? 

1. Active Ingredients

Systematic phonics programs—even those of the same 

type, such as synthetic phonics programs—vary in 

many respects, as indicated in the Panel’s report above. 

It is important to determine whether some properties 

are essential and others are not. Because instructional 

time during the school day is limited, teachers and 

publishers of beginning reading programs need to know 

which ingredients of phonics programs yield the most 

benefit. One example of this line of questions involves 

the content covered. It is clear that the major lettersound correspondences, including short and long vowels 

and digraphs, need to be taught. However, there are 

other regularities of English as well. How far should 

instruction extend in teaching all of these potential 

regularities explicitly? Should children be taught to state 

regularities, or should emphasis be placed on application 

in reading and writing activities? To what extent do 

mnemonic devices such as those used in Jolly Phonics 

(Lloyd, 1993) and Letterland (Wendon, 1992) speed up 

the process of learning letter shapes, sounds, and names 

and facilitate their application in reading and writing? 

What contribution is made by the inclusion of special 

markings added to written words to clarify how they 

should be decoded? Research investigating not only 

these ingredients of phonics programs but other 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-136 
Report 

ingredients as well is needed. These studies should 

include systematic observation in classrooms to record 

and analyze the activities of teachers and children using 

the programs. 

2. Motivation

Phonics instruction has often been portrayed as 

involving “dull drill” and “meaningless worksheets.” 

Such characterizations may accurately describe aspects 

of some phonics programs, even “effective” ones. Few 

if any studies have investigated the contribution of 

motivation to the effectiveness of phonics programs, not 

only the learner’s motivation to learn but also the 

teacher’s motivation to teach. It seems self-evident that 

the specific techniques and activities used to develop 

children’s letter-sound knowledge and its use in reading 

and writing should be as relevant and motivating as 

possible to engage children’s interest and attention to 

promote optimal learning. Moreover, it seems obvious 

that when the teaching techniques presented to 

teachers in a phonics program are not only effective but 

also engaging and enjoyable, teachers will be more 

successful in their ability to deliver phonics instruction 

effectively. The lack of attention to motivational factors 

by researchers in the design of phonics programs is 

potentially very serious because debates about reading 

instruction often boil down to concerns about the 

“relevance” and “interest value” of how something is 

being taught, rather than the specific content of what is 

being taught. Future research on phonics instruction 

should investigate how best to motivate children in 

classrooms to learn the letter-sound associations and to 

apply that knowledge to reading and writing. It should 

also be designed to determine which approaches 

teachers prefer to use and are most likely to use 

effectively in their classroom instruction. 

3. Decodable Text

Some systematic phonics programs are designed so that 

children are taught letter-sound correspondences and 

then provided with little books written carefully to 

contain the letter-sound relations that were taught. 

Some programs begin with a very limited set and 

expand these gradually. The intent of providing books 

that match children’s letter-sound knowledge is to 

enable them to experience success in decoding words 

that follow the patterns they know. The stories in such 

books often involve pigs doing jigs and cats in hats. 

Other systematic phonics programs make little or no 

use of decodable books and select the beginning reading 

material on some other basis. Some educators reject 

decodable books outright as too stilted and boring. 

Surprisingly, very little research has attempted to 

determine whether the use of decodable books in 

systematic phonics programs has any influence on the 

progress that some or all children make in learning to 

read. 

Other Important Topics 

The findings of the Panel indicated that systematic 

phonics instruction provides beginning readers, at-risk 

readers, disabled readers, and low-achieving readers 

with a substantial edge in learning to read over 

alternative forms of instruction not focusing at all or 

only incidentally on the alphabetic system. However, 

studies in the database were insufficient in number or in 

design to address several important satellite questions 

about the effects of phonics instruction. 

Some programs teach many letter-sound relations 

before children begin using them while other programs 

introduce a few and then provide reading and writing 

activities that allow children to apply the 

correspondences they have learned right away. The 

latter approach would appear to be preferable, but is it? 

In what ways does earlier application facilitate growth 

in reading and writing? 

Programs differ in how much time is consumed 

teaching alphabetic knowledge and word-reading skills. 

It is unclear how long phonics instruction should 

continue through the grades. A few studies in the 

Panel’s database indicated that large effect sizes were 

produced and maintained in the 2nd and 3rd years of 

instruction for children who were at risk for future 

reading problems and who began receiving systematic 

phonics instruction in kindergarten or 1st grade 

(Blachman et al., (1999); Brown & Felton, 1990; 

Torgesen et al., 1999). See Table 4 (Appendix E). This 

suggests that systematic phonics instruction should 

extend from kindergarten to 2nd grade, but the question 

remains whether additional instruction will produce 

further benefits. 

It will also be critical to objectively determine the ways 

in which systematic phonics instruction can be optimally 

incorporated and integrated in complete and balanced 

programs of reading instruction. Part of this effort 

2-137 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

should be directed at preservice and inservice education 

to provide teachers with decisionmaking frameworks to 

guide their selection, integration, and implementation of 

phonics instruction within a complete reading program. 

Another line of questions for research centers around 

older children above 1st grade who have acquired some 

reading ability but are reading substantially below grade 

level. When systematic phonics instruction is introduced 

to these children, do they have difficulty acquiring 

alphabetic knowledge and decoding strategies because 

they have already learned other ways to process print 

that undermine the acquisition and incorporation of 

these new processes into their reading? If so, perhaps 

special steps are required to address this problem. A 

related question is how can systematic phonics 

instruction be made more effective for low-achieving 

readers who have below-average intelligence as well as 

reading problems. Perhaps instruction in decoding needs 

to be combined with instruction in reading 

comprehension strategies to remediate their reading 

problems. 

When systematic phonics instruction is introduced to 

children who have already acquired some reading skill 

as a result of another program that does not emphasize 

phonics, one wonders about the impact of attempting to 

teach students new strategies when old tricks have 

already been learned. Findings of the Panel indicated 

that the impact of systematic phonics instruction was 

much reduced among children who were introduced to 

it presumably for the first time in 2nd grade and above. 

(This presumption may not be accurate, however, 

because most studies did not state what kind of 

instruction children had already experienced.) 

Additional research is needed to study how systematic 

phonics instruction is received by children who are 

already reading; whether there are sources of conflict; 

and, if so how to address them instructionally. A related 

question is whether the sequence of instruction makes a 

difference. It may be that children do better when a 

year of systematic phonics instruction precedes a year 

of whole language instruction than when the reverse is 

the case. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-138 
Report 

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Appendices 

PART II: PHONICS INSTRUCTION 
 

Appendices
 

Appendix A 
 

Studies Included in the Meta-Analysis
 

Note: Studies were assigned numbers during the 

screening process. Numbers missing in the list 

were assigned to studies that were rejected for the 

analysis. These are listed separately. 

03 Blachman, B., Tangel, D., Ball, E., Black, R. & 

McGraw, D. (1999). Developing phonological 

awareness and word recognition skills: A two-year 

intervention with low-income, inner-city children. 

Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 11, 

293-273. 

04 Bond, C., Ross, S., Smith, L., & Nunnery, J. 

(1995-96). The effects of the sing, spell, read, and write 

program on reading achievement of beginning readers. 

Reading Research and Instruction, 35, 122-141. 

05 Brown, I., & Felton, R. (1990). Effects of 

instruction on beginning reading skills in children at 

risk for reading disability. Reading and Writing: An 

Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 223-241. 

08 Eldredge, L. (1991). An experiment with a 

modified whole language approach in first-grade 

classrooms. Reading Research and Instruction, 30, 21-

38. 

09 Evans, M., & Carr, T. (1985). Cognitive 

abilities, conditions of learning, and the early 

development of reading skill. Reading Research 

Quarterly, 20, 327-350. 

11 Foorman, B., Francis, D., Fletcher, J., 

Schatschneider, C., & Mehta, P. (1998). The role of 

instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading 

failure in at-risk children. Journal of Educational 

Psychology, 90, 37-55. 

12 Foorman, B., Francis, D., Novy, D., & 

Liberman, D. (1991). How letter-sound instruction 

mediates progress in first-grade reading and spelling. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 456-469. 

13 Foorman, B., Francis, D., Winikates, D., 

Mehta, P., Schatschneider, C., & Fletcher, J. (1997). 

Early interventions for children with reading 

disabilities. Scientific Studies of Reading, 1, 255-276. 

59 Freppon, P. (1991). Children’s concepts of the 

nature and purpose of reading in different instructional 

settings. Journal of Reading Behavior, 23, 139-163. 

15 Fulwiler, G., & Groff, P. (1980). The 

effectiveness of intensive phonics. Reading Horizons, 

21, 50-54. 

72 Gersten, R., Darch, C., & Gleason, M. (1988). 

Effectiveness of a direct instruction academic 

kindergarten for low-income students. The Elementary 

School Journal, 89, 227-240. 

17 Gittelman, R., & Feingold, I. (1983). Children 

with reading disorders—I. Efficacy of reading 

remediation. Journal of Child Psychology and 

Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 24, 167-191. 

18 Greaney, K., Tunmer, W., & Chapman, J. 

(1997). Effects of rime-based orthographic analogy 

training on the word recognition skills of children with 

reading disability. Journal of Educational Psychology, 

89, 645-651. 

60 Griffith, P., Klesius, J., & Kromey, J. (1992). 

The effect of phonemic awareness on the literacy 

development of first grade children in a traditional or a 

whole language classroom. Journal of Research in 

Childhood Education, 6, 85-92. 

22 Haskell, D., Foorman, B., & Swank, P. (1992). 

Effects of three orthographic/phonological units on 

first-grade reading. Remedial and Special Education, 

13, 40-49. 

2-145 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

26 Klesius, J., Griffith, P., & Zielonka, P. (1991). 

A whole language and traditional instruction 

comparison: Overall effectiveness and development of 

the alphabetic principle. Reading Research and 

Instruction, 30, 47-61. 

28 Leach, D., & Siddall, S. (1990). Parental 

involvement in the teaching of reading: A comparison 

of hearing reading, paired reading, pause, prompt, 

praise, and direct instruction methods. British Journal 

of Educational Psychology, 60, 349-355. 

29 Leinhardt, G., & Engel, M. (1981). An iterative 

evaluation of NRS: Ripples in a pond. Evaluation 

Review, 5, 579-601. 

75 Lovett, M., Lacerenza, L., Borden, S., Frijters, 

J., Steinbach, K., & DePalma, M. (in press). 

Components of effective remediation for 

developmental reading disabilities: Combining 

phonological and strategy-based instruction to improve 

outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology. 

32 Lovett, R., Ransby, M., Hardwick, N., Johns, 

M., & Donaldson, S. (1989). Can dyslexia be treated? 

Treatment-specific and generalized treatment effects in 

dyslexic children’s reponse to remediation. Brain and 

Language, 37, 90-121. 

33 Lovett, M., & Steinbach, K. (1997). The 

effectiveness of remedial programs for reading disabled 

children of different ages: Does the benefit decrease for 

older children? Learning Disability Quarterly, 20, 189-

210. 

34 Lovett, M., Warren-Chaplin, P., Ransby, M., & 

Borden, S. (1990). Training the word recognition skills 

of reading disabled children: Treatment and transfer 

effects. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 769-

780. 

35 Lum, T., & Morton, L. (1984). Direct 

instruction in spelling increases gain in spelling and 

reading skills. Special Education in Canada, 58, 41-45. 

36 Mantzicopoulos, P., Morrison, D., Stone, E., & 

Setrakian, W. (1992). Use of the SEARCH/TEACH 

tutoring approach with middle-class students at risk for 

reading failure. Elementary School Journal, 92, 573-

586. 

37 Marston, D., Deno, S., Kim, D., Diment, K., & 

Rogers, D. (1995). Comparison of reading intervention 

approaches for students with mild disabilities. 

Exceptional Children, 62, 20-37. 

38 Martinussen, R., & Kirby, J. (1998). 

Instruction in successive and phonological processing 

to improve the reading acquisition of at-risk 

kindergarten children. Developmental Disabilities 

Bulletin, 26, 19-39. 

41 Oakland, T., Black, J., Stanford, G., Nussbaum, 

N., & Balise, R. (1998). An evaluation of the dyslexia 

training program: A multisensory method for promoting 

reading in students with reading disabilities. Journal of 

Learning Disabilities, 31, 140-147. 

44 Santa, C., & Hoien, T. (1999). An assessment 

of early steps: A program for early intervention of 

reading problems. Reading Research Quarterly, 34, 54-

79. 

47 Silberberg, N., Iversen, I., & Goins, J. (1973). 

Which remedial reading method works best? Journal of 

Learning Disabilities, 6, 18-27. 

48 Snider, V. (1990). Direct instruction reading 

with average first-graders. Reading Improvement, 27, 

143-148. 

74 Stuart, M. (1999). Getting ready for reading: 

Early phoneme awareness and phonics teaching 

improves rading and spelling in inner-city second 

language learners. British Journal of Educational 

Psychology, 69, 587-605. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-146 
Appendices 

51 Torgesen, J., Wagner, R., Rashotte, C., Rose, 

E., Lindamood, P., Conway, T., & Garvan, C. (1999). 

Preventing reading failure in young children with 

phonological processing disabilities: Group and 

individual responses to instruction. Journal of 

Educational Psychology, 91, 579-593. 

52 Traweek, K., & Berninger, V. (1997). 

Comparisons of beginning literacy programs: 

Alternative paths to the same learning outcome. 

Learning Disability Quarterly, 20, 160-168. 

53 Tunmer, W., & Hoover, W. (1993). 

Phonological recoding skill and beginning reading. 

Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 5, 

161-179. 

69 Umbach, B., Darch, C., & Halpin, G. (1989). 

Teaching reading to low performing first graders in 

rural schools: A comparison of two instructional 

approaches. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 16, 

23-30. 

54 Vandervelden, M., & Siegel, L. (1997). 

Teaching phonological processing skills in early 

literacy: A developmental approach. Learning 

Disability Quarterly, 20, 63-81. 

55 Vickery, K., Reynolds, V., & Cochran, S. 

(1987). Multisensory teaching approach for reading, 

spelling, and handwriting, Orton-Gillingham based 

curriculum, in a public school setting. Annals of 

Dyslexia, 37, 189-200. 

57 Wilson, K., & Norman, C. (1998). Differences 

in word recognition based on approach to reading 

instruction. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 

44, 221-230. 

2-147 National Reading Panel 
Appendices 

Appendix B 
 

List of Studies in the Original Database That Were Excluded
 

62 Barr, R. (1972). The influence of instructional 

conditions on word recognition errors. Reading 

Research Quarterly, 7 (3), 509-529. 

63 Barr, R. (1974). The effect of instruction on 

pupil reading strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 

10, (4), 555-582. 

01 Becker, W., & Gersten, R. (1982). A follow-up 

of follow through: The later effects of the direct 

instruction model on children in fifth and sixth grades. 

American Educational Research Journal, 19(1), 75-92. 

02 Berninger, V., Vaughan, K., Abbott, R., Brooks, 

A., Abbott, S., Rogan, L., Reed, E., & Graham, S. 

(1998). Early intervention for spelling problems: 

Teaching functional spelling units of varying size with 

a multiple-connections framework. Journal of 

Educational Psychology, 90, 587-605. 

61 Blachowicz, C., McCarthy, L., & Ogle, D. 

(1979). Testing phonics: A look at children’s response 

biases. Illinois School Research and Development, 16 

(1), 1-6. 

64 Carnine, D. (1977). Phonics versus look-say: 

Transfer to new words. The Reading Teacher, 30, 636-

640. 

71 Carnine, D. (1980). Phonic versus whole-word 

correction procedures following phonic instruction. 

Education and Treatment of Children, 3(4), 323-329. 

06 Eddowes, E. (1990). Teaching reading in 

kindergarten: Two contrasting approaches. Reading 

Improvement, 27, 220-223. 

07 Ehri, L., & Wilce, L. (1987). Cipher versus cue 

reading: An experiment in decoding acquisition. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 79 (1), 3-13. 

10 Fielding-Barnsley, R (1997). Explicit 

instruction in decoding benefits children high in 

phonemic awareness and alphabet knowledge. 

Scientific Studies of Reading, 1, 85-98. 

14 Foorman, B., & Liverman, D. (1989). Visual 

and phonological processing of words: A comparison 

of good and poor readers. Journal of Learning 

Disabilities, 22, 349-355. 

66 Gersten, R., Keating, T., & Becker, W. (1988). 

The continued impact of the direct instruction model: 

Longitudinal studies of follow through students. 

Education and Treatment of Children, 11 (4), 318-327. 

16 Gettinger, M. (1987). Prereading skills and 

achievement under three approaches to teaching word 

recognition. Journal of Research and Development in 

Education, 19, 1-9. 

68 Gillon, G., & Dodd, B. (1997). Enhancing the 

phonological processing skills of children with specific 

reading disability. European Journal of Disorders of 

Communication, 32, 67-90. 

19 Guyer, B., Banks, S., & Guyer, K. (1993). 

Spelling improvement for college students who are 

dyslexic. Annals of Dyslexia, 43, 186-193. 

20 Guyer, B., & Sabatino, D. (1989). The 

effectiveness of a multisensory alphabetic phonetic 

approach with college students who are learning 

disabled. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 430-434. 

21 Hall, D., & Cunningham, P. (1988). Context as 

a polysyllabic decoding strategy. Reading 

Improvement, 25, 261-264. 

23 Jeffrey, W., & Samuels, S. (1967). Effect of 

method of reading training on initial learning and 

transfer. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal 

Behavior, 6, 354-358. 

73 Kameenui, E., Stein, M., Carnine, D., & 

Maggs, A. (1981). Primary level word attack skills 

based on isolated word, discrimination list and rule 

application training. Reading Education, 6 (2), 46-55. 

2-149 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

24 Kaiser, S., Palumbo, K., Bialozor, R., & 

McLaughlin, T. (1989). The effects of direct instruction 

with rural remedial students: A brief report. Reading 

Improvement, 26, 88-93. 

25 Kibby, M. (1979). The effects of certain 

instructional conditions and response modes on initial 

word learning. Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 147-

171. 

27 Kuder, S. (1990). Effectiveness of the DISTAR 

Reading Program for children with learning 

disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 23, 69-71. 

30 Lovett, M., Borden, S., DeLuca, T., Lacerenza, 

L., Benson, N., & Brackstone, D. (1994). Treating the 

core deficits of developmental dyslexia: Evidence of 

transfer of learning after phonologically- and strategybased reading training programs. Developmental 

Psychology, 30, 805-822. 

31 Lovett, M., Ransby, M., & Barron, R. (1988). 

Treatment, subtype, and word type effects in dyslexic 

children’s response to remediation. Brain and 

Language, 34, 328-349. 

39 McNeil, J., & Donant, L. (1980). Transfer 

effect of word recognition strategies. Journal of 

Reading Behavior, 12(2), 97-103. 

40 Meyer, L. (1982). The relative effects of wordanalysis and word-supply correction procedures with 

poor readers during word-attack training. Reading 

Research Quarterly, 17(4), 544-555. 

42 Olson, R., & Wise, B. (1992). Reading on the 

computer with orthographic and speech feedback. 

Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 4, 

107-144. 

43 Olson, R., Wise, B., Ring, J., & Johnson, M. 

(1997). Computer-based remedial training in phoneme 

awareness and phonological decoding: Effects on the 

post-training development of word recognition. 

Scientific Studies of Reading, 1(3), 235-253. 

65 Peterson, M., & Haines, L. (1992). 

Orthographic analogy training with kindergarten 

children: Effects on analogy use, phonemic 

segmentation, and letter-sound knowledge. Journal of 

Reading Behavior, 24 (1), 109-127. 

45 Scherzer, C. & Goldstein, D. (1982). 

Children’s first reading lesson: Variables influencing 

within-lesson emotional behavior and post-lesson 

achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 

74(3), 382-392. 

46 Schwartz, S. (1988). A comparison of 

componential and traditional approaches to training 

reading skills. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2, 189-

201. 

49 Spiegel, D., Fitzgerald, J., & Heck, M. (1985). 

Teaching children to use a context-plus-phonics 

strategy. Reading Horizons, 25, 176-185. 

50 Sullivan, H., Okada, M., & Niedermeyer, F. 

(1971). Learning and transfer under two methods of 

word-attack instruction. American Educational 

Research Journal, 8(2), 227-239. 

67 Torgesen, J., Wagner, R., & Rashotte, C. 

(1997). Prevention and remediation of severe reading 

disabilities: Keeping the end in mind. Scientific Studies 

of Reading, 1 (3), 217-234. 

56 Walton, P. (1995). Rhyming ability, phoneme 

identify, letter-sound knowledge, and the use of 

orthographic analogy by pre-readers. Journal of 

Educational Psychology, 87(4), 587-597. 

70 Wise, B., Olson, R., Anstett, M., Andrews, L., 

Terjak, M., Schneider, V., Kostuch, J., & Driho, L. 

(1989). Implementing a long-term computerized 

remedial reading program with synthetic speech 

feedback: Hardware, software, and real-world issues. 

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and 

Computers, 21 (2), 173-180. 

58 Wise, B., & Olson, R. (1992). How poor 

readers and spellers use interactive speech in a 

computerized spelling program. Reading and Writing: 

An Interdisciplinary Journal, 4, 145-163. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-150 
Appendices 

Appendix C 
 

In the reports of experiments included in the metaanalysis examining the effects of phonics instruction, 

references were supplied for the programs and material 

used to teach systematic phonics. These are listed 

below. 

Synthetic Phonics Programs 

03 Blachman et al., 1999 

Blachman, B. (1987). An alternative classroom 

reading program for learning disabled and other low 

achieving children. In R. Bowler (Ed.), Intimacy with 

language: A forgotten basic in teacher education (pp. 

49-55). Baltimore, MD: Orton Dyslexia Society. 

Engelmann, S. (1969). Preventing failure in the 

primary grades. Chicago: Science Research 

Associates. 

Slingerland, B. (1971). A multi-sensory approach to 

language arts for specific language disability children: A 

guide for primary teachers. Cambridge, MA: Educators 

Publishing Service. 

Primary phonics series – published by Educator’s 

Publishing Service. 

Selected stories from Scott Foresman basal reading 

series (none of its other materials was used). 

04 Bond et al., 1995 

Dickson, S. (1972a). Sing, spell, read, & write. 

Chesapeake, VA: International Learning Systems. 

05 Brown & Felton, 1990 

Lippincott basic reading. (1981). Riverside, NJ: 

Macmillan Publishing Company. 

11 Foorman et al., 1998 

Open Court Reading. (1995). Collections for young 

scholars. Chicago and Peru, IL: SRA/McGraw-Hill. 

12 Foorman et al., 1991 

Scott, Foresman (1985). Scott, Foresman reading. 

Glenview, IL: Author. 

Modern Curriculum Press. (1986). Phonics practice 

readers, series B. Cleveland, OH: Author. 

Elwell, C., Murray, P., & Kucia, M. (1988). Modern 

Curriculum Press phonics program. Cleveland, OH: 

Modern Curriculum Press. 

13 Foorman et al., 1997 

Cox, A. R. (1991). Structures and techniques: 

Multisensory teaching of basic language skills. 

Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service. 

Gillingham, A., & Stillman, B. (1979). Remedial 

training for children with specific disability in reading, 

spelling, and penmanship. Cambridge, MA: Educators 

Publishing Service. 

Fulwiler & Groff, 1980 

McCracken, G., & Walcutt, C. (1975). Basic 

reading. Philadelphia: Lippincott. 

17 Gittelman & Feingold, 1983 

Pollack, C. (1967a). Phonic readiness kit. Brooklyn, 

NY: Book-Lab, Inc. 

Pollack, C. (1967b). The intersensory reading 

program: My own reading book and my own writing 

book, part I. Brooklyn, NY: Book-Lab, Inc. 

Pollack, C., & Atkins, R. (1971). The intersensory 

reading program: My own reading book, part II. 

Brooklyn, NY: Book-Lab, Inc. 

Pollack, C., & Lane, P. (1969). The lipreader, part 

I. Brooklyn, NY: Book-Lab, Inc. 

Pollack, C., & Lane, P. (1971) The lipreader, part 

II. Brooklyn, NY: Book-Lab, Inc. 

28 Leach & Sidall, 1990 

2-151 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Engelmann, S. (1980). Direct instruction. 

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 

Engelmann, S., & Bruner, E. (1975). DISTAR 

reading I & II: An instructional system. Chicago: 

Science Research Associates. 

Engelmann, S., Haddox, P., & Bruner, E. (1983). 

Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. New 

York: Simon & Schuster. 

29 Leinhardt & Engel, 1981 

Beck, I. (1977). Comprehension during the 

acquisition of decoding skills. In J. T. Guthrie (Ed.), 

Cognition, curriculum, and comprehension. Newark, 

DE: International Reading Association. 

Beck, I., & Mitroff, D. (1972). The rationale and 

design of a primary grades reading system for an 

individualized classroom. Pittsburgh: University of 

Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development 

Center. 

Lovett & Steinbach, 1997 

Engelmann, S., & Bruner, E. C. (1988). Reading 

mastery I/II fast cycle: Teacher’s guide. Chicago: 

Science Research Associates, Inc. 

Engelmann, S., Carnine, L., & Johnson, G. (1988). 

Corrective reading, word attack basics, decoding A. 

Chicago: Science Research Associates, Inc. 

Engelmann, S., Johnson, G., Carnine, L., Meyer, L., 

Becker, W., & Eisele, J. (1988). Corrective reading: 

Decoding strategies, decoding B1. Chicago: Science 

Research Associates, Inc. 

37 Marston et al., 1995 

Engelmann, S. (1980). Direct instruction. 

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology 

Publications. 

Science Research Associates (1988). Reading 

mastery. New York: SRA, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill. 

38 Martinussen & Kirby, 1998 

Das, J., Mishra, R., & Pool, J.(1995). An 

experiment on cognitive remediation of reading 

difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 28, 66-79. 

41 Oakland et al., 1998 

Beckham, P. B., & Biddle, M. L. (1989). Dyslexia 

training program books. Cambridge, MA: Educators 

Publishing Service. 

48 Snider, 1990 

Carnine, D., & Silbert, J. (1979). Direct instruction 

reading. Columbus, OH: Merrill. 

51 Torgesen et al., 1999 

Lindamood, C. H., & Lindamood, P. C. (1984). 

Auditory discrimination in depth. Austin, TX: PRO-ED, 

Inc. 

Short stories from:

Hannah, S. (1993). Early literacy series, I & II. 

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: The Centre for Literacy. 

Smith, L. (1992) Auditory discrimination reading 

series-sequence B. Independence, MO: Poppin 

Creations. 

52 Traweek & Berninger, 1997 

Engelmann, S., & Bruner, E. C. (1978). DISTAR 

reading: An instructional system. Chicago: Science 

Research Associates. 

55 Vickery et al., 1987 

Gillingham, A., & Stillman, B. W. (1956). Remedial 

training for children with specific disability in reading, 

spelling, and penmanship (5th ed). Cambridge, MA: 

Educators Publishing Service. 

Cox, A. (1984). Structures and techniques: 

Multisensory teaching of basic language skills. 

Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-152 
Appendices 

Waites, L., & Cox, A. (1969). Developmental 

language disability . . . Basic training . . . Remedial 

language training. Cambridge, MA: Educators 

Publishing Service. 

69 Umbach et al., 1992 

Reading mastery series (1986) 

Carnine, D., & Silbert, J. (1979). Direct instruction 

reading. Columbus, OH: Merrill. 

72 Gersten et al., 1988 

Becker, W., Engelmann, S., Carnine, D., & Rhine, 

R. (1981). Direct instruction models. In R. Rhine (Ed.), 

Encouraging change in American schools: A decade of 

experimentation (pp. 95-154). New York: Academic 

Press. 

Carnine, D., Carnine, L., Karp, J., & Weisbert, P. 

(1988) Kindergarten for economically disadvantaged 

students: The direct instruction component. In C. 

Wargen (Ed.), A resource guide to public school early 

childhood programs (pp. 73-98). Alexandria, VA: 

ASCD 

Engelmann, S., & Osborn, J. (1987). DISTAR 

language I. Chicago: Science Research Associates. 

74 Stuart, 1999 

Lloyd, S. (1992). The phonics handbook. UK: Jolly 

Learning. 

Lovett et al., in press 

Engelmann, S., & Bruner, E. C. (1988). Reading 

mastery I/II fast cycle: Teacher’s guide. Chicago: 

Science Research Associates, Inc. 

Engelmann, S., Carnine, L., & Johnson, G. (1988). 

Corrective reading, word attack basics, decoding A. 

Chicago: Science Research Associates, Inc. 

Engelmann, S., Johnson, G., Carnine, L., Meyer, L., 

Becker, W., & Eisele, J. (1988). Corrective reading: 

Decoding strategies, decoding B1. Chicago: Science 

Research Associates, Inc. 

Phonics Programs Emphasizing Larger 

Phonological Subunits 

11 Foorman et al., 1998 

Hiebert, E., Colt, J., Catto, S., & Gary, E. (1992). 

Reading and writing of first-grade students in a 

restructured chapter 1 program. American Educational 

Research Journal, 29, 545-572. 

13 Foorman et al., 1997 

Traub, N., & Bloom, F. (1992). Recipe for reading 

(3rd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing 

Service. 

33 Lovett & Steinbach, 1997 

Gaskins, I., Downer, M., & Gaskins, R. (1986). 

Introduction to the Benchmark school word 

identification/vocabulary development program. Media, 

PA: Benchmark School. 

Gaskins, I., Downer, M., Anderson, R., et al. 

(1988). A metacognitive approach to phonics: Using 

what you know to decode what you don’t know. 

Remedial and Special Education, 9, 36-41, 66. 

44 Santa & Hoien, 1999 

Morris, D., Shaw, B., & Perney, J. (1990). Helping 

low readers in grades 2 and 3: An after school 

volunteer program. Elementary School Journal, 91, 133­

150. 

Santa, C. (1998). Early steps: Learning from a 

reader. Kalispell, MT: Scott. 

51 Torgesen et al., 1999 

Short stories from HBJ bookmark Series 

53 Tunmer & Hoover, 1993 

Clay , M. (1985). The early detection of reading 

difficulties. Auckland: Heinemann. 

Clay, M. (1991). Becoming literate: The 

construction of inner control. Auckland: Heinemann. 

2-153 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Iversen, S., & Tunmer, W. (1993). Phonological 

processing skills and the Reading Recovery program. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 112-126. 

75 Lovett et al., in press 

Gaskins, I., Downer, M., & Gaskins, R. (1986). 

Introduction to the Benchmark school word 

identification/vocabulary development program. Media, 

PA: Benchmark School. 

Miscellaneous Phonics Programs:

34 Lovett et al., 1990 

Dixon, R., Engelmann, S., & Meier, M. (1980). 

Spelling mastery, a direction instruction series - Level 

A. Chicago: Science Research Asssociates. 

Dixon, R., & Engelmann, S. (1981). Spelling 

mastery, a direction instruction series - Level B. 

Chicago: Science Research Associates. 

Mantzicopoulos et al., 1992 

Cradler, J., Bechthold, D., & Bechthold, C. (1974). 

Success-controlled optimal reading experience 

(SCORE). Hillsborough, CA: Learning Guidance 

Systems. 

Makar, B. (1985). Primary phonics. Cambridge, 

MA: Educators Publishing Service. 

Phonics practice readers. (1986). Cleveland, OH: 

Modern Curriculum Press. 

Hall & Price (1984). Explode the code. Cambridge, 

MA: Educators Publishing Service. 

Bechthold, C., & Bechthold, D. (1976). Signs for 

sounds. Hillsborough, CA: Educational Support 

Systems. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-154 
 

Appendices 

APPENDIX D

Table 2

Treatment-Control Group Comparisons in the Database Grouped by Type of Phonics Program and Coded for 

Instructional Unit, Grade, Reading Ability of Participants, Length of Treatment, Type of Control Group, and Overall 

Effect size on Literacy Outcome Measures 

Identity/Typea 

of Program 

Inst. 

Unit 

Grade/ 

Abil.b 

Lengthc Controld de 

EMPHASIS ON SYNTHETIC PHONICS (S) 

74 Jolly Phonics (S) Class K at risk 12 wks. Big Books (WL) 0.73 

38 Successive phonics (S) Sm gp K at risk 8 wks. Reg. curr. 0.62 

03 Blachman PA (S) Sm gp K at risk 2-3 yrs. Basal 0.72/0.36 

04 SingSpellReadWrite (S) Class K 1 yr. Basal 0.51 

51 Lindamood PA (S) Tutor K at risk 3 yrs Reg. curr. 0.33/0.67 

72 Direct Instruction (S) Class K at risk 4 yrs. Reg. curr. -- /0.24 

29 NRS-2 (Beck) (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.45 

29 NRS-3 (Beck) (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.44 

29 NRS-4 (Beck) (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.33 

29 NRS-6 (Beck) (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.70 

12 Synthetic basal (S) Class 1st 1 yr Whole word 2.27 

04 SingSpellReadWrite (S) Class 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.25 

15 Lippincott (S) Class 1st 1 yr. Whole word 0.84 

48 Direct Instruction (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal/Prev. yr. 0.38f 

28 Direct Instruction (S) Tutor 1st 10 wks. Misc. (child reads) 1.99 

08 Modif. Whole Lang (S) Class 1st at risk 1 yr. Basal 0.63 

11 Open Court (S) Class 1st at risk 1 yr. Whole language 0.91 

52 Direct Instruction (S) Class 1st at risk 1 yr. Whole language 0.07 

69 Direct Instruction (S) Sm gp 1st at risk 1 yr. Basal 1.19 

05 Lippincott (S) Sm gp 1st at risk 2 yrs. Whole word 0.48/.52 

72 Direct Instruction (S) Class 1st at risk 3 yrs. Reg. curr. --/0.00 

04 SingSpellReadWrite (S) Class 2nd 1 yr. Basal 0.38 

57 Sequential phonics (S) Class 2nd 1 yr. Whole language -0.47 

11 Open Court (S) Class 2nd lo ach. 1 yr. Whole language 0.12 

37 Direct Instruction (S) Class gr 1-6 lo ach 10 wks. Reg. curr. 0.01 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 3rd 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.04 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 4th 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.04 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 5th 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.61 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 6th 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.43 

33 Lovett Dir. Inst. (S) Sm gp gr 2-3 RD 9 wks(35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 0.24 

33 Lovett Dir. Inst. (S) Sm gp gr 4 RD 9 wks(35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 1.42 

33 Lovett Dir. Inst. (S) Sm gp gr 5-6 RD 9 wks(35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 0.09 

17 Intersensory method (S) Tutor age 7-13 RD 18 wks. Misc. (Subj. tutor) 0.53 

2-155 National Reading Panel 
 

 

Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Table2(Continued) (Continued) (Continued)

75 Lovett Dir. Inst. (S) Sm gp age 6-13 RD 70 hrs Misc.(Study+Math) 0.24 

32 Decoding skills (S) Sm gp age 8-13 RD 40 sessions Misc. (Study skills) 0.39 

47 Lippincott (S) Sm gp 3rd RD 1 yr. Whole word 0.50 

13 Orton-Gillingham (S) Sm gp gr 2-3 RD 1 yr. Whole word 0.27 

41 Orton-Gillingham (S) Sm gp M=11yr RD 2 yrs. Reg. curr. /--0.54 

47 Orton-Gillingham (S) Sm gp 3rd RD 1 yr. Whole word 0.04 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 3rd lo ach. 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.63 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 4th lo ach. 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.19 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 5th lo ach. 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) -0.20 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 6th lo ach. 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.13 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-156 
Identity/Typea Inst. Grade/ Lengthc Controld de 

of Program Unit Abil.b 

 

 

 

Appendices 

Table2(Continued) (Continued)
 (Continued)

EMPHASIS ON BLENDING LARGER SUBUNITS AS WELL AS PHONEMES (LU)
 

51 Embedded (LU) Tutor K at risk 3 yrs. Reg. curr. 0.32/0.17 

11 Embedded (LU) Class 1st at risk 1 yr. Whole language 0.36 

11 Embedded (LU) Class 2nd lo ach 1 yr. Whole language 0.03 

13 Onset-rime (LU) Sm gp gr 2-3 RD 1 yr. Whole word -0.11 

44 RRDg

-Early Steps (LU) Tutor 1st at risk 1 yr. Whole language 0.76 

53 RRDg-Phonograms (LU) Tutor 1st at risk 42 sessions Reg. curr. 3.71 

18 RRDg-Rime anal.(LU) Tutor gr 2-5 lo ach 11 wks. Whole word 0.37 

33 Lovett Analogy (LU) Sm gp gr 2/3 RD 9 wks (35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 0.49 

33 Lovett Analogy (LU) Sm gp gr 4 RD 9 wks (35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 1.41 

33 Lovett Analogy (LU) Sm gp gr 5/6 RD 9 wks (35 s) Misc. (Study skills) -0.25 

75 Lovett Analogy (LU) Sm gp age 6-13 RD 70 hrs Misc.(Study+Math) 0.50 

COMBINATION PROGRAMS (C) 

75 Dir.Inst.+Analogy.(C) Sm gp age 6-13 RD 70 hrs Misc.(Study+Math) 0.60 

75 Analogy+Dir.Inst. (C) Sm gp age 6-13 RD 70 hrs Misc.(Study+Math) 0.21 

MISCELLANEOUS PHONICS (M) 

54 Developmental (M) Sm gp K at risk 12 wk. Reg. curr. extended 0.47 

09 Traditional basal (M) Class 1st 1 yr. Whole language 0.60 

22 Analyze phonemes (M) Sm gp 1st 6 wks. Whole word -0.07 

22 Analyze onset-rimes (M) Sm gp 1st 6 wks. Whole word 0.14 

26 Traditional basal (M) Class 1st 1 yr. Whole language 0.20 

59 Sequential phonics (M) Class 1st 1 yr/less Whole language 0.00 

60 Traditional basal (M) Class 1st 1 yr. Whole language -0.33 

36 Phonetic read/spell (M) Tutor 1st at risk 1 yr (50 s) Reg. curr. 0.53 

35 Spelling mastery (M) Class 2nd 1 yr. Tradit. spell (RC) 0.38 

34 Analytic (M) Sm gp age 7-13 RD 9 wks (35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 0.16 

a The programs listed as Direct Instruction include Reading Mastery and DISTAR. 

b Information about grade/reading ability refers to the point in time when instruction began. RD refers to children 

classified as reading disabled. Lo ach refers to children above first grade who were identified as low achievers in 

their ability to read. At risk refers to kindergartners or first graders who performed poorly either on reading tests 

or on tests predictive of poor reading. If not marked, the sample consisted of normally developing readers. 

s refers to the number of sessions. 

d RC means regular curriculum. WL means whole language. Misc. means miscellaneous category. 

e

 Effect sizes listed singly are those observed at the end of training that lasted one year or less. When training 

lasted longer than one year, the first effect size reports the outcome at the end of the first year and the second
 

effect size reports the outcome at the end of training.
 

f This effect size was not measured immediately after training but following a delay of six months.
 

g

 RRD refers to a program derived from Reading Recovery that was modified to include systematic phonics
 

instruction in which phonemes were taught along with larger phonological units such as onsets, rimes and spelling
 

patterns.
 

2-157 National Reading Panel 

c 
 

Appendices 

APPENDIX E

Table 3

Mean Effect Sizes (d) as a Function of Moderator Variables and Tests to Determine Whether Effect Sizes Were 

Significantly Greater Than Zero at p < 0.05, Whether Effect Sizes Were Homogeneous at p < 0.05, and Whether 

Effect Sizes Differed From Each Other at p < 0.05. Effect Sizes Refer to Outcomes Immediately After Training 

or At the End of One School Year, Whichever Came First, Unless Labeled as Followup or End of Training. 

Moderator Variables 

 and Levels 

No. 

Cases 

Mean 

 d 

Homogen. 95% 

CI 

Contrasts 

Time of Posttest 

End of Training 65 0.41* No 0.36 to 0.47 n.s. 

End of Training or One Yeara 62 0.44* No 0.38 to 0.50 

Followup 7 0.28* Yes 0.10 to 0.46 

End of Trainingb 6 0.51* Yes 0.32 to 0.70 n.s. 

Followup 6 0.27* Yes 0.07 to 0.46 

Outcome Measures 

Decoding regular words 30 0.67* No 0.57 to 0.77 DecR = DecP; 

Decoding pseudowords 40 0.60* No 0.52 to 0.67 Both > 

Reading misc. words 59 0.40* No 0.34 to 0.46 RW, Spel, 

Spelling words 37 0.35* No 0.28 to 0.43 Oral, 

Reading text orally 16 0.25* No 0.15 to 0.36 Comp. 

Comprehending text 35 0.27* No 0.19 to 0.36 

Characteristics of Participants 

Grade

 Kind. & First 30 0.55* No 0.47 to 0.62 K-1st > 

 2nd-6th, RD 32 0.27* Yes 0.18 to 0.36 2nd-6th/RD 

Younger Grades 

 Kindergarten 7 0.56* Yes 0.40 to 0.73 

 First Grade 23 0.54* No 0.46 to 0.63 

Kindergarten and First 

Graders on Outcome Measures

 Decoding regular words 8 0.98* No 0.81 to 1.16 DecR > 

Decoding pseudowords 14 0.67* No 0.56 to 0.78 RMW, Co, Or;

Reading misc. words 23 0.45* No 0.37 to 0.53 Spel > Or; 

 Spelling words 13 0.67* No 0.54 to 0.79 DecP > Or. 

 Reading text orally 6 0.23* No 0.05 to 0.41 

 Comprehending text 11 0.51* No 0.36 to 0.65 

2nd-6th, RD on Outcome Measures

 Decoding regular words 17 0.49* No 0.34 to 0.65 DecR > Sp; 

 Decoding pseudowords 13 0.52* Yes 0.37 to 0.66 DecP >

Reading misc. words 23 0.33* No 0.22 to 0.44 Sp,Co. 

 Spelling words 13 0.09ns Yes -0.04 to 0.23

Reading text orally 6 0.24* Yes 0.08 to 0.39 

 Comprehending text 11 0.12ns Yes -0.04 to 0.28 

2-159 National Reading Panel 
Moderator Variables No. Mean Homogen. 95% Contrasts 

 and Levels Cases d CI 

Grade and Reading Ability 

 Kindergarten At Risk 6 0.58* Yes 0.40 to 0.77 1AR >

1st Normal 14 0.48* No 0.38 to 0.58 2N, 2AR, 

 1st At Risk 9 0.74* No 0.56 to 0.91 RD

2nd-6th Normal 7 0.27* Yes 0.12 to 0.43

2nd-6th Lo Achievers 8 0.15ns Yes -0.06 to 0.36

Reading Disabled 17 0.32* Yes 0.18 to 0.46 

Socioeconomic Status 

 Low SES 6 0.66* Yes 0.48 to 0.85 n.s.

Middle SES 10 0.44* No 0.28 to 0.60 

 Varied 14 0.37* Yes 0.26 to 0.48

Not Given 32 0.43* No 0.34 to 0.51 

Characteristics of Instruction 

 Type of Phonics Program

 Synthetic 39 0.45* No 0.39 to 0.52 n.s. 

 Larger Phon. Units 11 0.34*d No 0.16 to 0.52

Miscellaneous 10 0.27* Yes 0.08 to 0.46 

Specific Phonics Programs 

NRS-Beck LRDC (S) 4 0.47* Yes 0.33 to 0.60 n.s. 

 Direct Instruction (S) 4 0.48* No 0.13 to 0.83 

 Lovett Direct Instruct (S) 4 0.41* Yes 0.04 to 0.77 

 Lovett Analogy (LU) 4 0.48* Yes 0.11 to 0.86

 Lippincott (S) 3 0.68* Yes 0.43 to 0.93 

 Orton Gillingham (S) 10 0.23* Yes 0.06 to 0.39

Sing Spell Read Write (S) 3 0.35* Yes 0.21 to 0.50 

Synthetic Phonics For Various Readers Groups 

K & 1st At Riskc 9 0.64* Yes 0.49 to 0.80 K&1AR > 

1st Normal 8 0.54* No 0.43 to 0.65 2-6LA, 

2nd-6th Normal 6 0.27* Yes 0.11 to 0.43 2-6N 

2nd-6th Lo Achievers 6 0.14ns Yes -0.10 to 0.39 

Reading Disabled 9 0.36* Yes 0.18 to 0.54 

Unit of Instruction 

Tutor 8 0.57*d No 0.38 to 0.77 n.s. 

Small Group 27 0.43* Yes 0.34 to 0.52 

Class 27 0.39* No 0.31 to 0.48 

Type of Control Group

 Basal 10 0.46* Yes 0.37 to 0.55 n.s. 

 Regular Curriculum 16 0.41* No 0.27 to 0.54 

 Whole Language 12 0.31* No 0.16 to 0.47 

Whole Word 10 0.51* No 0.35 to 0.67 

Miscellaneous 14 0.46* Yes 0.28 to 0.63 

Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Table3(Continued) (Continued)
 (Continued)

Reports of the Subgroups 2-160 
______________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Moderator Variables No. Mean Homogen 95% Contrasts 

 and Levels Cases d CI 

______________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Characteristics of the Design of Studies 

Assignment of Participants to Treatment and Control Groups 

 Random 23 0.45* Yes 0.32 to 0.58 n.s.
 

 Nonequivalent Groups 39 0.43* No 0.37 to 0.50
 

 Sample Size


 20 to 31 14 0.48* No 0.26 to 0.70 n.s.


 32 to 52 16 0.31* Yes 0.15 to 0.47


 53 to 79 16 0.36* No 0.23 to 0.49


 80 to 320 16 0.49* No 0.41 to 0.57
 

________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

 

Appendices 

Table3(Continued) (Continued) (Continued)

* indicates that effect size was significantly greater than zero at p < 0.05. 

ns indicates not significantly different from zero. 

a

 Effect sizes indicate literacy outcomes at the end of training for studies lasting 1 year or less, and at the end of 

the first school year for studies that continued training beyond 1 year. 

b

 The six studies in both comparisons were the same studies. 

c

 The kindergarten and 1st grade at-risk groups had identical ds and were combined. 

d This effect size was adjusted to reduce the impact of one atypically large outlier. 

2-161 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Table 4

Characteristics of Sets of Studies of Special Interest 

Type of 

Programa 

Inst. 

Unit 

Grade/ 

Abil. 

Length Control d 

STUDIES WITH TRAINING LASTING MORE THAN A YEARc
 

03 Blachman PA (S) Sm gp K at risk 2-3 yrs Basal 0.72/0.64/0.36
 

51 Lindamood PA (S) Tutor K at risk 3 yrs Reg. curr. 0.33/0.75/0.67
 

51 Embedded (LU) Tutor K at risk 3 yrs Reg. curr. 0.32/0.28/0.17
 

05 Lippincott (S) Sm gp 1st at risk 2 yrs Whole word 0.48/0.52
 

72 Direct Instruction (S) Class K at risk 4 yrs Reg. curr. --/0.24
 

72 Direct Instruction (S) Class 1st at risk 3 yrs Reg. curr. --/0.00
 

41 Orton-Gillingham (S) Sm gp M=11yr RD 2 yrs Reg. curr. --/0.54
 

STUDIES MEASURING IMMEDIATE OUTCOMES AND LONG-TERM OUTCOMESb
 

18 Rime analogy (LU) Tutor gr 2-5 lo ach 11 wks Whole word 0.37/0.56 (1 yr.)
 

36 Phonetic read/spell (M) Tutor 1st at risk 50 ses Reg. curr. 0.53/0.32 (1 yr.)
 

44 Early Steps (LU) Tutor 1st at risk 1 yr Whole language 0.76/0.86 (4 mo.)
 

47 Orton-Gillingham (S) Sm gp 3rd RD 1 yr Whole word 0.04/-0.47 (6 mo.)
 

47 Lippincott (S) Sm gp 3rd RD 1 yr Whole word 0.50/0.33 (6 mo.)
 

48 Direct Instruction (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr Basal (Prev. yr) --/0.38 (6 mo.)
 

74 Jolly Phonics (S) Class K at risk 12 wks Big Books (WL) 0.73/0.28 (1 yr.)
 

2ND-6TH LOW ACHIEVERS
 

11 Embedded (LU) Class 2nd lo ach 1 yr Whole language 0.03
 

11 Open Court (S) Class 2nd lo ach. 1 yr Whole language 0.12
 

18 Rime analogy (LU) Tutor gr 2-5 lo ach 11 wks Whole word 0.37
 

37 Direct Instruction (S) Class gr 1-6 lo ach 10 wks Reg. curr. 0.01
 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 3rd lo ach. 1 yr Previous prog. (RC) 0.63
 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 5th lo ach. 1 yr Previous prog. (RC) -0.20
 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 6th lo ach. 1 yr Previous prog. (RC) 0.13
 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 4th lo ach. 1 yr Previous prog. (RC) 0.19
 

TUTORING COMPARISONS
 

51 Lindamood PA (S) Tutor K at risk 3 yrs Reg. curr. (class) 0.33/0.67
 

51 Embedded (LU) Tutor K at risk 3 yrs Reg. curr. (class) 0.32/0.17
 

28 Direct Instruction (S) Tutor 1st 10 wks Misc. (child reads) (tutor) 1.99
 

36 Phonetic read/spell (M) Tutor 1st at risk 50 ses Reg. curr. (class) 0.53
 

44 Early Steps (LU) Tutor 1st at risk 1 yr Whole lang. (sm gp) 0.76
 

53 Phonograms (LU) Tutor 1st at risk 42 ses Reg. curr. (class) 3.71
 

17 Intersensory method (S) Tutor age 7-13 RD 18 wks Misc. (Subj. tutor) 0.53
 

18 Rime analogy (LU) Tutor gr 2-5 lo ach 11 wks Whole word (tutor) 0.37
 

_______________________________________________________________________________ 

a Letters in parentheses refer to the type of phonics program: S (synthetic), LU (Larger subunits),
 

M (Miscellaneous).
 

b The first effect size is for the immediate posttest and the second is for the delayed posttest. The length of the
 

delay between posttests is given in parentheses.
 

When 3 effect sizes are reported, these refer to effects at the end of each year of training. 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-162 

c 
Table 5

Number of Comparisons by Grade and Reading Ability 

Grade Reading Ability 

Normally 

Developing 

At Risk/ 

Low Achievers 

Reading 

Disabled 

Total 

Kindergarten 1 6 (K-AR) -- 7
 

First Grade 14 (1N) 9 (1-AR) -- 23
 

Second Grade 3 (2-6N) 2 (2-6 AR) -- 5
 

3rd-6th Grades 4 (2-6N) 4 (2-6 AR) 6(RD) 14
 

Mixed grades -- 2 (2-6 AR) 11 (RD) 13
 

Total 22 23 17 62
 

________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

Appendices 

Note. The symbols in parentheses refer to the groups that were created for the meta-analysis. 

2-163 National Reading Panel 
 

Appendices 

Appendix F

Table 6

Characteristics of the Treatment-Control Group Comparisons Utilizing Specific Phonics Programs That Were 

Included in the Meta-Analysis 

Identify/Type 

of Program 

Inst. 

Unit 

Grade/ 

Abil. 

Length Control d 

28 Direct Instruction (S) Tutor 1st 10 wks. Misc. (child reads) 1.99 

52 Direct Instruction (S) Class 1st at risk 1 yr. Whole language 0.07 

69 Direct Instruction (S) Sm gp 1st at risk 1 yr. Basal 1.19 

37 Direct Instruction (S) Class gr 1-6 lo ach 10 wks. Reg. curr. 0.01 

33 Lovett Dir. Inst. (S) Sm gp gr 4 RD 9 wks(35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 1.42 

33 Lovett Dir. Inst. (S) Sm gp gr 2-3 RD 9 wks(35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 0.24 

33 Lovett Dir. Inst. (S) Sm gp gr 5-6 RD 9 wks(35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 0.09 

75 Lovett Dir. Inst. (S) Sm gp age 6-13 RD 70 hrs Misc.(Study+Math) 0.24 

33 Lovett Analogy (LU) Sm gp gr 4 RD 9 wks (35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 1.41 

33 Lovett Analogy (LU) Sm gp gr 2/3 RD 9 wks (35 s) Misc. (Study skills) 0.49 

33 Lovett Analogy (LU) Sm gp gr 5/6 RD 9 wks (35 s) Misc. (Study skills) -0.25 

75 Lovett Analogy (LU) Sm gp age 6-13 RD 70 hrs Misc.(Study+Math) 0.50 

15 Lippincott (S) Class 1st 1 yr. Whole word 0.84 

05 Lippincott (S) Sm gp 1st at risk 2 yrs. Whole word 0.48 

47 Lippincott (S) Sm gp 3rd RD 1 yr. Whole word 0.50 

29 NRS-6 (Beck) (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.70 

29 NRS-4 (Beck) (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.33 

29 NRS-3 (Beck) (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.44 

29 NRS-2 (Beck) (S) Sm gp 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.45 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 3rd 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.04 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 4th 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.04 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 5th 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.61 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 6th 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.43 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 3rd lo ach. 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.63 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 4th lo ach. 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.19 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 5th lo ach. 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) -0.20 

55 Orton-Gillingham (S) Class 6th lo ach. 1 yr. Previous prog. (RC) 0.13 

13 Orton-Gillingham (S) Sm gp gr 2-3 RD 1 yr. Whole word 0.27 

47 Orton-Gillingham (S) Sm gp 3rd RD 1 yr. Whole word 0.04 

04 SingSpellReadWrite (S) Class K 1 yr. Basal 0.51 

04 SingSpellReadWrite (S) Class 1st 1 yr. Basal 0.25 

04 SingSpellReadWrite (S) Class 2nd 1 yr. Basal 0.38 

2-165 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Appendix Appendix Appendix F (continued) 
 

Table 7

Descriptions of the Specific Phonics Programs Examined in the Meta-Analysis 

1. Direct Instruction. The Direct Instruction program is based on a behavioral analysis of the steps involved in 

learning to decode (Carnine & Silbert, 1979; Engelmann, 1980; Engelmann & Bruner, 1969, 1978, 1988; 

Engelmann & Osborn, 1987; Kameenui et al., 1997). At the beginning of the program, students are not taught 

letter names but only letter-sound relations through highly structured instruction that uses cueing and reinforcement 

procedures derived from a behavioral analyses of instruction. The task of decoding is broken down into its 

component parts, and each of these parts is taught separately, from letter sounds to blending to reading words in 

context. Instruction is scripted and the lessons are fast paced, with high student participation. The text for the 

first-year program is written in a script that, although it preserves English spelling, contains printed marks that cue 

the reader about silent letters and different vowel sounds. Children practice in specially constructed books 

containing taught sounds, although children may be encouraged to read widely in children’s literature as well (e.g., 

Meyer, 1983). 

2. Lovett Direct Instruction. The synthetic phonics program used by Lovett and Steinbach (1997) and Lovett et 

al. (in press) adopts the Direction Instruction model to remediate the decoding and phonemic awareness difficulties 

of severely disabled readers. Children are taught phonological analysis and blending (phonemic awareness) orally 

and also letter sound associations in the context of word recognition and decoding instruction. The program 

focuses on training sound blending and acquisition of a left-to-right phonological decoding strategy. The special 

orthography highlights salient features of many letters and provides visual cues such as symbols over long vowels, 

letter size variations, and connected letters to facilitate learning. Cumulative, systematic review and many 

opportunities for overlearning are hallmarks of this approach. New material is not introduced until the child fully 

masters previously instructed material. 

3. Lovett Analogy. A second program also used with severely disabled readers by Lovett and Steinbach (1997) 

and Lovett et al. (in press) was adapted from the Benchmark Word Identification/Vocabulary Development 

program developed by Gaskins et al. (1986). This program is strongly metacognitive in its focus. It teaches 

children how to use four metacognitive strategies to decode words: reading words by analogy, detecting parts of 

words that are known, varying the pronunciations of vowels to maintain flexibility in decoding attempts, and 

“peeling off” prefixes and suffixes in words. Children learn a set of 120 key words exemplifying high-frequency 

spelling patterns, 5 words per day. They learn to segment the words into subunits so that they can use these 

known words and their parts to read other similarly spelled words. They learn letter-sound associations for vowels 

and affixes. Various types of texts provide children with practice applying the strategies taught. 

4. Lippincott. The Lippincott Basic Reading Series (McCracken & Walcutt, 1963, 1975) is a direct code method 

which, from the outset, approaches reading from a phonic/linguistic perspective. Beginning with children’s spoken 

language, the Lippincott program teaches in a systematic manner how to use the alphabetic code to move from 

printed words to oral language. Instruction begins with short-a and builds knowledge of regular sound/symbol 

relationships. Children are first taught to decode phonetically regular words, with blending of phonic elements 

directly taught. Once they are proficient, long vowels and irregular spellings are introduced. Although the primary 

instructional focus is on decoding, another goal of this method is the instant recognition of words. However, rather 

than relying on a “context clue” approach to word recognition, children are taught how and why the letters come to 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-166 
Appendices 

Appendi Appendi Appendi x F (continued) (continued) 
 

Table 7 (continued) (continued)
 (continued)

represent these words, and they learn to “break the code” to decipher new words independently. Review and 

reinforcement are an integral part of the program. Spelling is sometimes taught as one component of the reading 

lesson with spelling lists developed from the words introduced in each unit of reading instruction (Brown & Felton, 

1990). 

5. NRS by Beck and Mitroff. The New Primary Grades Reading System for an Individualized Classroom (NRS) 

was developed by Beck and Mitroff (1972). It is a code-breaking approach. The program begins by teaching 

self-management skills, letter-sound correspondences, and chain blending to decode words. Children are taught to 

pronounce the first letter of a word followed by the second letter and then to blend the two sounds; then they 

pronounce the third letter and add it to the blend. In the first lesson, children are taught five isolated letter-sound 

relations, and once they are known, children are immediately taught to blend them to form real words. Subsequent 

letter-sounds are taught one at a time and blended with the earlier letters. Not only synthetic phonics but also 

analytic phonics is taught as children explore words and their parts. The method is linguistic as well because the 

major spelling patterns of words are displayed in texts to draw attention to similarities and contrasts, and because 

there is minimum teaching of explicit pronunciation rules. Instruction is individualized. After the first two levels, 

children work through the curriculum at different rates. 

6. Orton Gillingham. The Orton-Gillingham approach (Cox, 1991; Gillingham & Stillman, 1979) begins with the 

direct teaching of individual letters paired with their sounds using a Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic-Tactile (VAKT) 

procedure that involves tracing the letter while saying its name and sound, blending letters together to read words 

and sentences, and finally reading short stories constructed to contain only taught sounds. Spelling words from 

dictation is also part of an Orton-Gillingham lesson. Each letter-sound is learned to mastery through repetition. 

More advanced lessons involve teaching learners to blend syllables together and read more complex texts. 

Among those approaches based on Orton and Gillingham’s work are the Slingerland approach (Lovitt & DeMier, 

1984), the Spaulding Approach, Recipe for Reading, and Alphabetic Phonics (Ogden, Hindman, & Turner, 1989). 

There are differences among these approaches, largely in the sequencing of materials, but they all have the 

general characteristics discussed. 

7. Sing, Spell, Read & Write. The Sing, Spell, Read and Write (SSRW) program (Dickson, 1972) also teaches 

synthetic phonics. It consists of several charts, books (both readers and workbooks), letter and word cards, tests, 

and audio tapes. The tapes contain songs about several phonics generalizations. Through the tapes, the students 

learn the sounds of letters and letter combinations. Also songs combined with charts help students learn the 

spellings of words. The lessons begin by teaching letter-sounds in isolation for each letter of the alphabet. When 

students have mastered certain sounds, they begin reading phonetic storybooks. The first five books each focus on 

a different vowel sound. The remaining books expand the vocabulary in a way that is consistent with the lettersounds taught. Students are taught to spell the words they learn to read, with the words presented in sentences. 

Most of the writing students do involves filling in blanks or answering questions related to words being learned. 

The program has a “racetrack” which is posted in classrooms and notes students’ progress by placement of a race 

car on the chart (Bond et al., 1995-96). 

2-167 National Reading Panel 
Appendix G

Studies in the Phonics Database, Their Characteristics, and Effect S

(Note: key to this chart is on page 2-176) 

2-169 National Reading Panel 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Part. Features of Design Effect Sizes on Po

Author and Year, Treatment 

Type of 

Phonics 

Control 

Group Tr.unit Length of Training Grade/ Age Reading Ability SES Group Assign. Sig Pre­ test Diff Total N Time of Post-test Mean Word ID Dec Spell Comp 

03 - Blachman etal., (1999) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Blachman PA Syn lBasa SmG 2-3yrs(41s­ ,20m/d) K AR Low NE No 159 Imm. 0.72 -0.17 1.08 0.94 . 

Blachman PA (1st gr=30 m/d) 128 2nd yr tr. 0.64 0.35 0.81 0.53 . 

Blachman PA (2nd gr=30 m/d) 106 3rd yr tr. 0.36 0.42 0.55 0 . 

04 ­ Bond et al.,

1995 

, Read,lSing, Spel 

teiWr Syn lBasa asslC 1 yr.( 20 lessons) K N Var NE No 144 Imm. 0.51 0.38 . . . 

, Read,lSing, Spel 

teiWr Syn lBasa asslC 1 yr. 1st N Var NE No 276 Imm. 0.25 0.23 . 0.14 . 

, Read,lSing, Spel 

teiWr Syn lBasa asslC 1 yr. 2nd N Var NE No 320 Imm. 0.38 0.44 . 0.18 . 

05 - Brown & 

Felton, 1990 

ppincottiL Syn Wh.W. SmG 2 yrs. 1st AR NG R No 47 Imm. 0.48 0.02 . 0.51 . 

ppincottiL 2nd yr tr. 0.52 0.51 0.63 0.38 . 

08 - Eldredge, 

1991 

eled WhoifiMod 

Language Syn lBasa Class 1 yr. (15m/d) 1st AR Low NE No 105 Imm. 0.63 . . . 0.83 

09 - Evans, 1985

BasalltionaiTrad sciM Wh.L. Class 1 yr. 1st N Var NE NG 20*(N=­ 247) Imm. 0.6 . . . 0.6 
Appendix Appendix Appendix G (continued) (continued) (continued)

Reports of the Subgroups 2-170 Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Part. Features of Design Effect Sizes on 

Author and Year, Treatment Type of Phonics Control Group Tr.unit Length of Training Grade/ Age Reading Ability SES Group Assign. Sig Pre test Diff Total N Time of Post-test Mean Word ID Dec Spell Co

­ 11 - Foorman et al., 1998 Open Court Syn Wh.L. Class 1 yr. (30m/d) 1st AR Var NE NG 68 Imm. 0.91 1.63 1.14 0.56 0.3

Embedded LU Wh.L. Class 1 yr. 1st AR Var NE NG 70 Imm. 0.36 0.56 0.51 0.26 0.1 

Open Court Syn Wh.L. Class 1 yr. 2nd LA Var NE NG 35 Imm. 0.12 0.52 0.32 -0.19 -0.

Embedded LU Wh.L. Class 1 yr. 2nd LA Var NE NG 57 Imm. 0.03 0.37 0.22 -0.25 -0.

12 - Foorman et al., 1991 Synthetic basal Syn Wh.W. Class 1 yr. (45 m/d) 1st N Mid NE No 6*(N=8­ 0) Imm. 2.27 1.92 2.67 2.21 . 

13 - Foorman et al., 1997 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Wh.W. SmG 1 yr. (60 m/d) gr 2-3 RD Mid NG Yes 67 Imm. 0.27 0.17 0.58 0.05 . 

Onset-rime LU Wh.W. SmG 1 yr. gr 2-3 RD Mid NG Yes 85 Imm. -0.11 -0.19 0.09 -0.23 . 

15 - Fulwiler & Groff, 1980 

ncottiLipp Syn Wh.W. Class 1 yr. 1st N NG NE NG 147 Imm. 0.84 . 0.91 . 0.7

17 - Gittelman & Feingold, 1983 Intersensory Method Syn Misc. Tutor 18 wks.(54s) 7-13yr RD Mid R No 56 Imm. 0.53 0.76 0.67 0.12 0.5

18 - Greaney et 

al., 1997 

RRD-Rime analogy LU Wh.W. Tutor 

11 

wks(31s,3­0m) 

gr 2-5 LA NG R No 36 Imm. 0.37 0.39 . . . 

RRD-Rime analogy 34 follow up 0.56 0.47 . . . 
Appendix Appendix Appendix G (continued) (continued) (continued)

2-171 National Reading Panel 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Part. Features of Design Effect Sizes on 

Author and Year, Treatment 

Type of 

Phonics 

Control 

Group Tr.unit Length of Training Grade/ Age Reading Ability SES Group Assign. Sig Pre test Diff Total N Time of Post-test Mean Word ID Dec Spell Co

­

22 - Haskell et al., 1992 Analyze OnsetmesiR Misc Wh.W. SmG 6 wks(15s, 20m) 1st N Mid R No 24 Imm. 0.14 0.2 0.09 . . 

Analyze 

Phonemes Misc Wh.W. SmG 6 wks(15s, 20m) 1st N Mid R No 24 Imm. -0.07 -0.08 -0.06 . . 

26 - Klesius et al., 1991 

onal BasaliTradit Misc Wh.L. Class 1 yr. 1st N Var NE Yes 6*(N=1­ 12) Imm. 0.2 . . 0.36 0.1

28 - Leach & 

Siddall, 1990 

onirect InstructiD Syn Misc. Tutor 10 wks (15m/d) 1st N NG R No 20 Imm. 1.99 . . . 1.8 

29 - Leinhardt & 

Engel, 1981 NRS-study 2 (Beck) Syn lBasa SmG 1 yr. 1st N NG NE Yes 187 Imm. 0.45 0.45 . . . 

NRS-study 3 

(Beck) Syn lBasa SmG 1 yr. 1st N NG NE Yes 263 Imm. 0.44 0.44 . . . 

NRS-study 4 (Beck) Syn lBasa SmG 1 yr. 1st N NG NE Yes 256 Imm. 0.33 0.33 . . . 

NRS-study 6 (Beck) Syn lBasa SmG 1 yr. 1st N NG NE Yes 241 Imm. 0.7 0.7 . . . 

32 - Lovett et al., 

1989 Decoding Sk lsli Syn Misc. SmG 40 ses (33-40h) 8-13yr RD Mid R No 118 Imm. 0.39 0.78 0.7 0.42 0.0

33 - Lovett & 

Steinbach, 1997 Lovett Analogy LU Misc. SmG 9wks (35h) gr 2/3 RD NG R No 28 Imm. 0.49 -0.12 0.85 . . 

Lovett Analogy LU Misc. SmG 9wks (35h) gr 4 RD NG R No 22 Imm. 1.41 0.84 2.06 . . 
Appendix Appendix Appendix G (continued) (continued) (continued)

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Part. Features of Design Effect Sizes on 

Author and Year, Treatment 

Type of 

Phonics 

Control 

Group Tr.unit Length of Training Grade/ Age Reading Ability SES Group Assign. Sig Pre test Diff Total N Time of Post-test Mean Word ID Dec Spell Co

Reports of the Subgroups 2-172 ­ Lovett Analogy LU Misc. SmG 9wks (35h) gr 5/6 RD NG R No 24 Imm. -0.25 -0.49 -0.15 . . 

Lovett Direct Instruction Syn Misc. SmG 9wks (35h) gr 2/3 RD NG R No 32 Imm. 0.24 0.02 0.24 . . 

Lovett Direct Instruction Syn Misc. SmG 9wks (35h) gr 4 RD NG R No 25 Imm. 1.42 1.03 1.53 . . 

Lovett Direct Instruction Syn Misc. SmG 9wks (35h) gr 5/6 RD NG R No 27 Imm. 0.09 -0.24 0.25 . . 

34 - Lovett et al., 1990 Analytic Misc Misc. SmG 9wks (35h) 7-13yr RD Mid R NG 36 Imm. 0.16 0.13 0.11 0.23 . 

35 - Lum & Morton, 1984 ling MasterylSpe Misc Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(20-30 m/d) 2nd N NG NE No 36 Imm. 0.38 0.31 . 0.45 . 

36 -

Mantzicopoulos et al., 1992 

ciPhonet 

read/spell Misc Rg.cls. Tutor 50s (1h/wk) 1st AR Mid R No 112 Imm. 0.53 . . . . 

ciPhonet 

read/spell 112 follow up 0.32 . 0.33 0.3 0.0

37 - Marston et al., 1995 

onirect InstructiD Syn Rg.cls. Class 10 wks (45m/d) gr 1-6 LA NG NE Y/Adj 53 Imm. 0.01 . . . . 

38 - Martinussen 

& Kirby, 1998 Successive phonics Syn Rg.cls. SmG 8 wks(40­ 60m/wk) K AR NG R No 26 Imm. 0.62 0.53 0.63 0.68 . 

41 - Oakland et al., 1998 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. SmG 2 yrs.(350h) M=11y RD NG NE Yes 48 2nd yr tr. 0.54 0.71 . 0.23 0.6
Appendix Appendix Appendix G (continued) (continued) (continued)

2-173 National Reading Panel 

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Part. Features of Design Effect Sizes on 

Author and Year, Treatment 

Type of 

Phonics 

Control 

Group Tr.unit Length of Training Grade/ Age Reading Ability SES Group Assign. Sig Pre test Diff Total N Time of Post-test Mean Word ID Dec Spell Co

­

44 - Santa & 

Hoien, 1999 RRD-Early Steps LU Wh.L. Tutor 1 yr.(30m/d) 1st AR Var NE No 49 Imm. 0.76 0.93 . 0.63 0.7

RRD-Early Steps 41 follow up 0.86 0.57 . . 0.8

47 - Silberberg et al., 1973 

ncottiLipp Syn Wh.W. SmG 1 yr. gr 3 RD NG NE Yes 69 Imm. 0.5 0.7 . . 0.3

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Wh.W. SmG 1 yr. gr 3 RD NG NE Yes 65 Imm. 0.04 0.31 . . 0.0

ncottiLipp 62 follow up 0.33 0.37 . . -0.

inghamllOrton-Gi 58 follow up -0.47 -0.19 . . -0.

48 - Snider, 1990 

onirect InstructiD Syn lBasa SmG 1yr.(60m/d) 1st N Mid NE No 66 follow up 0.38 . 0.6 0.44 0.1 

51 - Torgesen et 

1999al., . . . 

2.5 

Lindamood PA Syn Rg.cls. Tutor yrs.(80m/­ K AR NG R No 65 Imm. 0.33 0.08 . . . 

wk) 2.5 

Embedded LU Rg.cls. Tutor yrs.(80m/­ K AR NG R No 68 Imm. 0.32 0.52 . . . 

wk) 

Lindamood PA 65 2nd yr tr. 0.75 0.64 . . 0.4

Embedded 68 2nd yr tr. 0.28 0.24 . . 0.2

Lindamood PA 65 3rd yr tr. 0.67 0.67 . 0.64 0.3

Embedded 68 3rd yr tr. 0.17 0.25 . 0.1 0.1
Appendix Appendix Appendix G (continued) (continued) (continued)

Reports of the Subgroups 2-174 Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Part. Features of Design Effect Sizes on 

Author and Year, Treatment Type of Phonics Control Group Tr.unit Length of Training Grade/ Age Reading Ability SES Group Assign. Sig Pre test Diff Total N Time of Post-test Mean Word ID Dec Spell Co

­ 52 - Traweek & Berninger, 1997 onirect InstructiD Syn Wh.L. Class 1yr. 1st AR Low NE Y/Adj 38 Imm. 0.07 0.07 . . . 

53 - Tunmer & Hoover, 1993 RRD-Phonograms LU Rg.cls. Tutor 42 s (30m/d) 1st AR NG NG NG 64 Imm. 3.71 2.94 . 1.63 . 

54 - Vandervelden & Siegel, 1997 opmentallDeve Misc Rg.cls. SmG 12wks(30-­ 45m/wk) K AR Low NE No 29 Imm. 0.47 0.04 . 1.11 . 

55 - Vickery et al., 1987 inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(55 m/d) 3rd N NG NE NG 63 Imm. 0.04 . . . . 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(55 m/d) 4th N NG NE NG 71 Imm. 0.04 . . . . 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(55 m/d) 5th N NG NE NG 74 Imm. 0.61 . . . . 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(55 m/d) 6th N NG NE NG 79 Imm. 0.43 . . . . 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(55 m/d) 3rd LA NG NE NG 46 Imm. 0.63 . . . . 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(55 m/d) 4th LA NG NE NG 47 Imm. 0.19 . . . . 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(55 m/d) 5th LA NG NE NG 45 Imm. -0.2 . . . . 

inghamllOrton-Gi Syn Rg.cls. Class 1 yr.(55 m/d) 6th LA NG NE NG 41 Imm. 0.13 . . . . 

57 - Wilson & 

Norman, 1998 Sequential phonics Syn Wh.L. Class 1 yr. 2nd N NG NE No 54 Imm. -0.47 -0.33 . . -0.
Appendix Appendix Appendix G (continued) (continued) (continued)

Characteristics of Training Characteristics of Part. Features of Design Effect Sizes on 

Author and Year, Treatment 

Type of 

Phonics 

Control 

Group Tr.unit Length of Training Grade/ Age Reading Ability SES Group Assign. Sig Pre test Diff Total N Time of Post-test Mean Word ID Dec Spell Co

2-175 National Reading Panel 

­

59 - Freppon, 

1991 Sequential phonics Misc Wh.L. Class 1 yr. 1st N Mid NE Yes 24 Imm. 0 . . . . 

60 - Griffith et al., 

1992 

onal basaliTradit Misc Wh.L. Class 1 yr. 1st N NG NE No 24 Imm. -0.33 -1.11 . -0.54 -0.

69 - Umbach et al., 1989 

onirect InstructiD Syn lBasa SmG 1 yr.(50 m/d) 1st AR Low R No 31 Imm. 1.19 1.3 . . 1.0

72 - Gersten et 

al., 1988 

onirect InstructiD Syn Rg.cls. Class 4 yrs. K AR Low NE No 101 4th yr tr 0.24 . . 0.16 0.2

onirect InstructiD Syn Rg.cls. Class 3 yrs. 1st AR Low NE No 141 3rd yr tr. 0 . . -0.12 0.1

74 - Stuart, 1999 

12 

ly PhonicslJo Syn Wh.L. Class wks(60m/­ K AR Low NE Y/Adj 112 Imm. 0.73 0.56 . 1.11 0.3

d) 

ly PhonicslJo 112 follow up 0.28 0.11 . 0.5 0.3

75 - Lovett et al., 

(in press) 

iD r. Instruction +

Analogy Com Misc. SmG 70h 6-13yr RD Var R NG 37 Imm. 0.6 0.36 1 0.15 0.2

Analogy + Direct 

Instruction Com Misc. SmG 70h 6-13yr RD Var R NG 32 Imm. 0.21 0.04 0.55 -0.2 0.1

Lovett Direct Instruction Syn Misc. SmG 70h 6-13yr RD Var R NG 40 Imm. 0.24 0.21 0.36 -0.19 0.4

Lovett Analogy LU Misc. SmG 70h 6-13yr RD Var R NG 42 Imm. 0.5 0.47 0.75 0.01 0.6 
Chapter 2, Part II: Phonics Instruction 

Appendix Appendix Appendix G (continued) (continued) 
 

Abbreviations Key 

Following is a key to Appendix G. 

Word ID = Word Identification h = hour

Dec = Decoding s = session(s)

Spell = Spelling wks = weeks

Comp = Comprehension gr = grade

Nonw = Nonword reading M = mean

Oral Read = Oral reading K = Kindergarten

Gen. Read = Generic reading RD = Reading Disabled

Syn = Synthetic; AR = At Risk

LU = Larger Units LA = Low Achievement

Misc = Miscellaneous NG = Not Given

Com = Combination Var = Varied

Wh.W. = Whole Word Mid = Middle class

Wh.L. = Whole Language R = Random assignment

Rg. Cls. = Regular class NE = Non Equivalent groups

Y/Adj = Yes, but means were adjusted for SmG = Small group pretest differences 

yr, = year Imm. = Immediate

m = minutes tr = training

m/d = minutes a day *class was used as the unit of analysis 

Reports of the Subgroups 2-176 

Executive Summary

FLUENCY 

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

Fluent readers can read text with speed, accuracy, and 

proper expression. Fluency depends upon well 

developed word recognition skills, but such skills do not 

inevitably lead to fluency. It is generally acknowledged 

that fluency is a critical component of skilled reading. 

Nevertheless, it is often neglected in classroom 

instruction. That neglect has started to give way as 

research and theory have reconceptualized this aspect 

of reading, and empirical studies have examined the 

efficacy of specific approaches to teaching fluency. 

Here the National Reading Panel (NRP) will provide a 

summary of the evidence supporting the effectiveness 

of various instructional approaches that are intended to 

foster this essential ingredient in successful reading 

development. 

The purpose of this report of the NRP was to review 

the changing concepts of fluency as an essential aspect 

of reading, and to consider the effectiveness of two 

major instructional approaches to fluency development 

and the readiness of these approaches for wide use by 

the schools. The first major approach that was analyzed 

includes procedures that emphasize repeated oral 

reading practice or guided repeated oral reading 

practice. These procedures include repeated reading 

(Samuels, 1979), neurological impress (Heckelman, 

1969), radio reading (Greene, 1979), paired reading 

(Topping, 1987), and a variety of similar techniques 

aimed at developing fluent reading habits. The second 

major approach considered here includes all formal 

efforts to increase the amounts of independent or 

recreational reading that children engage in, including 

sustained silent reading programs (Hunt, 1970), the 

Accelerated Reader (Advantage Learning Systems, 

1986), and various incentive programs (i.e., 

S. Shanahan, Wojciehowski, & Rubik, 1998). 

There were a number of reasons why the NRP 

selected fluency for review and analysis. One is that 

there is growing concern that children are not achieving 

fluency in reading. Recently, the National Assessment 

of Educational Progress conducted a large study of the 

status of fluency achievement in American education 

(Pinnell et al., 1995). That study examined the reading 

fluency of a nationally representative sample of fourth 

graders, and found 44% of students to be disfluent even 

with grade-level stories that the students had read under 

supportive testing conditions. And furthermore, that 

study found a close relationship between fluency and 

reading comprehension. Students who are low in 

fluency may have difficulty getting the meaning of what 

they read. Given this, it is not surprising that the 

National Research Council report, Preventing Reading 

Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 

1998), states “Adequate progress in learning to read 

English (or, any alphabetic language) beyond the initial 

level depends on sufficient practice in reading to 

achieve fluency with different texts” (p. 223), and that 

it recommended, “Because the ability to obtain meaning 

from print depends so strongly on the development of 

word recognition accuracy and reading fluency, both the 

latter should be regularly assessed in the classroom, 

permitting timely and effective instructional response 

when difficulty or delay is apparent” (p. 7). 

Background 

There is common agreement that fluency develops from 

reading practice. What researchers have not yet agreed 

upon is what form such practice should take to be most 

effective. For example, one approach is to have 

students read passages orally with guidance and 

feedback. Programs in this category include repeated 

reading, neurological impress, paired reading, 

shared reading, and assisted reading, to note the 

most popular procedures. 

Another, less explicit, but widely used approach, is to 

encourage students to read extensively on their own or 

with minimal guidance and feedback. Programs in this 

category include all efforts to increase the amounts of 

independent or recreational reading including sustained 

silent reading (SSR), Drop Everything and Read, 

Accelerated Reader (AR), and various incentive 

programs. Often these approaches have no formal name, 

but take the form of requirements that students engage 

3-1 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

in unsupervised independent reading at school or home. 

This report examined the evidence concerning the 

effectiveness of both guided oral reading procedures 

and approaches that encourage students to read more. 

Methodology 

How Was the Analysis of the Research 

Literature Conducted? 

The NRP conducted an extensive and systemic 

literature review on these two approaches to the 

development of fluency. Using the methodology and 

criteria developed for this purpose by the NRP, to reach 

its conclusions on the effectiveness of each approach, 

the Panel included only: 

1.	 Studies that were experimental tests of the 

procedures under examination. 

2.	 Studies that were conducted with students in 

kindergarten through grade 12. 

3.	 Studies that had appeared in a refereed journal. 

4.	 Studies that had been carried out with English 

language reading. 

Each study which met these criteria was summarized 

and coded. Where appropriate, the studies were 

analyzed for their effect sizes, as this allowed the Panel 

to determine quantitatively the amount of difference 

such procedures made in children’s reading 

development. Studies that could not be analyzed 

quantitatively were also examined in order to evaluate 

the consistency of their findings with those obtained 

from the quantitative studies. 

In its work, the Panel searched two separate databases: 

PsycINFO and ERIC. The search using PsycINFO 

identified 1,260 potential articles on instructional 

PsycINFO approaches to teaching repeated oral 

reading. This number was deemed too large to search 

efficiently, so the Panel limited its search to articles that 

had been published since, and including, 1990. This 

reduced the number of articles for this topic to 346. A 

parallel search using ERIC identified 410 potential 

articles. Removing redundant articles between the two 

databases resulted in 364 unique articles. Review of 

each of these article’s adherence to the NRP criteria 

resulted in a total of 77 articles that were coded for 

possible use in the final analysis. 

A similar search process was carried out to identify and 

locate articles on the effectiveness of encouraging 

independent silent reading practice. Search of the 

PsycINFO database identified 478 articles, while the 

ERIC database identified 325 articles. Removing 

redundant articles resulted in 603 unique articles on 

instruction in the various approaches to encouraging 

independent reading practice. Review of each of the 

article’s adherence to the NRP criteria resulted in the 

identification of 92 articles. Further careful analysis of 

these articles according to their adherence to the 

methodology of the NRP selection procedures resulted 

in further reduction, with a resulting 14 of which could 

be used in the meta-analysis to address the Panel’s 

question of whether this instructional approach has 

proven to be effective in improving reading fluency. 

Additionally, this analysis was bolstered through a 

qualitative analysis of 37 other studies that also met 

these criteria but that could not be used in the metaanalysis for various reasons. These studies were 

checked for their consistency of findings with those 

analyzed in the meta-analysis. 

As a result of the limitations of the number and quality 

of studies examining the effectiveness of encouraging 

independent reading, a meta-analysis was appropriate 

only in examining the effectiveness of repeated oral 

reading instructional approaches. In the meta-analysis, 

the primary statistic used was “effect size,” indicating 

the extent to which performance of the treatment group 

is greater than performance of the control group. For 

example, an effect size of 1.0 indicates that the 

treatment group mean was one standard deviation 

higher than the control group mean, revealing a strong 

effect of guided oral reading instruction. In contrast, an 

effect size of 0 indicates that treatment and control 

group means were identical and that the treatment had 

no measurable effect on measured reading 

performance. In practice, the strength of an effect size 

can be gauged: a value of 0.20 is considered small; 0.50 

is moderate, and 0.80 is large. When available, effect 

sizes were calculated to determine whether repeated 

oral reading improved children’s accuracy, fluency, and 

comprehension. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 3-2 
Executive Summary 

Results and Discussion 

What Do the Results of the Analysis of 

Studies on the Development of Fluency 

Show? 

Are guided repeated oral reading procedures

effective in improving reading fluency and overall

reading achievement?

The answer was a clear yes. The analysis of guided 

oral reading procedures led to the conclusion that such 

procedures had a consistent, and positive impact on 

word recognition, fluency, and comprehension as 

measured by a variety of test instruments and at a 

range of grade levels. 

What do results of the meta-analysis of guided

oral reading procedures show?

Overall, the study found a weighted effect size average 

of 0.41, suggesting that guided oral reading has a 

moderate impact upon reading achievement. Analysis 

indicated that repeated reading procedures have a clear 

impact on the reading ability of non-impaired readers 

through at least grade 4, as well as on students with 

various kinds of reading problems throughout high 

school. All approaches were associated with positive 

effect sizes; however, the sample sizes were generally 

too small to carry out further analyses comparing one 

treatment to another within this category. 

The interventions demonstrated somewhat differential 

effects on reading outcomes. The highest impact was 

on reading accuracy, with a mean effect size of 0.55; 

the next was on reading fluency, with a mean effect 

size of 0.44, and the least, but still impressive impact 

was on reading comprehension, where the effect size 

was 0.35. In studies where these reading outcome 

measures were aggregated, the mean effect size was 

0.50. These data provide strong support for the 

supposition that instruction in guided oral reading is 

effective in improving reading. 

Is there evidence that encouraging children to

read on their own is effective in increasing

reading fluency and overall reading achievement?

The NRP also examined the accumulated research 

literature on the effects of programs (for example, 

Sustained Silent Reading and Accelerated Reader) that 

encourage children to read on their own. The Panel 

was able to locate relatively few studies on this topic, 

and these tended to address a narrow range of 

procedures. The studies examined the impact of 

encouraging independent reading on overall reading, 

rather than on reading fluency, per se. Most of these 

studies failed to find a positive relationship between 

encouraging reading and either the amount of reading or 

reading achievement. Furthermore, few of the studies 

actually monitored the amount of reading students did in 

the program; therefore, it is unclear whether the 

interventions led to more reading, or just displaced other 

reading that students might have done otherwise. Based 

on the existing evidence, the NRP can only indicate that 

while encouraging students to read might be beneficial, 

research has not yet demonstrated this in a clear and 

convincing manner. 

Conclusions 

What Conclusions Can Be Drawn From 

This Analysis of Fluency Development 

Studies? 

Can fluency be encouraged through instructional

procedures?

Yes. An extensive review of the literature indicates that 

classroom practices that encourage repeated oral 

reading with feedback and guidance leads to meaningful 

improvements in reading expertise for students—for 

good readers as well as those who are experiencing 

difficulties. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

Is It Important to Increase Fluency? 

Teachers need to know that word recognition accuracy 

is not the end point of reading instruction. Fluency 

represents a level of expertise beyond word recognition 

accuracy, and reading comprehension may be aided by 

fluency. Skilled readers read words accurately, rapidly 

and efficiently. Children who do not develop reading 

fluency, no matter how bright they are, will continue to 

read slowly and with great effort. 

Are These Results Ready for 

Implementation in the Classroom? 

Yes, the NRP found that a range of well-described 

instructional approaches to encouraging repeated oral 

reading result in increased reading proficiency. These 

approaches are well documented and referenced here. 

3-3 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

In contrast, the NRP did not find evidence supporting 

the effectiveness of encouraging independent silent 

reading as a means of improving reading achievement. 

The results of this study indicate that teachers should 

assess fluency regularly. Both informal as well as 

standardized assessments of oral reading accuracy, rate 

and comprehension are available and referenced in the 

full report. 

The demonstrated effectiveness of guided oral reading 

compared to the lack of demonstrated effectiveness of 

strategies encouraging independent silent reading 

suggests the importance of explicit compared to more 

implicit instructional approaches for improving reading 

fluency. 

Directions for Further Research 

The National Reading Panel’s extensive review 

demonstrated good reason to provide instruction 

encouraging the development of fluency and overall 

reading proficiency, and indicated which specific 

approaches the evidence supports as being most 

effective in increasing fluency. However, this review 

reveals important gaps in our knowledge. Future 

research is necessary to address some of these 

questions. 

Research is needed to address the question of the 

relationship between guided oral reading instruction and 

the development of fluency. What elements of 

instructional practice are most responsible for improved 

fluency? Research is needed to attempt to disentangle 

the particular contributions of components of guided 

reading, such as oral reading, guidance, repetition, and 

text factors. And it is important to know for which 

children, at what level of reading ability and in what 

setting and by whom (teachers, classroom aides, peers, 

parents) and for how long do different approaches to 

guided oral reading work best? 

Research is needed over longer time spans to provide 

information about the emergence of fluency and its 

relationship to specific instructional practices. And 

where along the development of reading are what 

specific approaches to encouraging fluency most 

effective? 

Research is needed to study in more analytic and 

rigorous ways, the impact of independent reading on a 

range of reading outcomes. Since encouraging 

independent reading is so intuitively appealing and so 

frequently recommended, it is critical to clarify in a 

more definitive way the relationship between programs 

that encourage independent reading and reading 

development. There is a clear need for rigorous 

experimental research on the impact of programs that 

encourage reading on different populations of students 

at varying ages and reading levels using several 

different reading outcomes, including amount of reading 

and specific components of reading achievement, and 

where the amount of independent reading is carefully 

monitored. 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-4 
Report

FLUENCY 

Report 

The purpose of this report of the NRP is to review the 

changing concepts of fluency as an essential aspect of 

reading and to consider the effectiveness of two major 

instructional approaches to fluency development and the 

readiness of these approaches for wide use by the 

schools: first, procedures that emphasize repeated oral 

reading practice or guided repeated oral reading 

practice; and second, all formal efforts to increase the 

amounts of independent or recreational reading that 

children engage in, including sustained silent reading 

programs. Because of the fundamental differences in 

these two approaches, and because of the differing 

amounts and nature of the articles in these two areas, 

the Panel was able to perform meta-analysis only on 

studies relevant to the first topic, repeated oral or 

guided reading. There were too few experimental 

studies of the variety of approaches to silent reading for 

such an analysis; therefore, the Panel performed a 

more informal analysis of these studies, but felt that 

some discussion of the studies was nonetheless 

important. 

As a result of these different types of analyses, this 

report is organized in a slightly different way from the 

other subreports by the Panel. First, an overall 

introduction addresses the importance of the 

development of fluency in reading and provides 

background for two subsections. From that point, the 

report is organized in two major sections, with individual 

methods, results and discussion, implications for reading 

instruction and directions for future research. Finally, 

the Panel offers overall conclusions on extant research 

addressing reading fluency. 

Introduction 

Fluency, the ability to read a text quickly, accurately, 

and with proper expression, has been described as the 

“most neglected” reading skill (Allington, 1983), and 

with good reason. For much of the 20th century, 

researchers and practitioners alike assumed that 

fluency was the immediate result of word recognition 

proficiency, so efforts were directed towards the 

development of word recognition, whereas fluency itself 

was largely ignored. That neglect has started to give 

way during the past three decades as research and 

theory have reconceptualized this aspect of reading 

performance. Research has increasingly turned towards 

considerations of how instruction and reading 

experience contribute to fluency development. 

The purpose of this report is to review the changing 

concepts of fluency as an essential aspect of reading 

and to consider the effectiveness of two major 

instructional approaches to fluency development and the 

readiness of these approaches for wide use by the 

schools. The first major approach that will be analyzed 

here includes procedures that emphasize repeated oral 

reading practice or guided repeated oral reading 

practice. These procedures include repeated reading 

(Samuels, 1979), neurological impress (Heckelman, 

1969), radio reading (Greene, 1979), paired reading 

(Topping, 1987), and a variety of similar techniques 

aimed at developing fluent reading habits. The second 

major approach considered here includes all formal 

efforts to increase the amounts of independent or 

recreational reading that children engage in, including 

sustained silent reading programs (Hunt, 1970), the 

Accelerated Reader (Advantage Learning Systems, 

1986), and various incentive programs (i.e., Shanahan, 

Wojciehowski, & Rubik, 1998). 

Why is fluency important and how well are students 

doing in achieving fluency? The National Assessment 

of Educational Progress conducted a large study of the 

status of fluency achievement in American education 

(Pinnell et al., 1995). That study examined the reading 

fluency of a nationally representative sample of 4th 

graders and found 44% of students to be disfluent even 

with grade-level stories that the students had read under 

supportive testing conditions. Moreover, that study 

found a close relationship between fluency and reading 

comprehension. Students who are low in fluency may 

have difficulty getting the meaning of what they read. 

Given this, it is not surprising that the National Research 

Council report, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young 

Children (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998), states 

“Adequate progress in learning to read English (or any 

alphabetic language) beyond the initial level depends on 

sufficient practice in reading to achieve fluency with 

different texts” (p. 223), and that it recommends, 

3-5 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

“Because the ability to obtain meaning from print 

depends so strongly on the development of word 

recognition accuracy and reading fluency, both should 

be regularly assessed in the classroom, permitting timely 

and effective instructional response when difficulty or 

delay is apparent” (p. 7). 

Changing Concepts of Fluency 

Over the past three decades, our understanding of what 

is involved in reading fluency has been altered and 

enlarged. One finds, for example, in the 1974 LaBerge 

and Samuels’ article on automatic information 

processing in reading, an emphasis on word recognition. 

This same focus persists in the The Literacy Dictionary 

definition (Harris & Hodges, 1995) that states that 

fluency is “freedom from word identification problems.” 

More recent conceptualizations of fluency, however, 

have been extended beyond word recognition and may 

embrace comprehension processes as well (Thurlow & 

van den Broek, 1997). 

In its early conception, it was recognized that fluency 

requires high-speed word recognition that frees a 

reader’s cognitive resources so that the meaning of a 

text can be the focus of attention. However, it is now 

clear that fluency may also include the ability to group 

words appropriately into meaningful grammatical units 

for interpretation (Schreiber, 1980, 1987). Fluency 

requires the rapid use of punctuation and the 

determination of where to place emphasis or where to 

pause to make sense of a text. Readers must carry out 

these aspects of interpretation rapidly—and usually 

without conscious attention. Thus, fluency helps enable 

reading comprehension by freeing cognitive resources 

for interpretation, but it is also implicated in the process 

of comprehension as it necessarily includes preliminary 

interpretive steps. 

Early Research on Expertise and Fluency 

Recognition of the importance of automatic processes 

and reading fluency is not new to psychology or 

education. During the last century, and certainly in the 

last 30 years, there has been interest in skills acquisition 

and expertise. Many early investigations of expertise 

focused on perceptual-motor skills. For example, the 

Principles of Psychology (James, 1890) explained the 

importance of practice and repetition in the 

development of the skills that enabled someone to 

perform complex acts with ease, and the Bryan and 

Harter (1899) studies described how telegraph 

operators learned to send and receive Morse code 

accurately in larger and larger units. 

Not all research was carried out during this early period 

addressed psychomotor behavior, however. Huey’s 

(1905) book on the reading process became a classic in 

the field in part because it summarized the research 

findings of the 1800s on word recognition and eye 

movements during reading and in part because it was 

the harbinger for what would later develop into the 

cognitive psychology paradigm. In that work, Huey 

made the following perceptive observation about the 

development of fluency: 

Perceiving being an act, it is, like all other things 

that we do, performed more easily with each 

repetition of the act. To perceive an entirely new 

word or other combination of strokes requires 

considerable time, close attention, and is likely to be 

imperfectly done, just as when we attempt some 

new combination of movements, some new trick in 

the gymnasium or new “serve” at tennis. In either 

case, repetition progressively frees the mind from 

attention to details, makes facile the total act, 

shortens the time, and reduces the extent to which 

consciousness must concern itself with the process 

(p. 104). 

From about 1910 until the middle of the 1950s, during 

what we now designate as the period of “Behaviorism,” 

little research was done on automaticity or reading 

fluency. Researchers who worked within psychology’s 

behavioral paradigm tended to shy away from research 

on reading as a psychological process. But, by the 

1970s, the pendulum had moved away from 

behaviorism and back to studies of “inside-the-head” 

phenomena such as problemsolving and reading. As a 

result, cognitive psychologists of the period again 

considered issues such as letter recognition (Posner & 

Snyder, 1975) and lexical access (Neely, 1977). 

It was during this period that linguists attempted to 

describe the reading process. Fries (1962), for example, 

discussed the importance of mapping spoken language 

onto print within reading. According to Fries, to be 

considered a fluent reader, a person has to do this 

language mapping rapidly and easily. Soon after, 

LaBerge and Samuels (1974) published their general 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-6 
Report 

theory of automatic information processing in reading in 

which they explained why automaticity in word 

recognition was an important prerequisite to skilled 

reading comprehension. This insight was echoed and 

expanded in later work. 

By this point, theoreticians began to wonder about how 

fluency skills develop. Stanovich (1990), for example, 

was critical of assumptions regarding cognitive resource 

limitations, and Logan’s (1997) instance theory 

explained how a single exposure to a word could leave 

a sufficient memory trace to allow it to be recognized 

automatically in the future. 

Defining Automaticity and Fluency 

There has been a high degree of overlap in the use of 

terms such as “automaticity” and “fluency.” Most 

scholars treat automaticity as the more general term 

that embraces a wide variety of behaviors, ranging from 

motor skills such as driving and typing to cognitive skills 

such as reading. Some would prefer to reserve the term 

“fluency” for reading or other language phenomena. 

This distinction, however, is not universally recognized. 

For example, The Literacy Dictionary (Harris & 

Hodges, 1995) defines “fluency” as “freedom from 

word identification problems that might hinder 

comprehension . . .” whereas, in the same source, 

“automaticity” is defined as “fluent processing of 

information that requires little effort or attention.” In 

other words, automaticity and fluency are often used 

synonymously. 

Actually, the fundamental idea of automaticity requires 

much more than that information be processed with 

little effort or attention. This definition has the 

advantage of simplicity, but it suffers from the fact that 

it includes within its scope acts that result from innate 

forces. For example, many behaviors would fall within 

this definition of automaticity—such as the avoidance of 

a steep dropoff by newborn mountain goats or the eye 

blinking and avoidance behaviors exhibited by 3-weekold infants at the rapid approach of a looming object— 

even though these are not highly skilled expert 

behaviors. A proper definition of automaticity would 

rule out behaviors that can be carried out without much 

previous experience. Automaticity involves the 

processing of complex information that ordinarily 

requires long periods of training before the behavior can 

be executed with little effort or attention. This definition 

would include various reading behaviors or processes 

because it is clear that it takes a considerable period of 

time and substantial practice before even the fastest 

learners can be considered to be fluent readers. 

Furthermore, researchers have generated property lists 

that can be used to distinguish automatic from nonautomatic processes. According to Logan (1997), “The 

general strategy was to find a list of properties that 

could be used to define and diagnose automaticity, so 

that processes, tasks, or performances that possessed 

those properties could be designated ‘automatic,’ and 

processes, tasks, and performances that did not possess 

them could be designated ‘non-automatic’ ” (p. 124). 

One such list described three general properties 

essential to automaticity (Posner & Snyder, 1975), 

indicating that the behavior be carried out without 

immediate intention, without conscious awareness, and 

without interfering with other process that are occurring 

at the same time. Shiffrin and Schneider (1977) 

augmented this list to include two additional properties. 

They claim that automatic processes are acquired 

gradually as the result of extended practice and that 

once activated these processes continue to completion 

because they are difficult to suppress. The importance 

of practice in the development of automaticity is also 

evident in Ackerman’s (1987) description: 

Automatic processes are characterized as fast, 

effortless (from a standpoint of allocation of 

cognitive resources), and unitized (or 

proceduralized) such that they may not be easily 

altered by a subject’s conscious control, and they 

may allow for parallel operation with other 

information processing within and between tasks. . . 

These processes may be developed only through 

extensive practice under consistent conditions, 

which are typical of many skill acquisition 

situations [p. 4, emphasis added]. 

Logan (1997) applies the automaticity construct to 

reading directly by highlighting the role of speed, 

effortlessness, autonomy (i.e., ability to be completed 

without intention or deliberation), and lack of 

consciousness or awareness, although he fails to 

emphasize the importance of practice or repetition 

within his description. However, Logan emphasizes one 

more essential dimension of automaticity in reading that 

makes his contribution essential to this discussion. 

3-7 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

The property list approach defines automaticity 

in terms of a list of binary-opposite properties. 

. . . This view has suggested to some that 

automatic processes should share all of the 

properties associated with automaticity (i.e., 

they should be fast, effortless, autonomous, 

and unconsciousness) (Logan, 1997). 

However, according to Logan, automaticity should be 

viewed as a continuum rather than a dichotomy. This 

distinction has important implications for reading. 

To show the importance of thinking of fluency as a 

continuum, consider reading speed as one example. 

Reading speed at the early stages of instruction tends to 

be slow and even labored. However, if we examine a 

student after years of practice, we will typically find 

that a rapid rate of reading speed has been attained. 

Was the shift from slow to fast an abrupt one in which 

the reader was transformed from a nonfluent to a fluent 

reader, or was this a more gradual change? This 

question can be answered using data gathered as 

children practice reading over time. Such data reveal a 

gradual, continuous improvement in reading speed in 

which only the beginning and end points could be 

justifiably characterized as “slow” or “fast.” Reading 

speed, like other aspects of fluency or other automatic 

behaviors, shows gradual or incremental improvement 

through practice (Samuels, 1979). 

Beyond Accuracy to Automaticity: 

Why Automatic Decoding Matters 

One of the key reasons for the abiding interest in the 

word recognition process is the consistent finding that 

development of efficient word recognition skills is 

associated with improved comprehension (Calfee & 

Piontkowski, 1981; Herman, 1985; Stanovich, 1985). To 

understand how efficient word recognition skills can 

influence other reading processes such as 

comprehension, word recognition must be fractionated 

into its component elements such as accuracy of word 

recognition and the automaticity of word recognition. In 

the early stage of reading instruction, the beginning 

reader may be accurate in word recognition but the 

process is likely to be slow and effortful. With increased 

practice and repeated exposure to the words in the 

texts that the student reads, word recognition continues 

to be accurate but there would be improvements 

evident in the speed and ease of word recognition as 

well. Continued reading practice helps make the word 

recognition process increasingly automatic. In some 

situations, however, teachers may persist in trying to 

develop a high degree of word recognition accuracy 

without commensurate attention to other essential 

dimensions of fluency (i.e., speed, expression) or may 

accept recognition accuracy as a sufficient outcome of 

instruction without any emphasis on true fluency. 

Although accuracy in word recognition is, indeed, an 

important reading milestone, accuracy is not enough to 

ensure fluency—and without fluency, comprehension 

might be impeded. 

Why do problems with reading accuracy, speed, and 

expression interfere with comprehension? To answer 

this question, we need to examine the reading process 

in terms of two basic cognitive tasks. The reader must 

recognize the printed words (decoding) and construct 

meaning from the recognized words (comprehension). 

Both decoding and comprehension require cognitive 

resources. At any given moment, the amount of 

cognitive resources available for these two tasks is 

restricted by the limits of memory. If the word 

recognition task is difficult, all available cognitive 

resources may be consumed by the decoding task, 

leaving little or nothing for use in interpretation. 

Consequently, for the nonfluent reader, difficulty with 

word recognition slows down the process and takes up 

valuable resources that are necessary for 

comprehension. Reading becomes a slow, laborintensive process that only fitfully results in 

understanding. 

The reading task for the fluent reader is easier than the 

one facing the nonfluent reader. After considerable 

practice, the fluent reader has learned how to recognize 

the printed words with ease and speed, and few 

cognitive resources are consumed in the process. In 

essence, the reader has become automatic at the word 

recognition task. Because the cognitive demands for 

word recognition are so small while the word 

recognition process is occurring, there are sufficient 

cognitive resources available for grouping the words 

into syntactic units and for understanding or interpreting 

the text. The fluent reader is one who can perform 

multiple tasks—such as word recognition and 

comprehension—at the same time. The nonfluent 

reader, on the other hand, can perform only one task at 

a time. The “multitask functioning” of the fluent reader 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-8 
Report 

is made possible by the reduced cognitive demands 

needed for word recognition and other reading 

processes, thus freeing cognitive resources for other 

functions, such as drawing inferences. 

Being an “automatic” or “fluent” reader should not be 

thought of as a stage of development in which all words 

can be processed quickly and easily. Even highly skilled 

readers may encounter uncommon, low-frequency 

words such as oenology, epistrophe, anfractuous, 

faience, casuistically, and contralesional—words that 

they cannot recognize automatically but that require 

some reliance on decoding strategies. Skilled readers 

usually have several options available for word 

recognition. They can recognize words automatically or, 

in cases like these, they can use controlled effortful 

strategies to decode the word. Unskilled readers, on the 

other hand, are limited to controlled effortful word 

recognition. 

Research on the eye in the past 2 decades has provided 

a perspective from which to observe the fluent reading 

process. These studies take a picture of how the eye 

moves and what it fixates on during reading. For the 

most part, readers—no matter how fluent—have to 

fixate on or look at each word in a text. However, more 

skilled readers come to fixate on function words (words 

such as of, the, to, etc.) less often than on content 

words. It is not so much that fluent readers skip 

function words as that their facility with such words 

allows them to see them adequately at the edge of their 

visual field—while fixating on other words—without 

having to stop to look at them specifically (Carpenter & 

Just, 1983; Rayner & Duffy, 1988; Radach & Kempe, 

1993). Skilled readers also get better at seeing a word 

in a single fixation; therefore, they evidence fewer 

refixations on the same words and fewer short 

regressions in which they have to come back to look at 

a word again after they have read other words (Frazier 

& Rayner, 1982; Kennedy, 1983; Kennedy & Murray, 

1987a, 1987b; Murray & Kennedy, 1988). Skilled 

readers learn to develop a broader perceptual span or 

word identification span during reading that allows them 

to take in more information about words in a single 

fixation (Ikeda & Saida, 1978; McConkie & Rayner, 

1975; McConkie & Zola, 1987; Rayner, 1986; 

Underwood & McConkie, 1985). The placement and 

overlap of these fixations improve in efficiency as well, 

allowing fluent readers to integrate the information from 

each fixation more effectively (McConkie & Zola, 

1979; Rayner, McConkie, & Zola, 1980). 

Rayner (1998) has summed up the differences in eye 

movements between good and poor readers: 

There are well-known individual differences in eye 

movement measures as a function of reading skill: 

Fast readers make shorter fixations, longer 

saccades [the jump of the eye from one fixation to 

another], and fewer regressions than slow readers 

(Everatt, Bradshaw, & Hibbard, 1998; Everatt & 

Underwood, 1994; Rayner, 1978b; Underwood, 

Hubbard, & Wilkinson, 1990) . . . . In characterizing 

the eye movement patterns of dyslexic readers, 

Olson, Kliegl, Davidson, & Foltz (1985) categorized 

such readers as plodders and explorers; plodders 

made relatively short forward saccades, and more 

regressions, whereas explorers showed more 

frequent word skipping, longer forward saccades, 

and more regressions (p. 392). 

Indicators of Fluent Reading 

A number of informal procedures can be used in the 

classroom to assess fluency. Informal reading 

inventories (Johnson, Kress, & Pikulski, 1987), miscue 

analysis (Goodman & Burke, 1972), pausing indices 

(Pinnell et al., 1995), running records (Clay, 1972), and 

reading speed calculations (Hasboruck & Tindal, 1992). 

All these assessment procedures require oral reading of 

text, and all can be used to provide an adequate index 

of fluency. 

For example, informal reading inventories (IRI) require 

students to read grade-level passages aloud and silently. 

The teacher determines a reading level by calculating 

the proportion of words read accurately in the passage. 

To ensure that students do not focus solely on 

fluency—at the expense of comprehension—the 

student is expected to summarize or answer questions 

about the text. 

3-9 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

The Gray Oral Reading Test–3 (GORT–3) (Wiederholt 

& Bryant, 1992) is a standardized measure requiring 

oral reading and providing scoring for reading accuracy, 

rate, and passage comprehension. In addition, Wagner, 

Torgesen, and Rashotte (1999) have recently published 

a standardized measure of word reading efficiency that 

tests the speeded reading of single words. 

The National Assessment of Educational Progress 

fluency study noted earlier (Pinnell et al., 1995) 

calculated speed and accuracy but performed most 

analyses on the basis of a four-point pausing scale. This 

scale provided a description of four levels of pausing 

efficiency with one point assigned to readings that were 

primarily word by word with no attention to the author’s 

meaning, to four points for readings that attended to 

comprehension and that paused only at the boundaries 

of meaningful phrases and clauses. 

Fluency and Practice 

How does one become so fluent in reading that words 

are recognized accurately, quickly, and with ease and so 

that a text sounds like spoken language when read 

aloud? The conventional wisdom is that it is only 

through extended practice in which large quantities of 

material are read that the student develops fluency skills 

that go beyond accuracy of recognition to automaticity 

of recognition (Allington, 1977, 1984; Snow, Burns, & 

Griffin, 1998). But how accurate is conventional 

wisdom? One might assume that with all the research 

that has been done on factors that produce superior 

readers, that there would be solid experimental 

evidence showing a causal connection between input 

variables such as time spent reading or the amount read 

and reading outcomes such as fluency. 

What is surprising is that most of the evidence linking 

up input variables such as amount read and output 

variables such as reading ability is correlational. For 

example, in a longitudinal study of 54 children, Juel 

(1988) estimated that 1st grade children with good word 

recognition skills were exposed to about twice as many 

words in basal text as children with poor word 

recognition skills. Biemiller (1977-1978) also reported 

similar differences in print exposure among readers 

with different levels of reading ability, and Taylor and 

her colleagues (Taylor et al., 1999) found that highachieving primary classes allotted more time for 

independent reading. 

There is ample evidence that one of the major 

differences between poor and good readers is the 

difference in the quantity of total time they spend 

reading. Allington (1977) in his article “If they don’t 

read much, how they ever gonna get good?” found that 

the students who needed the most practice in reading 

spent the least amount of time in actual reading. 

Biemiller (1977-1978) similarly reported substantial 

ability group differences related to how much reading 

was done, and Allington (1984) in a sample of first 

grade students found that as little as 16 words were 

read in a week by one child in a low-reading group 

compared to a high of 1,933 words for a child in a highreading group. Nagy and Anderson (1984) claimed that 

good readers may read ten times as many words as the 

poor readers in a given school year. Stanovich (1986), in 

his article “Matthew effects in reading,” suggested that 

students who start out as poor readers often remain that 

way. In the Bible chapter on Matthew (Matthew, 

25:29), there is the phrase “The rich get richer and the 

poor get poorer.” Stanovich applied this Biblical phrase 

as a metaphor to reading, claiming poor readers read 

less than good readers, and he speculated that because 

of this difference, year after year the gap between the 

two groups increases. More recent empirical evidence 

indicates that while poor readers remain poor readers, 

the gap between the two groups does not increase 

(Shaywitz et al., 1995). 

Although correlational findings may be useful, they also 

can be deceptive because correlations tell nothing about 

the direction or sequence of a relationship. That good 

readers read more could be because reading practice 

contributes to reading attainment, but it could also be 

simply that better readers choose to read more because 

they are good at it. If this is true, then it is reading 

achievement that stimulates reading practice, not the 

reverse. Although there is an extensive amount of 

correlational data linking amount of reading and reading 

achievement (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998; 

Krashen, 1993), such studies do not permit a clear 

delineation of what is antecedent and what is 

consequent. 

What kinds of practice develop fluency? If fluency 

were just a word recognition phenomenon, then having 

students reviewing and rehearsing word lists might 

make sense. Although there is some benefit to isolated 

word recognition study of this type, the evidence is that 

such training is insufficient as it may fail to transfer 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-10 
Report 

when the practiced words are presented in a 

meaningful context (Fleischer, Jenkins, & Pany, 1979). 

Competent reading requires skills that extend beyond 

the single-word level to contextual reading, and this skill 

can best be acquired by practicing reading in which the 

words are in a meaningful context. 

In the sections below, the Panel examines the evidence 

supporting two major approaches to teaching fluency— 

first, repeated oral reading and then, silent reading 

practice. 

Repeated Reading and Guided 

Repeated Oral Reading 

Although theories of fluency have emphasized the 

primacy of practice effects in reading development, 

most of the evidence has been correlational or 

ambiguous. Fortunately, several procedures for 

developing fluency directly through instructional 

practice have been proposed and evaluated during the 

past two decades. These procedures typically 

emphasize repeated reading or guided oral reading 

practice, including techniques such as repeated reading, 

neurological impress, radio reading, paired reading, and 

a variety of other similar procedures. The purpose of 

each of these procedures is to help students through 

oral reading practice and guidance to develop fluent 

reading habits that would allow them to read text more 

quickly, accurately, and with appropriate expression and 

understanding. 

Historically, most of the instructional attention accorded 

to oral fluency was developed through round-robin 

reading, a still widely used approach in which teachers 

have students take turns reading parts of a text aloud 

(Opitz & Rasinski, 1998). These procedures have been 

criticized as boring, anxiety provoking, disruptive of 

fluency, and wasteful of instructional time, and their use 

has been found to have little or no relationship to gains 

in reading achievement (Stallings, 1980). It is evident 

that with round-robin procedures students receive little 

actual practice in reading because no child is allowed to 

read for very long. Such procedures do provide students 

with some guidance or feedback—although studies 

suggest that teachers vary greatly in their ability to 

provide this effectively (Pflaum & Pascarella, 1980). 

But even when this guidance is of high quality, students 

rarely have the opportunity to perfect their performance 

of a passage, as most texts tend to be read only once. 

Newer guided repeated oral reading techniques share 

several key features. First, most of these procedures 

require students to read and reread a text over and 

over. This repeated reading usually is done some 

number of times or until a prespecified level of 

proficiency has been reached. Second, many of these 

procedures increase the amount of oral reading practice 

that is available through the use of one-to-one 

instruction, tutors, audiotapes, peer guidance, or other 

means. In round-robin reading, time was severely 

limited because the teacher was the only one allowed to 

provide expert guidance; that is not true of the newer 

procedures. Third, some of the procedures have 

carefully designed feedback routines for guiding the 

reader’s performance. 

The purpose of this section of the review is to provide a 

research synthesis of empirical studies that have tested 

the efficacy of repeated reading and other guided oral 

reading procedures. The Panel’s purpose is to 

determine whether the use of such procedures 

improves student fluency and whether such 

improvements are evident in better reading 

comprehension, how appropriate such procedures 

would be for regular classroom application, and what 

additional research is needed. 

Repeated and Guided Repeated 

Oral Reading: Methodology 

Database 

The Panel determined that the literature search for a 

research synthesis must be conducted in a systematic, 

replicable way and that these procedures be described 

thoroughly. This methodology will allow others to weigh 

the appropriateness of the procedures for answering the 

research questions and to check for bias and error. 

Consideration of Extant Literature Searches.

This search started with the location of two published 

literature reviews on the impact of repeated reading 

procedures (Strecker, Roser, & Martinez, 1998: Toward 

understanding oral reading fluency. Forty-seventh 

Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 295­

310); Dowhower, 1994: Repeated reading revisited: 

Research into practice. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 

10, 343-358). These literature searches were used in 

two ways. First, they were examined carefully to 

identify appropriate terminology that could be used to 

3-11 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

conduct a thorough electronic search of the literature. 

Second, the reference lists included in these literature 

searches were examined for additional, potentially 

relevant studies on this topic. 

Identification of Appropriate Terminology

This search depended on electronic databases, and 

these require the use of appropriate search terms. In 

addition to these literature reviews, the NRP examined 

various published reference sources to help identify 

terms for use in the search. The Panel used The 

Literacy Dictionary (Harris & Hodges, 1995); 

Handbooks of Reading Research I and II (Barr, Kamil, 

Mosenthal, & Pearson, 1991; Pearson, Barr, Kamil, & 

Mosenthal, 1984); The Encyclopedia of English Studies 

and Language Arts (Purves, 1994); and the Handbook 

of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts 

(Flood, Jensen, Lapp, & Squire, 1991). These sources 

were examined for articles on fluency, oral reading, 

repeated reading, and other relevant topics identified 

during this analysis and from the previous literature 

searches. 

These efforts led to the identification of terms that 

described particular instructional approaches, as well as 

those that focused on specific aspects of reading that 

supposedly are improved by the application of such 

procedures. Table 1 provides a list of the 22 search 

terms that were used in this synthesis. 

Table 1

Terms used to search the electronic databases for 

studies that evaluated the effectiveness of 

repeated reading and other guided oral reading 

procedures. 

chunking	 parsing 

echo reading intonation 

speech pitch expression 

punctuation	 phrasing 

reading rate	 reading accuracy 

repeated reading neurological impress 

reading fluency assisted reading 

paired reading inflection 

reading speed verbal fluency 

automaticity	 instance theory 

prosody	 oral reading 

Electronic Search Strategies

Because of the nature of the topic and the possibility that 

a single search could miss key information, the Panel 

elected to examine two separate databases: ERIC and 

PsycINFO. The Panel searched PsycINFO using the 

terminology listed in Table 1. 

Each of these terms was linked by OR statements, 

meaning that if any article in that database focused on 

any of these topics, it would be included in our target 

pool. The target pool that was identified in this way 

included 18,763 articles. This number was reduced 

slightly by limiting the pool to include only Englishlanguage articles. Then a separate focus pool was 

constructed using the terms: reading, reading ability, 

reading achievement, reading comprehension, reading 

development, remedial reading, silent reading, reading 

education, reading materials, reading skills. 

These reading topics were linked with each other by 

OR, again, with the idea of identifying all articles about 

any aspect of reading in the PsycINFO database. The 

focus pool included 16,422 English-language articles. 

This focus pool was then combined with the target pool 

using AND as the link. This means that the Panel was 

discarding anything in the target pool that was not 

clearly linked with reading or reading education. The 

resulting combination resulted in the identification of 

1,260 potential articles. 

This number was still deemed too large to search 

efficiently, so the Panel used number of years as a 

delimiter. That is, the Panel limited the search to articles 

in the PsycINFO database that had been published 

since 1990 (inclusive of 1990). This limit reduced the 

number of target articles to 346 and printed out 

abstracts for each of these papers. 

Each abstract was read and coded as to whether it 

should be included in the search for articles. To be 

included, an article had to meet the following criteria: 

1.	 The study had to examine the impact of repeated 

reading or some other form of guided oral reading 

instruction on reading achievement. 

2.	 The study had to focus on reading in English, 

conducted with children (K-12). 

3.	 The study had to have appeared in a refereed 

journal. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 3-12 
Report 

4.	 The study had to have been carried out with 

English-language reading. 

If an article was clearly inappropriate in terms of these 

criteria, it was rejected without search. Rejected 

articles were designated as (1) nonrefereed, (2) 

nonresearch, (3) off topic/off sample, or (4) non-English 

language instruction. Although an abstract might 

indicate several violations, only one needed to be noted 

for an article to be rejected. A conservative application 

of these criteria was used to ensure the inclusion of any 

article that might be tangentially appropriate to our 

search goals because this would allow us to make sense 

of articles that could reveal important information about 

fluency learning. Because of this, analyses of the 

relationships among various fluency measures, studies 

of the correlation of fluency and comprehension, or 

literature searches on related topics were all retained in 

the pool at this stage. Such articles would not be used 

for the final analysis of whether guided repeated oral 

reading procedures are effective, but they were used to 

help identify relevant studies outside the boundaries of 

these search procedures. As a result of this screening, 

the Panel attempted to locate 81 articles for further 

consideration. 

The same basic terminology and search procedures 

were used in the ERIC system. The search for target 

pool items was identical to that carried out in 

PsycINFO. Because ERIC uses a larger collection of 

reading-relevant terminology, the focus pool was 

expanded to ensure the widest possible inclusion of 

reading articles. The focus pool included basal reading, 

beginning reading, content area reading, critical reading, 

decoding, directed reading activity, early reading, 

independent reading, individualized reading, oral reading, 

reading, reading ability, reading achievement, reading 

aloud to others, reading comprehension, reading 

difficulties, reading failure, reading habits, reading 

improvement, reading instruction, reading material 

selection, reading materials, reading motivation, reading 

processes, reading programs, reading rate, reading 

research, reading skills, reading strategies, recreational 

reading, remedial reading, silent reading, speed reading, 

story reading, supplementary reading materials, OR 

sustained silent reading. 

For this search, the target pool included 6,730 potential 

items. This was reduced to 2,053 items on combination 

with the focus pool of 39,694 items. This set was 

further reduced to 840 potential articles by omitting nonEnglish language reports and nonjournal articles. For the 

sake of consistency, 1990 inclusive was again the cutoff year for the electronic search. This reduced the 

ERIC search to 410 potential items. 

Of these 410 items, a review of the abstracts indicated 

that only 50 of these had potential value for our 

purposes. Many of these, however, had already been 

identified in the PsycINFO search and did not need to 

be double counted. Thus, the ERIC search resulted in 

the identification of only 18 additional potential studies 

or articles. 

Location of Articles

As a result of these two searches, the Panel set out to 

find 99 articles on guided repeated oral reading. Of 

these, the Panel was able to locate 76 articles, or 77% 

of the total. Of the articles that could not be located, 

only 11 met or appeared to meet all of the selection 

criteria; it was recognized that the other 12 papers did 

not actually meet the criteria although these papers had 

some apparent relevance to the topic. Of the 11 papers 

the abstracts of which suggest that they might have met 

the criteria, nine abstracts claimed positive and 

substantial improvements in reading due to the 

procedures used, one reported no significant difference, 

and one reported mixed results. It is possible that 

locating these missing studies could alter the findings of 

this report. Any alteration, however, would likely 

strengthen the support for guided oral reading 

procedures given that the vast majority of these appear 

to provide evidence on that side of the equation. 

Each of the 77 articles that were located was reviewed 

to determine its relevance to the topic and its adherence 

to the various selection criteria. Any study that 

appeared to meet the criteria was then coded for 

possible use in the final analysis. 

Further Identification of Articles

The Panel’s search procedures were biased against 

older studies of these instructional procedures. Only 

studies that had been published since 1990 were 

included in the selection procedures up to this point. To 

expand on that set of studies in an effective manner, the 

Panel analyzed the reference lists of all studies that 

3-13	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

were located through the previously described 

procedures. Even studies that were determined to be in 

violation of the final selection criteria were analyzed in 

this way. The literature searches that the NRP used as 

the starting point for its electronic searches were also 

examined for relevant references that were not in its 

search set. This led to the consideration of 133 

additional papers, and of these the Panel was able to 

find 109 or 81%. For the most part, these secondgeneration papers had been published before 1990. Of 

these 109 papers, only 21 were found to meet all of the 

selection criteria. These 21 studies were added to the 

77 already identified, and these were designated for 

further examination and coding. 

Analysis 

Each of these studies was read and summarized on a 

six-page coding sheet. Each study was summarized in 

terms of the following variables: reference, narrative 

summary, source of citation, states or countries 

represented in the sample, number of schools included, 

number of classrooms included, number of participants, 

number of participants in each group, student ages, 

student grade levels, reading levels of the participants, 

community (urban, suburban, rural), socioeconomic 

status, ethnicity, exceptionality, sample selection criteria, 

availability of additional reading instruction, amount of 

attrition per group, how attrition was addressed, study 

location (classroom, lab, clinic, pullout, other), 

assignment to groups (random, matching, etc.), sample 

equivalence, description of each treatment and control 

condition, nature and difficulty of texts used in 

treatments, duration of treatments in minutes of training, 

duration of treatment from beginning to end in days, 

checks on treatment fidelity, student/teacher ratios, 

trainer (classroom teacher, researcher, parent, peer, 

etc.), amount and type of training for trainers, special 

costs associated with treatment, and pretests and 

posttests means and standard deviations. 

If information was omitted from the original study, it 

was omitted from the coding. The most serious 

omissions were evident in the older studies (pre-1994), 

and no effort was made to locate authors of the original 

studies to help fill in these gaps. After coding, these 

data were further summarized within a spreadsheet 

program (Microsoft Excel) to allow statistical analysis 

and comparison. 

Reliability

A 10% sample (10 articles) was randomly selected for 

independent re-analysis. The coefficients of agreement 

ranged from 0.88 to 1.00, with most variables receiving 

a 1.00. The lowest agreements were evident with 

student/teacher ratios, trainer identification, and numbers 

of subjects lost to attrition. 

Consistency With the Metholodogy of the 

National Reading Panel 

The methods of the NRP were followed in the conduct 

of the literature searches and the examination and 

coding of the articles obtained. However, the wide 

variations in methodologies and implementations 

required the subcommittee to qualify its use of the NRP 

Criteria for Evaluating Single Studies, Multiple Studies, 

and Reviews of Existing Studies. These departures 

from the stated NRP criteria are described below. 

Coding these variables made it clear that the studies 

that were being examined represented dramatically 

different conceptualizations of the problem. As a result, 

the NRP divided articles into four sets. One set of 14 

articles, Immediate Effects Articles, examined the 

immediate impact of repeated reading and guided oral 

reading on a reading performance with no effort to 

measure transfer to other reading (see Appendix A). To 

be placed in this set, a study had to examine how 

reading performance changed with feedback or 

repetition but with no transfer measure to other 

passages. These studies are valuable because they 

examine changes to reading behavior that could 

contribute to a more general change in reading ability 

although they do not attempt to measure that change 

directly. 

The second set of articles, Group Experiments, 

attempted to evaluate the impact of repeated reading 

and other guided oral reading procedures on the reading 

abilities of students in grades K to 12 (see Appendix B). 

To be included in this group, a study had to meet the 

following criteria: 

1.	 Study had pretest and posttest measures of reading, 

separate from the material used for training. 

2.	 Study had a treatment group that received some 

form of guided repeated oral reading training and a 

comparison group that did not receive such training. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 3-14 
Report 

There were 16 articles in this set. These studies could 

be directly evaluated through meta-analysis to test the 

claim that guided repeated oral reading procedures 

improve reading ability. 

The third set of articles, Single Subject Studies, used 

multiple baseline single-subject designs to examine the 

impact of repeated reading and other guided oral 

reading procedures on the reading abilities of students in 

grades K through 12 (see Appendix C). These studies 

had to have some measure of reading transfer. These 

studies could be used to directly evaluate the claim that 

guided oral reading procedures improve reading ability, 

but they were not used in the meta-analysis. Data from 

these studies were used to confirm or contradict the 

meta-analysis results. 

The fourth set of studies, Methods Comparisons, 

compared different methods for doing repeated reading 

or guided repeated oral reading but did not have a true 

control group (see Appendix D). These studies were 

based on the assumption that guided repeated oral 

reading procedures improve reading ability, and they 

were usually attempting to discern which methods work 

best. The lack of control group meant that these studies 

could not be used to evaluate the claim of whether 

guided repeated oral reading improves reading ability, 

but these studies could help guide any further analysis 

or help determine the applicability of such methods to 

regular classrooms. There were eight of these studies. 

Repeated and Guided Repeated 

Oral Reading: Results and 

Discussion 

Immediate Effects Articles 

There were 14 studies found that dealt with the 

immediate impact of different programs of repetition 

and feedback during oral reading on the reading 

performance of a specific passage or article. It is 

important to note that these studies did not fail to find 

transfer effects for these procedures, only that these 

studies did not attempt to measure such transfer. These 

studies typically measured some aspects of fluency or 

comprehension with a particular passage and then 

monitored changes in this performance from one 

reading to another. Not surprisingly, all 14 studies 

reported demonstrable improvements from a first 

passage reading to a final passage reading with 

whatever measures were used. 

Nine of these studies considered the impact of repeated 

reading (Faulkner & Levy, 1999; Levy, Nicholls, & 

Kohen, 1993; Neill, 1979; O’Shea, Sindelar, & O’Shea, 

1985; Rasinski, 1990; Sindlar, Monda, & O’Shea, 1990; 

Stoddard, Valcante, Sindlar, O’Shea, & Algozzine, 1993; 

Turpie & Parratore, 1995; VanWagenen, Williams, & 

McLaughlin, 1994), although in other studies, repeated 

reading was combined with other procedures such as a 

particular type of oral reading feedback (Reitsma, 1988) 

or phrasing support for the reader (Taylor, Wade & 

Yekovitch, 1985). Repeated reading studies either 

required a set number of repetitions (as few as one and 

as many as seven) or required students to practice 

repetition for some amount of time or until some fluency 

criteria were reached. Other studies had students 

practicing oral reading while listening to the text being 

read simultaneously (Bon, Boksebeld, Freide, & van 

den Hurk, 1991; Rasinski, 1990; Smith, 1979), 

previewing a text through listening (Reitsma, 1988; 

Rose & Beatty, 1986), or receiving particular types of 

feedback during oral reading (Anderson, Wilkinson, & 

Mason, 1991; Pany & McCoy, 1988). 

All these interventions saw clear improvement, although 

some conditions were better than others. For example, 

repeated reading with phrasing support seemed to be no 

better than repeated reading alone in a study of 45 

good- and poor-reading 5th graders (Taylor, Wade, & 

Yekovich, 1985), whereas repeated reading with 

feedback or guidance (Pany & McCoy, 1988) was 

superior to repeated reading alone with 3rd graders. 

These studies in their totality examined the reading of 

752 subjects ranging from 1st grade through college. 

Four of these studies used normal populations, two 

compared the performances of good and poor readers, 

and the rest dealt with students who were somewhat 

below grade level, substantially behind grade level, or 

designated as learning disabled. The studies found clear 

improvements across multiple readings regardless of 

students’ reading levels or age levels although greater 

gains were sometimes attributed to poor readers. Given 

the lack of transfer measures in this study, the greater 

gains for low readers could be an artifact of the design 

because these readers’ initial performances would be 

relatively more deficient and would therefore be most 

amenable to improvement. 

3-15 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

What inferences can be made from this set of studies? 

It certainly cannot infer that repeated reading or other 

guided repeated oral reading procedures would be 

effective in raising reading achievement on the basis of 

these studies alone. However, the clear improvements 

in reading rate, accuracy, and comprehension found for 

a wide range of readers under a wide range of 

conditions suggest the possibility that such procedures 

could have transfer effects worth examining. 

Group Experimental Studies: 

Meta-Analysis 

Sixteen studies met the criteria for inclusion in the 

meta-analysis; these studies met the NRP review 

methodology. Each of these studies had pre- and posttests that allowed for an analysis of the improvement or 

lack of improvement in reading and treatment and 

control groups that would allow the changes in 

outcomes to be attributed to the instructional procedures 

of interest. Of the 16 studies, 2 did not provide 

sufficient information to allow inclusion in the metaanalysis (Labbo & Teale, 1990; Lorenz & Vockell, 

1979) although the findings of these studies will be 

considered in this section and their data will be included 

in calculations wherever relevant and possible. The 

Lorenz and Vockell study found no differences because 

of the treatments; however, the Labbo and Teale study 

found clear improvement as a result of repeated 

reading. 

Although these studies were meta-analyzed, this 

analysis does not go very far. That is, the NRP did not 

attempt to evaluate all possible comparisons. Such 

thorough analysis can be informative for future 

research, but given the national scope of this effort and 

the potential significance of these determinations, the 

NRP decided to consider only questions that could be 

answered with a high degree of certainty (i.e., those 

that could be answered using all or most of these data). 

The studies in this set were conducted from 1970 to 

1996, and most were carried out in the 1990s. 

Calculation of Effect Sizes 

Effect sizes were calculated for each relevant 

comparison. These effect sizes used either the d index 

(Cooper, 1998, p. 128) or the d index calculated from 

the F tests (Cooper, 1998, p. 129). When there were 

multiple experimental groups in a study, effect sizes 

were calculated for each guided oral reading group 

compared with a control group, so if a study had two 

experimental groups and one control group, there would 

be two effect sizes for each measure for that study. 

However, if one of these experimental interventions 

was not a form of guided repeated oral reading, no 

effect size would be calculated for that comparison, and 

those subjects would be dropped from the analysis. 

Even with these omissions, because most studies 

included multiple outcomes, 99 effect sizes were 

calculated for direct comparisons of experimental and 

control group performance. When multiple-effect-size 

statistics were calculated for a single study, the mean of 

effect sizes for that study was calculated to determine a 

study effect size. 

Were Effect Sizes Greater Than Zero? 

In all but two of the studies, comparisons resulted in 

significant differences for the guided repeated oral 

reading groups over the control groups. Lorenz and 

Vockell (1979) found no benefit of these procedures for 

LD students after 13 weeks of neurological impress 

training with either reading comprehension or 

vocabulary. The other study that did not result in a 

positive outcome (Mathes & Fuchs, 1993) compared 

peer-mediated repeated reading with both peermediated silent reading and a control group. There were 

no significant differences between these treatments 

with LD students in a special education setting. All 

other comparisons significantly favored the guided 

repeated oral reading groups. 

Great variance was evident in these study effect sizes; 

they ranged from as low as 0.05 (almost no effect) to 

as high as 1.48 (a substantial effect). The average of 

these study effect sizes was 0.48. However, these 

studies reported data on as few as 12 subjects and as 

many as 78. This means that the small studies would 

have as large an impact on this average as the largest 

studies. A weighted average is probably more accurate 

in this case, and it results in a study effect size average 

of 0.41. The largest effect sizes were obtained with 

some of the smaller samples, but this is probably an 

effect of the treatment features of these studies rather 

than an artifact of sample size. The smaller studies 

were less likely to use peer tutors; that is the students in 

the small studies received guidance and feedback from 

adults (teachers or researchers) rather than from other 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-16 
Report 

kids. These effect sizes, weighted or not, suggest that 

guided oral reading procedures have a moderate impact 

on the reading achievement of the types of students 

who participated in these studies. 

Characteristics of Students 

These 16 studies included data from 752 elementary 

and secondary education students. The data were 

drawn from students from six U.S. states and two other 

countries. The students attended 47 different schools 

(one study did not report the number of schools so this 

is an underestimate) and 98 classrooms (again, an 

underestimate because five studies, including some with 

relatively large sample sizes, did not provide this 

information). Not all were included in the analyses, 

however. As has been noted, two studies provided clear 

experimental evidence concerning the efficacy of the 

procedures but failed to include sufficient information 

for effect size calculation. These studies reported data 

on 74 subjects, and they were not included in effect size 

calculations. Also, given that not all comparisons within 

each study were relevant to our research questions, the 

Panel dropped from its analysis the data from an 

additional 73 subjects. Thus, the meta-analysis is based 

on data from 605 students. 

The students in these studies ranged from grade 2 

through grade 9. The studies that focused on average 

reading level samples or normal classroom populations 

focused on students in grades 2 through 4, while studies 

of poor readers included students from grades 2 through 

9, with most of these drawn from the upper elementary 

grades. These studies as a collection have not provided 

sufficient data to allow for a sound analysis of the 

relative impact of repeated reading procedures on 

students at different grade levels. It is evident from the 

studies included in this set that repeated reading 

procedures have a clear impact on the reading ability of 

nonimpaired readers at least through grade 4, as well as 

on students with various kinds of reading problems 

throughout high school. Future research needs to 

determine at what point such instruction is no longer 

beneficial to normal readers. 

Eleven of these studies (including the two not used in 

the meta-analysis) focused on poor readers, whereas 

only five studied average classrooms. The sample sizes 

of these studies differed so much, however, that the 

disparity between numbers of average and poor readers 

was not as great as this suggests. These 16 studies 

included 398 students who were selected as poor 

readers (although data on only 324 of them were used 

in the meta-analysis) and 281 good readers. 

The average effect sizes for these two groups of 

studies (those examining low-level readers and those 

that considered average readers) were highly similar 

and close to the overall average (0.49 for the nine lowlevel reader studies and 0.47 for the five averagereader studies). When weighted by sample sizes, the 

average effect sizes diverged more but, surprisingly, the 

nonimpaired reader studies showed the superior 

outcomes (0.50 versus 0.33). This is probably 

attributable, at least in part, to the longer time evident in 

the nonimpaired reader studies (an average of 24 to 25 

hours in nonimpaired reader studies but only about 18 to 

19 hours in the poor-reader studies). 

Although some of the studies speculated that poor 

students might benefit more from these procedures, 

fluency is developmental and students must continue to 

meet the challenge of increasingly more difficult text as 

they develop as readers. It is possible, as Faulkner and 

Levy (1999) have shown, that good and poor students 

benefit from different aspects of this treatment, with 

poor readers learning more about the words and good 

readers developing a stronger command of the prosody 

of the passages. All of these studies tried to assign 

students to materials considered to be of appropriate 

levels of difficulty for the particular students, and this 

masks or complicates the true meaning of the 

performance disparity for good and poor readers. 

Properties of Instructional Approach 

Many different instructional procedures were examined 

in these studies, so many that it is impossible to 

determine the best of the few studies. No method was 

used so often that a reliable estimate of effect size 

would be possible. Also, variations across studies are 

subtle in terms of material selection and amount and 

type of repetition and feedback. Some treatments were 

delivered by teachers or researchers, some by parents, 

some by other students, and some by the students 

themselves with computers or tape recorders. The 

treatments went under names such as neurological 

impress, repeated reading, peer tutoring, shared reading, 

assisted reading, and oral recitation method. All were 

associated with positive effect sizes. Some might be 

3-17 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

better, or better in particular circumstances, but the 

sample sizes associated with any of these associated 

treatments were too small to allow for a meaningful 

partialing of variance. Given what is known, all of these 

procedures seem to have a reasonably high likelihood of 

success. 

Outcome Measures 

These studies used a range of outcome measures, 

including tests of word knowledge, comprehension, and 

fluency, as well as combinations of these as overall 

scores derived from standardized reading measures. 

Some studies had multiple comprehension or fluency 

measures as well. The Panel attempted to determine 

whether these guided procedures had a greater impact 

on some aspects of reading than on others. These 

studies made 99 different comparisons that were 

relevant to the analyses. Only one pooled effect size 

per study per category (word recognition, fluency, 

comprehension, total score) was drawn from each 

study, and each of these was weighted by the numbers 

of subjects whose data were represented in each. 

Across these studies, considering all sample 

comparisons and all measures, there were 49 different 

comparisons that used some form of comprehension 

test as an outcome measure. They included 

standardized tests of reading comprehension in which 

students read passages and answered multiple choice 

questions, as well as informal measures such as 

questions and passages, retellings, and maze tests. The 

mean weight effect size for these 49 comparisons 

drawn from 12 separate studies was 0.35. 

There were 35 comparisons that used some fluency 

measure as an outcome. They included standardized 

tests of reading rate and accuracy, as well as informal 

measures of these using instruments such as informal 

reading inventories. The mean weighted effect size for 

these 35 comparisons drawn from 10 different studies 

was 0.44. 

There were 11 comparisons that used some measure of 

word recognition. They included standardized tests of 

word knowledge as well as informal measures that 

examined students’ ability to read particular words or 

word lists. The mean effect size for these 11 

comparisons drawn from eight different studies was 

0.55. 

Finally, four of the comparisons considered aggregate or 

full-scale reading scores (these tended to be 

combinations of the other measures noted above) and 

included both full-scale scores from standardized tests 

of reading and reading-level scores derived from 

informal reading inventories. The average effect size 

for these four aggregate comparisons from four 

different studies was 0.50. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

As expected, the biggest effect of these procedures 

was on word recognition and fluency measures, with 

the smallest effects evident in reading comprehension. 

It appears that oral reading practice and feedback or 

guidance is most likely to influence measures that 

assess word knowledge, reading speed, and oral 

accuracy. Nevertheless, the impact of these procedures 

on comprehension (and on total reading scores) is not 

inconsiderable, and in several comparisons it was 

actually quite high. These changes in comprehension 

might take place simultaneously, with the improvements 

in word recognition and fluency mediating the 

improvements in comprehension, or there could be a 

hierarchical order to this, as Faulkner and Levy (1999) 

have speculated, with the lowest level readers 

improving in word recognition and the highest ones in 

comprehension. 

Studies Using Single-Subject Designs 

Twelve additional studies reported experiments that 

used single-subject designs. See Appendix C for a list 

of these studies. The single-subject studies, because of 

their designs, were not combined in the meta-analysis, 

although the data were examined to evaluate the 

conclusions drawn from the meta-analysis. These 

studies focused on the reading of small groups of 

students, as few as 2 and as many as 13 (an average of 

4 to 5). All these studies addressed the learning needs 

of elementary grade students with learning problems 

(i.e., special education, learning disabilities, autism, 

disfluent readers, readers substantially below grade 

level). All these studies provided some kind of one-toone tutoring to students (sometimes parent or peer 

tutoring) or repeated reading work with tape recorders, 

for varying lengths of time (as little as 4 weeks and as 

long as 1.5 years, with most treatments lasting fewer 

than 10 weeks). 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-18 
Report 

With one exception (Law & Kratochwill, 1993), all 

these studies found clear and substantial improvements 

in reading accuracy, speed, or comprehension. The best 

of these studies calculated a clear reading performance 

baseline over several days. Then they intervened with 

repeated reading, oral reading feedback, or readingwhile-listening treatments and monitored student growth 

with new materials during the treatment and with 

standardized tests at the conclusion. For example, Blum 

and colleagues (1995) found that the introduction of 

repeated reading with tape recorders led to marked 

improvements in student reading performance; that 

when the training ended, the students maintained their 

gains; but when the intervention ended, the accelerating 

improvement ceased. Another example of a welldesigned, single-subject study was reported by Kamps 

and her colleagues (Kamps, Barbetta, Leonard, & 

Delquadri, 1994). 

The one study that found no effects resulting from 

paired reading of students with parents also found no 

improvements in word accuracy or reading speed after 

6 weeks of treatment. This study had an especially 

weak design (failed to calculate a stable baseline in 

student reading performance and did not check on 

fidelity of treatment). In any event, no gains were found 

in this study of lst through 3rd grade students. 

The pattern of findings for these studies is almost 

identical to what was reported in the meta-analysis. 

Most, but not all, of the studies reported clear 

improvements. The changes described here were a bit 

larger in magnitude, but all but one of these studies 

were conducted with a one-to-one teacher-student ratio 

and all were carried out with low-level—sometimes 

very low-level—readers, and either of these factors 

could magnify the effect. Again, the conclusion is that 

repeated reading and other related oral reading 

procedures have clear value for improving reading 

ability. 

Methods Comparisons 

Nine additional experiments were located that dealt 

with repeated reading and other guided repeated oral 

reading procedures. None of these studies used a true 

control group, however, so it is not clear whether these 

gains were greater than expected in the amounts of 

time studied. These studies provided comparisons of the 

efficacy of various oral reading procedures or were 

meant as feasibility studies to evaluate the classroom 

readiness of the procedures. 

There were not enough comparisons of guided repeated 

oral reading procedures to allow for a systematic 

determination of best procedures. For the most part, the 

comparisons that were done resulted in no differences. 

In other words, each of the procedures examined did 

about as well as the others. Some of the comparisons 

that were made included repeated reading with and 

without feedback (Dowhower, 1987), guided repeated 

reading and assisted nonrepetitive reading (Homan, 

Lesius, & Hite, 1993), and various peer or parent 

tutoring procedures in which students read aloud 

together or read to their parents (Lindsay, Evans, & 

Jones, 1985; Winter, 1986, 1988). The lack of clear 

differences among procedures is consistent with the 

findings of the meta-analysis and again suggests the 

robustness of these procedures for stimulating reading 

improvement. 

One exception to the no-differences finding, which 

should be noted, was reported by Rashotte and 

Torgeson (1985). They did not vary the procedures, but 

tried out passages that either shared or did not share 

lots of words with the outcome measures. They found 

clear gains after 3 weeks for the passages with shared 

words but not for those without. This suggests that, at 

least for very poor readers, the first thing that is 

probably learned from repeated reading is the words 

(Faulkner & Levy, 1999) and that this growth might be 

facilitated by using passages that share lots of 

vocabulary. 

Only one study was found that directly evaluated the 

feasibility of these procedures for use in regular school 

settings, though several of the studies already noted 

have done just that. Dixon-Krauss (1995) conducted a 

feasibility study of partner reading with 24 1st and 2nd 

graders in regular classrooms. The program proved to 

be manageable for the regular classroom teachers, and 

the students were positive about the activity. What was 

so notable about this study was that it focused on the 

teacher’s abilities to use these procedures on a targeted 

basis with struggling readers, rather than with whole 

classes. The findings from this study are consistent with 

the findings of the other studies that considered 

classroom effects, including Rasinski’s (1990), which 

3-19 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

had regular classroom teachers applying such 

procedures on a classwide basis for almost an entire 

school year. Several other studies showed that regular 

teachers, with little or no extra training, could 

successfully use these procedures (for instance, Conte 

& Humphrey, 1989; Labbo & Teale, 1990; Reutzel & 

Hollingsworth, 1993; and Shany & Biemiller, 1995). 

There were also several special education studies in 

which students provided peer tutoring to their 

classmates under the direction of their teachers 

(Mathes & Fuchs, 1993; Simmons et al., 1994; 

Simmons et al., 1995). Teachers, parents, or peer tutors 

at most were provided 1 to 4 hours of training, and 

usually the procedures did not require special materials 

(though some interventions used tape recorders or 

elaborate computerized tutoring). 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

Increasingly, teacher educators and educational 

researchers and theorists have called for more attention 

to direct instruction in fluency. Various procedures have 

been proposed for teaching students to read quickly, 

accurately, and with proper expression, though it is 

evident that this remains a serious weakness among 

many schoolchildren. 

A very thorough search for studies that evaluated the 

efficacy of various guided repeated oral reading 

procedures was made. Those studies provide a 

persuasive case that repeated reading and other 

procedures that have students reading passages orally 

multiple times while receiving guidance or feedback 

from peers, parents, or teachers are effective in 

improving a variety of reading skills. It is also clear that 

these procedures are not particularly difficult to use; nor 

do they require lots of special equipment or materials, 

although it is uncertain how widely used they are at this 

time. These procedures help improve students’ reading 

ability, at least through grade 5, and they help improve 

the reading of students with learning problems much 

later than this. 

Repeated and Guided Repeated 

Oral Reading: Directions for Further 

Research 

There is a need for more research on these issues. 

Clearly there is a need for longitudinal research that 

examines the impact of these procedures on the reading 

development of normal readers at different points along 

the continuum. The methods used should be 

characterized not by labels such as repeated reading, 

but by treatment descriptions that are explicit with 

regard to how much rereading there is, the nature and 

timing of the feedback, and the level of difficulty of the 

materials. Some effort should be made to document the 

changes that take place in student reading and 

knowledge during the intervention rather than just at the 

end. 

Longitudinal studies of the impact of these procedures 

on nonimpaired readers could clarify how long the 

benefits can be maintained. It would be especially 

useful if these were examined under various conditions 

in terms of passage difficulties and feedback 

procedures. However, given the clear and substantial 

improvements produced by a wide range of reading 

procedures, the Panel thinks it advisable that teachers 

include such activities in their regular instructional 

routines at least during the elementary grades, and 

certainly with struggling readers. 

One word of caution can be drawn from a short-term 

study (Anderson, Wilkinson, & Mason, 1991) that found 

that too much attention to fluency issues within a 

reading lesson could detract from reading 

comprehension. It should be noted that in all of these 

studies, the fluency work was only part of the 

instruction that students received. In most cases, the 

fluency work was relatively brief (15 to 30 minutes per 

lesson), and students who received these lessons were 

still engaged in other reading activities including 

comprehension instruction. Guided repeated oral 

reading and repeated reading provide students with 

practice that substantially improves word recognition, 

fluency, and—to a lesser extent—reading 

comprehension. They appear to do so, however, in the 

context of an overall reading program, not as standalone interventions. 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-20 
Report 

Encouraging Students 

to Read More 

The NRP focused on another widely recommended 

approach to developing fluent readers—encouraging 

children to read a lot. Despite all of the controversy 

about reading instruction, there has been widespread 

agreement about the value and efficacy of reading 

practice in developing better readers. The importance 

of reading as an avenue to improved reading has been 

stressed by theorists, researchers, and practitioners 

alike, no matter what their perspectives. There are few 

ideas more widely accepted than that reading is learned 

through reading. 

And why not? The theories of practice that have 

already been discussed do not differentiate much 

between different forms of practice, and so it is unclear 

why lots of reading would not contribute to 

improvement. It is possible that oral reading and silent 

reading operate differently in this regard, but theories of 

learning to read really do not make much of an issue of 

this distinction, and theories of practice generally do not 

stress such differences either. There seems little reason 

to reject the idea that lots of silent reading would 

provide students with valuable practice that would 

enhance fluency and, ultimately, comprehension. 

Nevertheless, the correlational evidence is 

overwhelming. There are literally hundreds of studies 

that find that the best readers read the most and that 

poor readers read the least; they include the National 

Assessment for Educational Progress, which has found 

such relationships with both elementary- and 

secondary-age students (Donahue et al., 1999). It 

appears—from the correlations—that the more that you 

read, the better your vocabulary, your knowledge of the 

world, your ability to read, and so on. 

As a result of such widespread agreement and such 

clear evidence, books and journals for teachers 

emphasize ways that teachers can encourage voluntary 

reading. Several procedures for stimulating students to 

read more (SSR, DEAR, Million Minutes, etc.) are in 

the reading education literature and are used with great 

frequency in the schools. Corporate incentive plans 

have been widely used to reward students for more 

reading (e.g., Pizza Hut’s Book It), and various 

programs and materials are available commercially 

(e.g., Accelerated Reader) that have the purpose of 

stimulating greater amounts of reading. 

There could be a problem with this widespread belief, 

however. These data are correlational and correlations 

do not imply causation. That is, it could be that if you 

read more, you will become a better reader; but it also 

seems possible that better readers simply choose to 

read more. So which is it? Well, it is impossible to know 

from correlational studies alone. For this reason, the 

NRP chose to examine what effect encouraging 

students to read would have on student reading 

achievement. Even if more reading is beneficial, it is 

possible that programs designed to stimulate greater 

amounts of reading would fail to have this effect. 

The Panel’s purpose here is to provide a research 

synthesis of empirical studies that have tested the 

efficacy of encouraging reading in terms of its impact 

on improving reading achievement. The Panel hopes to 

determine whether teachers are able to successfully 

encourage students to read more in ways that would 

actually improve fluency and overall reading ability. For 

the most part, these studies emphasize silent reading 

procedures, that is, students reading individually on their 

own with little or no specific feedback. Although the 

immediate impact of encouraging students to read 

would be expected first to increase the amount of 

reading engaged in, then to improve fluency in the ways 

discussed earlier, and finally to improve comprehension, 

that is not how these studies have been conducted. 

Studies of encouraging students to read rarely measure 

the actual increase in amount of reading due to the 

encouragement procedures, and they measure only the 

ultimate outcome (i.e., improvement in reading 

comprehension) rather than the intermediary 

enhancement to fluency that would be expected from 

the increased practice. 

3-21 National Reading Panel 
 

 

Chapter 3: Fluency 

Encouraging Students to Read 

More: Methodology 

Database 

As with the search on repeated reading and guided oral 

reading, it is important to proceed in a systematic, 

replicable way and to describe these procedures 

thoroughly so that others can examine this work 

critically. 

Consideration of Extant Literature Searches

This search started with the location of a published 

literature review on the impact of reading [Cunningham 

& Stanovich (1998). What reading does for the mind. 

American Educator, 22(1-2), 8-15.] This paper was 

examined carefully to identify appropriate terminology 

that could be used to conduct a thorough electronic 

search of the literature, and the reference list from that 

study was examined for additional, potentially relevant 

studies on this topic. 

Identification of Appropriate Terminology

This search used electronic databases, which require 

appropriate search terms. In addition to conducting this 

literature review, the Panel examined various published 

reference sources to help identify terms for use in the 

search. The Panel used The Literacy Dictionary 

(Harris & Hodges, 1995); Handbooks of Reading 

Research I and II (Barr, Kamil, Mosenthal, et al., 1991; 

Pearson, Barr, Kamil, et al., 1984); The Encyclopedia of 

English Studies and Language Arts (Purves, 1994); and 

the Handbook of Research on Teaching the English 

Language Arts (Flood, Jensen, Lapp, et al., 1991). The 

sources were examined for articles on uninterrupted 

sustained silent reading, reading preferences and 

interests, Matthew effects, voluntary reading, and other 

relevant topics identified during this analysis and from 

the literature search. 

These efforts led to the identification of terms generally 

related to the concept of increased reading as well as to 

specific instructional approaches used for that purpose. 

Table 2 provides a listing of the 30 search terms and 

names that were used in this synthesis. 

Table 2

Terms used to search the electronic databases for 

studies that encouraged student reading. 

free reading recreational reading 

voluntary reading independent reading 

SSR sustained silent reading 

USSR uninterrupted sustained 

SQUIRT silent reading 

DEAR super quiet reading time 

reading volume Matthew effects 

summer reading volume of reading 

reading amount reading time 

book flood amount of reading 

community literacy leisure reading 

Accelerated Reader self selection 

leisure time choice behavior 

Magazine Recognition Author Recognition Test 

Test free voluntary reading 

Input hypothesis Stephen Krashen 

Electronic Search Strategies

Because of the nature of the topic and the possibility 

that a single search could miss key information, the 

Panel examined two separate databases: ERIC and 

PsycINFO. The Panel searched PsycINFO using the 

terminology listed in Table 2. Each of these terms was 

linked by OR statements, meaning that if any article in 

that database focused on any of these topics it would be 

included in our target pool. The target pool that the 

Panel identified in this way included 18,990 articles. 

Then a separate focus pool was constructed using the 

terms: reading, reading ability, reading achievement, 

reading comprehension, reading development, reading 

disabilities, reading education, reading materials, 

reading, reading measures, reading readiness, reading 

skills, reading speed, remedial reading, and silent 

reading. These reading topics were linked with each 

other by OR, again with the idea of identifying all 

articles about any aspect of reading in the PsycINFO 

database. The focus pool included 34,448 articles. This 

focus pool was then combined with the target pool using 

AND as the link. This means that the Panel was 

discarding anything in the target pool that was not 

clearly linked with reading or reading education. The 

resulting combination resulted in the identification of 

1,021 potential articles; once non-English language 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-22 
Report 

articles were deleted, 909 articles remained. Because 

this was judged to be too many to search for, the Panel 

limited the search to 1991 (inclusive) and identified 478 

potential articles in the intersection of the target and 

focus pools for those years. 

Next the Panel completed a similar search of the ERIC 

system. The Panel used all the terms listed in Table 2 to 

develop a target pool. This resulted in the identification 

of 5,645 possible articles published since 1984. The 

Panel then developed a focus pool using the terms: 

basal reading, beginning reading, content area reading, 

corrective reading, critical reading, decoding, directed 

reading activity, early reading, functional reading, 

independent reading, individualized reading, informal 

reading inventories, reading, reading ability, reading 

achievement, reading assignments, reading attitudes, 

reading comprehension, reading difficulties, reading 

failure, reading habits, reading improvement, reading 

instruction, reading interests, reading material selection, 

reading materials, reading motivation, reading 

processes, reading programs, reading rate, reading 

research, reading skills, reading strategies, recreational 

reading, remedial reading, silent reading, story reading, 

supplementary reading materials, OR sustained silent 

reading. There were 38,799 potential articles in the 

focus pool that included 1984. These were then crossed 

with the target pool, and this led to the identification of 

1,669 potential articles, which were then limited to 

journal articles written in the English language (655 

articles), with 325 of these published since 1991. 

Analysis 

The NRP combined the two searches to eliminate 

duplication and found 603 unique articles on these topics 

as a result of the two searches. Each abstract was read 

and coded to determine whether to include it in this 

analysis. The criteria for inclusion were that: 

1.	 The study had to be a research study that appeared 

to consider the effect of encouraging students to 

read more on reading achievement. 

2.	 The study had to focus on English reading 

education, conducted with children (K-12). 

3.	 The study itself had to have appeared in a refereed 

journal. 

4.	 The study had to be have been carried out with 

English language reading. 

If an article was clearly inappropriate in terms of these 

criteria, it was rejected without search. Rejected 

articles were designated as (1) nonrefereed, (2) 

nonresearch, (3) off topic/off sample, or (4) non-English 

language instruction. Although an abstract might have 

had several violations, only one needed to be noted for 

an article to be rejected. As a result of this screening, 

the Panel attempted to locate 92 articles for further 

consideration. 

Location of Articles

Of the 92 articles on encouraging students to read 

more, the Panel was able to locate 82, or 89% of the 

total. Each of the 79 articles that was located was 

reviewed to determine its relevance to the topic and its 

adherence to the various selection criteria. Any study 

that appeared to meet the criteria was then coded for 

possible use in the final analysis. Only nine papers 

survived this review because most of these turned out 

to be correlational studies that just attempted to test 

whether better readers read more, something that the 

Panel accepts as already proven. 

Additional Identification of Articles

The Panel’s search procedures neglected older studies 

of these instructional procedures. Only studies published 

since 1991 had been included in the selection 

procedures up to this point. To expand on this set of 

studies in an effective and efficient manner, the Panel 

analyzed the reference lists of all studies that were 

located through the previously described procedures. 

Even studies that were determined to be in violation of 

the final selection criteria were analyzed in this way. 

This led to the consideration of 46 additional papers, and 

of these, the Panel was able to locate 42 or 91%. For 

the most part, these second-generation papers had been 

published before 1990. Of the 42 papers, 10 appeared 

to meet all of the selection criteria. These 10 studies 

were added to the 9 previously identified, and these 

were designated for further examination and coding. 

3-23	 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 3: Fluency 

On closer examination, the Panel discovered that five of 

these studies were actually correlational studies and not 

experimental studies. This left only 14 studies with 

potential for answering this question. 

Consistency With NRP Methods 

The methods of the NRP were followed in the conduct 

of the literature searches and the examination of the 

articles obtained. However, in the case of these 14 

studies, the Panel quickly realized that there were very 

few papers. Furthermore, the Panel evaluated a variety 

of procedures and found that many of the papers 

suffered from especially weak research design. Several 

of these 14 studies, although they met the selection 

criteria, could not be analyzed because of serious 

methodological or reporting flaws that undermined their 

results. Because of these concerns, the Panel did not 

think it appropriate to carry out a meta-analysis of the 

data. The Panel’s concern was that the meta-analysis 

would be potentially misleading given the very limited 

data set that would be used for the analysis. Thus, this 

set of studies prohibited the of the NRP criteria for 

multiple studies. 

Encouraging Students to Read 

More: Results and Discussion 

Description of the Studies 

Given that only 14 studies fit the selection criteria, it 

seems reasonable to summarize each one. The studies 

are listed in Appendix E. Most of the 14 studies 

examined the impact of sustained silent reading (SSR), 

but some other approaches were also studied. SSR 

goes under a variety of labels including USSR 

(uninterrupted sustained silent reading), DEAR (drop 

everything and read), and SQUIRT (super quiet reading 

time). In most cases, these procedures require the 

provision of approximately 20 minutes per day in which 

students are allowed to read material silently on their 

own with no monitoring. In most cases, the students 

select their own material, and there is no discussion or 

written assignment tied to this reading. Teachers and 

other adults in the school setting are to read during this 

time as well. Such programs are described in nearly all 

teacher preparation textbooks and have become widely 

popular in American classrooms in both elementary and 

secondary schools. 

Sustained Silent Reading (SSR)

One study of SSR (Evans & Towner, 1975) compared 

the effect of SSR on reading achievement with that of 

having students complete various reading skills 

exercises with commercial materials (i.e., worksheets). 

Reading gains were identical for both groups of 2nd 

graders at the end of 10 weeks. 

In a similar, though larger study, Reutzel and 

Hollingsworth (1991) compared skills practice and SSR 

with 61 4th graders and 53 6th graders. These 

procedures were used for 1 month, and there were, 

again, no reading differences for the two approaches. 

As with the previous study, the skills work was 

assembled by the researchers specifically to serve as a 

control activity, and was not part of the regular 

instructional program that these students received from 

their teachers. 

Collins (1980) conducted an analysis of the impact of 

SSR on the reading achievement of 220 students from 

ten classrooms in grades 2 through 6. Students were 

randomly assigned to the experimental and control 

groups. This daily program was evaluated after 15 

weeks (different grade levels allotted different amounts 

of time to SSR—2nd graders had 10 to 30 minutes per 

day; 3rd graders received 15 minutes daily; 4th graders, 

30 minutes; and 5th and 6th graders, 15 to 25 minutes 

each day). The control group worked on spelling during 

these time periods. The SSR procedures led to no 

significant differences in vocabulary or comprehension 

as measured by various standardized tests, although the 

SSR groups appeared to move slightly faster through 

their basal readers during this period. 

Langford and Allen (1983) examined the impact of SSR 

on the reading attitudes and achievement of 11 5th and 

6th grade classes. These classes were randomly 

assigned to SSR or control conditions, resulting in 131 

students in the SSR group (60 5th graders and 71 6th 

graders) and 119 students in the control group. Students 

in the control group learned about health and grooming 

while the SSR activities took place with the 

experimental subjects. The study failed to report the 

length of the instructional period or the duration of the 

intervention. Although there was significantly better 

improvement in word reading for the SSR group, these 

differences appear to be small in terms of educational 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-24 
Report 

importance. In any event, it is difficult to evaluate the 

value of these gains without more information about the 

length of the program. There were no differences in 

reading attitude that resulted from the intervention. 

In still another evaluation of SSR, this one conducted in 

a junior high school, Cline and Kretke (1980) examined 

the effectiveness of the procedure over a 3-year period. 

This study compared the reading achievement of 111 

students who had been enrolled for 3 years at a junior 

high school that was using SSR with that of control 

group students drawn from two other schools that did 

not have this program. This study found no differences 

between the two groups. However, it was poorly 

designed, and it would be impossible to be certain 

whether there were gains. The study apparently 

compared gains between different achievement tests 

used at different grade levels (something that is not 

statistically sound), and it failed to provide any 

information about the length of the SSR time or how 

this time was used at the control school. 

Davis (1988) considered the effect of SSR on reading 

comprehension with 8th graders. Fifty-six students 

were randomly assigned to one of two English classes. 

These classes met daily for 50 minutes. Approximately 

half the time was devoted to either SSR or, alternatively, 

to directed reading activities with the teacher. This 

effort continued for an entire school year. Although the 

researcher intended to analyze these data for high-, 

medium-, and low-ability students separately, attrition in 

the low-ability groups rendered this impossible. Two 

comparisons were made for the high- and mediumability groups, and it was found that the medium-ability 

students made much greater gains with SSR than with 

directed reading (n = 19), but there were no significant 

differences among the two high-ability groups (15 

students in these two groups). The gains attributed to 

SSR for the medium-ability group were substantial and 

educationally meaningful (about 1 year of difference on 

a standardized test). Unfortunately, the study is 

somewhat sketchy in terms of the statistical analysis: it 

provided no means or standard deviations and told little 

about the analysis of covariance that was used (i.e., 

How big were the initial differences across the groups? 

Was heterogeneity tested?). 

In one of the best-designed studies on SSR, Holt and 

O’Tuel (1989) randomly assigned teachers and 211 7th 

and 8th grade students to an SSR condition and a 

regular reading instruction condition. Students in the 

SSR condition read self-selected materials for 20 

minutes per day for 3 days each week, and they carried 

out sustained silent writing for two additional 20-minute 

periods each week. During the time these activities 

were carried out, the control group subjects worked on 

their regular reading instruction. At the end of 10 

weeks, the students in the SSR groups had evidenced 

greater growth in vocabulary knowledge than was true 

for the control subjects. Reading comprehension did not 

improve for either group, however. 

Burley (1980) randomly assigned 85 high school 

students enrolled in an Upward Bound summer program 

at a local college to one of four groups: SSR, 

programmed textbooks, programmed cassette tapes, 

and programmed skill development kits. The students in 

all groups received 75 minutes of reading instruction per 

day for 30 days, but part of this time was devoted to the 

SSR or other practice activities. In all, students 

practiced reading for about 14 hours in addition to the 

summer reading instruction during this 6-week period. 

This study found a small, positive, statistically significant 

difference favoring SSR over the other procedures on 

reading comprehension but no differences on a 

vocabulary measure. 

Summers and McClelland (1982) examined the effect 

of a 5-month program of SSR with 65 intact treatment 

and control classes from nine elementary schools. They 

found no significant differences in covariance-adjusted 

mean scores from standardized and informal reading 

achievement and attitude measures and no significant 

interaction effects for reading achievement, attitude, 

grade level, and sex. This study included approximately 

1,400 children. This study was unique not only in terms 

of its extensive sample, but also in that it carefully 

monitored the delivery of the treatments. 

In yet another study of SSR (Manning & Manning, 

1984), three variations of SSR were tested with 4th 

graders. These variations were compared across an 

entire school year with a poorly described control 

group. Students (n = 415) from 24 classrooms were 

assigned to the four groups (intact classes were 

randomly assigned). The treatment lasted for an entire 

school year. This study found that two of the SSR 

3-25 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

variations led to higher reading achievement and that 

one did not. The pure SSR variation (i.e., the one that 

matched the recommended procedures), in which 

students read for an extra 35 minutes per day, led to no 

greater reading growth than was evident for the control 

group. However, when SSR was coupled with teacher 

conferences or peer discussion, then slight improvement 

in reading was evident for the SSR groups. This 

suggests that reading alone might provide no clear 

benefit but that additional reading in combination with 

other activities could be effective. 

Not all the studies in this category focused on SSR, 

however. Morrow and Weinstein (1986), for instance, 

worked with six 2nd-grade reading classes to determine 

the efficacy of being involved in either a home- or 

school-based voluntary reading program in terms of 

amount of reading and reading achievement. This 

program, which provided students with enriched library 

materials and extended reading time, lasted for 9 

weeks. Students did more school reading as a result of 

being in this program, and they continued to do so when 

the program ended, but achievement levels in reading 

were unrelated to program participation, and the 

program did not alter reading attitudes or the amount of 

home reading. 

Accelerated Reader (AR)

AR is a commercial program designed to increase the 

amount of reading that students do with appropriate 

materials. Peak and Dewalt (1994) compared reading 

gains for two schools, one that used this program and 

one that did not. To make this comparison, they 

randomly selected 50 9th graders from each school. To 

be selected, a student had to have attended these 

schools since grade 3. Because standardized reading 

test scores (California Achievement Test) were 

available for each school at 3rd, 6th, and 8th grades, 

comparisons were made between these two groups at 

each point. They found a slight reading advantage in 3rd 

grade scores for the school that did not use AR and a 

slight advantage for the AR group at the end of the year. 

Students in the AR group had taken part in 5 to 6 hours 

per week of in-class reading during the 5 years of this 

study, but there is no information on what the other 

students were doing during this time. More problematic 

is the calculation of gain scores across forms of a 

standardized test. The scores of each of these normative 

grade level tests are independent scales, and it is not 

valid to subtract these test scores from each other. 

Given this serious problem and the limited data reporting 

that was evident, it is unclear whether any real 

difference in achievement can be attributed to this 

program on the basis of this study. 

In another study of the Accelerated Reader (Vollands, 

Topping, & Evans, 1999), two small experiments were 

carried out. In one experiment, there was a small 

advantage due to participation in the program; in the 

other, there was not. Neither study had well-matched 

samples of students, and in the study that demonstrated 

an advantage, students also used a form of assisted 

reading similar to those examined earlier in this paper. 

Carver and Liebert (1995) provided one of the clearest 

tests of the effect of reading by studying students 

during the summer. This study did not have a control 

group but simply examined the reading scores at the 

beginning of the program and 6 weeks later after the 

students had completed approximately 60 hours of selfselected reading. These students, in 3rd through 5th 

grades, made no gains in reading achievement at all, 

even though the books were at an appropriate level. 

Encouraging Students to Read 

More: Implications for Reading 

Instruction 

None of these studies attempted to measure the effect 

of increased reading on fluency. Instead, most of these 

studies considered the impact of encouraging more 

reading on overall reading achievement as measured by 

standardized and informal tests. It would be difficult to 

interpret this collection of studies as representing clear 

evidence that encouraging students to read more 

actually improves reading achievement. Only three 

studies (Burley, 1980; Davis, 1988; Langford & Allen, 

1983) reported any clear reading gains from 

encouraging students to read, and in the third of these 

studies the gains were so small as to be of questionable 

educational value. Most of the studies, including the 

best designed and largest ones (Collins, 1980; Holt & 

O’Tuel, 1989; Summers & McClelland, 1982), reported 

no appreciable benefit to reading from such procedures 

(Holt & O’Tuel found improvement in vocabulary 

scores, but these did not translate into better reading 

comprehension). The most direct test of the effect of 

reading on learning was provided by Carver and Liebert 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-26 
Report 

(1995), and they found no clear benefit resulting from 

60 hours of additional reading. Perhaps 60 hours of 

reading is insufficient for improving achievement in a 

measurable way. 

Only two of the studies compared SSR with nonreading 

instruction (Collins, 1980; Langford & Allen, 1983). 

One of these found no benefit, and the other found a 

very small benefit from SSR. More of the studies 

compared additional reading time with reading 

instruction itself. Often these studies interpreted the 

lack of difference between SSR and the control 

condition as meaning that SSR was as good as some, 

usually unspecified, form of reading instruction. 

Comparing SSR with instructional routines that have no 

evidence of success—or whose success has been 

found to be unrelated to achievement gains (Leinhardt, 

Zigmond, & Cooley, 1981)—is meaningless. Although 

several reviews of the literature have concluded that 

procedures like SSR work simply because reading 

achievement does not decline once they are instituted, 

that is not a sound basis on which to recommend such 

procedures as effective. SSR may or may not work, but 

it is unreasonable to conclude that it does on the basis 

of such flawed reasoning. For the most part, these 

studies found no gains in reading due to encouraging 

students to read more. It is unclear whether this was 

the result of deficiencies in the instructional procedures 

themselves or to the weaknesses and limitations evident 

in the study designs. 

It is impossible to sustain a negative conclusion with 

research. That is, the NRP cannot ultimately prove that 

a procedure or approach does not work under any 

conditions. No matter how many studies show a lack of 

effect due to an instructional routine, it is always 

possible that under some yet-unstudied condition the 

procedure could be made to work. Given the paucity of 

studies on increasing the amount of student reading— 

and the uneven quality of much of this work—there is a 

need to be especially cautious. Few of the studies 

reviewed here provided much monitoring of the amount 

of reading that students actually did in the programs, 

and only one kept track of the control student reading; 

therefore, in most cases, it is unclear whether the 

interventions actually led to more reading or just 

displaced other reading that students might have done 

otherwise. Nevertheless, given the evidence that exists, 

the Panel cannot conclude that schools should adopt 

programs to encourage more reading if the intended 

goal is to improve reading achievement. It is not that 

studies have proven that this cannot work, only that it is 

yet unproven. 

There are few beliefs more widely held than that 

teachers should encourage students to engage in 

voluntary reading and that if they did this successfully, 

better reading achievement would result. Unfortunately, 

research has not clearly demonstrated this relationship. 

In fact, the handful of experimental studies in which this 

idea has been tried raise serious questions about the 

efficacy of some of these procedures. 

Encouraging Students to Read 

More: Directions for Further 

Research 

There is a need for rigorous evaluations of the 

effectiveness of encouraging wide reading on reading 

achievement, particularly with popular programs such 

as SSR, DEAR, and AR. These studies need to monitor 

the amounts of reading—in and out of school—by both 

the experimental and control group students. To really 

understand the implications of such reading, it is 

important to compare these routines against procedures 

in which students actually read less. Without such 

information, one might only be comparing the effects of 

different forms of reading practice rather than 

comparing differences in amount of reading practice. 

Finally, none of these studies could even demonstrate 

that they clearly increased the amount of student 

reading because none of them measured an adequate 

baseline of current or previous reading engagement. 

That, too, should be addressed in future studies. 

That encouraging more reading does as well as certain 

instructional activities in stimulating learning does not 

speak well of those instructional activities. Voluntary 

reading within the school day should be compared 

against nonreading activities or activities in which the 

amount of reading can be closely measured. (In fact, 

the field should consider adopting a new research 

convention for methodological studies with students in 

the 2nd grade or higher. The amount of gain attributable 

to reading alone should be the baseline comparison 

against which the efficacy of instructional procedures is 

tested. If an instructional method does better than 

reading alone, it would be safe to conclude that method 

works.) Studies should consider the effect of increasing 

3-27 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 3: Fluency 

student reading on both fluency and overall reading 

achievement. However, until such evidence is 

forthcoming, the National Reading Panel cannot 

indicate that research has proven that such procedures 

actually work. 

Overall Conclusions 

Fluency is an essential part of reading, and the NRP has 

reviewed its theoretical and practical implications for 

reading development. In addition, the Panel has 

conducted two research syntheses, one on guided oral 

reading procedures such as repeated reading and the 

other on the effect of procedures that encourage 

students to read more. These two procedures have 

been widely recommended as appropriate and valuable 

avenues for increasing fluency and overall reading 

achievement. 

The NRP found a better, and more extensive, body of 

research on guided oral reading procedures. Generally, 

the Panel found that these procedures tended to 

improve word recognition, fluency (speed and accuracy 

of oral reading), and comprehension with most groups. 

Although there has been some speculation that fluency 

development is complete for most students by grade 3 

or 4, the Panel’s analysis found that these procedures 

continue to be useful far beyond that—at least for some 

readers. Repeated reading and other guided oral 

reading procedures have clearly been shown to improve 

fluency and overall reading achievement. 

There is clear and substantial research evidence that 

shows that such procedures work under a wide variety 

of conditions and with minimal special training or 

materials. Even with this evidence, there is a need for 

more research on this topic, including longitudinal 

studies that examine the impact of these procedures on 

different levels of students over longer periods. It would 

also be worthwhile to determine the amount of such 

instruction that would be needed with most students and 

the types of materials that lead to the biggest gains 

when these procedures are used. 

The results of the analysis of programs that encourage 

students to read more were much less encouraging. 

Despite widespread acceptance of the idea that schools 

can successfully encourage students to read more and 

that these increases in reading practice will be 

translated into better fluency and higher reading 

achievement, there is not adequate evidence to sustain 

this claim. Few studies have attempted to increase the 

amount of student reading. Those that have investigated 

such issues have tended to find no gains in reading as a 

result of the programs. This does not mean that 

procedures that encourage students to read more could 

not be made to work—future studies should explore this 

possibility—but at this time, it would be unreasonable to 

conclude that research shows that encouraging reading 

has a beneficial effect on reading achievement. 

Reports of the Subgroups 3-28 
Report 

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3-31 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 3: Fluency 

Rasinski, T. V. (1990). Effects of repeated reading 

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Report 

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technique for parent use. The Reading Teacher, 40, 

608-614. 

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(1990). Eye fixations predict reading comprehension: 

The relationship between reading skill, reading speed 

and visual inspection. Language and Speech, 33, 69-81. 

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T. A. M., & van den Hurk, A. J. M. (1991). A 

comparison of three methods of reading-while-listening, 

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 24, 471-476. 

VanWagenen, M. A., Williams, R. L., & 

McLaughlin, T. F. (1994). Use of assisted reading to 

improve reading rate, word accuracy, and 

comprehension with ESL Spanish-speaking students. 

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Winter, S. (1988). Paired reading: A study of 

process and outcome. Educational Psychology, 8, 135­

151. 

3-33 National Reading Panel 
Report

FLUENCY 

Appendices 

Appendix A

Studies of Repeated Reading and Guided Oral Reading
 

That Tested Immediate Impact of the Procedures
 

on Reading Performance (no transfer) 
 

Faulkner, H. J., & Levy, B. A. (1999). Fluent and 

nonfluent forms of transfer in reading: Words and their 

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(1985). The effects of repeated readings and attentional 

cues on reading fluency and comprehension. Journal of 

Reading Behavior, 17, 129-142. 

Pany, D., & McCoy, K. M. (1988). Effects of 

corrective feedback on word accuracy and reading 

comprehension of readers with learning disabilities. 

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21, 546-550. 

Rasinski, T. V. (1990). Effects of repeated reading 

and listening-while-reading on reading fluency. Journal 

of Educational Research, 83, 147-150. 

Reitsma, P. (1988). Reading practice for beginners: 

Effects of guided reading, reading-while-listening, and 

independent reading with computer-based speech 

feedback. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 219-235. 

Rose, T. L., & Beattie, J. R. (1986). Relative 

effects of teacher-directed and taped previewing on 

oral reading. Learning Disability Quarterly, 9, 193-199. 

Sindelar, P. T., Monda, L. E., & O’Shea, L. J. 

(1990). Effects of repeated readings on instructionaland mastery-level readers. Journal of Educational 

Research, 83, 220-226. 

Smith, D. D. (1979). The improvement of children’s 

oral reading through the use of teacher modeling. 

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 12 (3), 39-42. 

Stoddard, K., Valcante, G., Sindelar, P., O’Shea, L., 

& Algozzine, B. (1993). Increasing reading rate and 

comprehension: The effects of repeated readings, 

sentence segmentation, and intonation training. Reading 

Research and Instruction, 32, 53-65. 

Taylor, N. E., Wade, M. R., & Yekovich, F. R. 

(1985). The effects of text manipulation and multiple 

reading strategies on the reading performance of good 

and poor readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 566­

574. 

Turpie, J. J., & Paratore, J. R. (1995). Using 

repeated reading to promote success in a 

heterogeneously grouped first grade. In K. A. 

Hinchman, D.J. Leu, & C.K. Kinzer (Eds.) 

Perspectives on literacy research and practice: Fortyfourth Yearbook of the National Reading Conference 

(pp. 255-263). Chicago: The National Reading 

Conference. 

VanWagenen, M. A., Williams, R. L., & 

McLaughlin, T. F. (1994). Use of assisted reading to 

improve reading rate, word accuracy, and 

comprehension with ESL Spanish-speaking students. 

Perceptual and Motor Skills, 79, 227-230. 

3-35 National Reading Panel 
 

Appendices 

Appendix B

Articles Included in Meta-Analysis on Guided
 

Oral Reading Procedures
 

Conte, R., & Humphreys, R. (1989). Repeated 

readings using audiotaped material enhances oral 

reading in children with reading difficulties. Journal of 

Communications Disorders, 22, 65-79. 

Eldredge, J. L. (1990). Increasing the performance 

of poor readers in the third grade with a group-assisted 

strategy. Journal of Educational Research, 84, 69-77. 

Eldredge, J. L., Reutzel, D. R., & Hollingsworth, P. 

M. (1996). Comparing the effectiveness of two oral 

reading practices: Round-robin reading and the shared 

book experience. Journal of Literacy Research, 28, 

201-225. 

Hollingsworth, P. M. (1978). An experimental 

approach to the impress method of teaching reading. 

Reading Teacher, 31, 624-627. 

Hollingsworth, P. M. (1970). An experiment with 

the impress method of teaching reading. Reading 

Teacher, 24, 112-114, 187. 

Labbo, L. D., & Teale, W. (1990). Cross-age 

reading: A strategy for helping poor readers. Reading 

Teacher, 43, 362-369. 

Lorenz, L., & Vockell, E. (1979). Using the 

neurological impress method with learning disabled 

readers. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 12, 67-69. 

Mathes, P. G., & Fuchs, L. S. (1993). Peer 

mediated reading instruction in special education 

resource rooms. Learning Disabilities Research and 

Practice, 8, 233-243. 

Miller, A., Robson, D., & Bushell, R. (1986). 

Parental participation in paired reading: A controlled 

study. Educational Psychology, 6, 277-284. 

Rasinski, T., Padak, N., Linek, W., & Sturtevant, E. 

(1994). Effects of fluency development on urban 

second-grade readers. Journal of Educational Research, 

87, 158-165. 

Reutzel, D. R., & Hollingsworth, P. M. (1993). 

Effects of fluency training on second graders’ reading 

comprehension. Journal of Educational Research, 86, 

325-331. 

Shany, M. T., & Biemiller, A. (1995). Assisted 

reading practice: Effects on performance for poor 

readers in grade 3 and 4. Reading Research Quarterly, 

30, 382-395. 

Simmons, D., Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Hodge, J. P., 

& Mathes, P. G. (1994). Importance of instructional 

complexity and role reciprocity to classwide peer 

tutoring. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 9, 

203-212. 

Simmons, D.C., Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Mathes, P., 

& Hodge, J. P. (1995). Effects of explicit teaching and 

peer tutoring on the reading achievement of learningdisabled and low-performing students in regular 

classrooms. Elementary School Journal, 95, 387-408. 

Thomas, A., & Clapp, T. (1989). A comparison of 

computer-assisted component reading skills training and 

repeated reading for adolescent poor readers. Canadian 

Journal of Special Education, 5, 135-144. 

Young, A. R., Bowers, P. G., & MacKinnon, G. E. 

(1996). Effects of prosodic modeling and repeated 

reading on poor readers’ fluency and comprehension. 

Applied Psycholinguistics, 17, 59-84. 

3-37 National Reading Panel 
Appendices 

Appendix C

Studies of Guided Oral Reading That 
 

Used Single Subject Designs
 

Blum, I. H., Koskinen, P. S., Tennant, N., Parker, E. 

M., Straub, M., & Curry, C. (1995). Using audiotaped 

books to extend classroom literacy instruction into the 

homes of second-language learners. Journal of Reading 

Behavior, 27, 535-563. 

Gilbert, L. M., Williams, R. L., & McLaughlin, T. F. 

(1996). Use of assisted reading to increase correct 

reading rates and decrease error rates of students with 

learning disabilities. Journal of Applied Behavior 

Analysis, 29, 255-257. 

Herman, P. A. (1985). The effect of repeated 

readings on reading rate, speech pauses, and word 

recognition accuracy. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 

553-565. 

Kamps, D. M., Barbetta, P. M., Leonard, B. R., & 

Delquadri, J. (1994). Classwide peer tutoring: An 

integration strategy to improve reading skills and 

promote peer interactions among students with autism 

and general education peers. Journal of Applied 

Behavior Analysis, 27, 49-61. 

Langford, K., Slade, K., & Barnett, A. (1974). An 

examination of impress techniques in remedial reading. 

Academic Therapy, 9, 309-319. 

Law, M., & Kratochwill, T. R. (1993). Paired 

reading: An evaluation of a parent tutorial program. 

School Psychology International, 14, 119-147. 

Mefferd, P. E., & Pettegrew, B. S. (1997). 

Fostering literacy acquisition of students with 

developmental disabilities: Assisted reading with 

predictable trade books. Reading Research and 

Instruction, 36, 177-190. 

Morgan, R. T. (1976). “Paired reading” tuition: A 

preliminary report on a technique for cases of reading 

deficit. Child: Care, Health and Development, 2, 13-28. 

Morgan, R., & Lyon, E. (1979). “Paired reading”– 

A preliminary report on a technique for parental tuition 

of reading-retarded children. Journal of Child 

Psychiatry, 20, 151-160. 

Rose, T. L. (1984). The effects of two prepractice 

procedures on oral reading. Journal of Learning 

Disabilities, 17, 544-548. 

Tingstrom, D. H., Edwards, R. P., & Olmi, D. J. 

(1995). Listening previewing in reading to read: Relative 

effects on oral reading fluency. Psychology in the 

Schools, 32, 318-327. 

Weinstein, G., & Cooke, N. L. (1992). The effects 

of two repeated reading interventions on generalization 

of fluency. Learning Disability Quarterly, 15, 21-28. 

3-39 National Reading Panel 
Appendices 

Appendix D 
 

Studies That Compared Methods of Guided Oral Reading
 

Carver, R. P., & Hoffman, J. V. (1981). The effect 

of practice through repeated reading on gain in reading 

ability using a computer-based instructional system. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 3, 374-390. 

Dixon-Krauss, L. A. (1995). Partner reading and 

writing: Peer social dialogue and the zone of proximal 

development. Journal of Reading Behavior, 27, 45-63. 

Dowhower, S. L. (1987). Effects of repeated 

reading on second-grade transitional readers’ fluency 

and comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 

389-406. 

Homan, S. P., Klesius, J. P., & Hite, C. (1993). 

Effects of repeated readings and nonrepetitive 

strategies on students’ fluency and comprehension. 

Journal of Educational Research, 87, 94-99. 

Lindsay, G., Evans, A., & Jones, B. (1985). Paired 

reading versus relaxed reading: A comparison. British 

Journal of Educational Pscyhology, 55, 304-309. 

Rashotte, C., & Torgesen, J. K. (1985). Repeated 

reading and reading fluency in learning disabled 

children. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 180-188. 

Van Bon, W. H. J., Boksebeld, L. M., Font Freide, 

T. A. M., & van den Hurk, A. J. M. (1991). A 

comparison of three methods of reading-while-listening, 

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 24, 471-476. 

Winter, S. (1986). Peers as paired reading tutors. 

British Journal of Special Education, 13, 103-106. 

Winter, S. (1988). Paired reading: A study of 

process and outcome. Educational Psychology, 8, 135­

151. 

3-41 National Reading Panel 
 

Appendices 

Appendix E 
 

Studies of the Effects of Encouraging Students to Read
 

Burley, J. E. (1980). Short-term, high intensity 

reading practice methods for Upward Bound Students: 

An appraisal. Negro Educational Review, 31, 156-161. 

Carver, R. P., & Liebert, R. E., (1995). The effect 

of reading library books in different levels of difficulty 

on gain in reading ability. Reading Research Quarterly, 

30, 26-48. 

Cline, R. K. J., & Kretke, G. L. (1980). An 

evaluation of long-term SSR in the junior high school. 

Journal of Reading, 23, 503-506. 

Collins, C. (1980). Sustained silent reading periods: 

Effects on teachers’ behaviors and students’ 

achievement. Elementary School Journal, 81, 108-114. 

Davis, Z. T. (1988). A comparison of the 

effectiveness of sustained silent reading and directed 

reading activity on students’ reading achievement. The 

High School Journal, 72(1), 46-48. 

Evans, H. M., & Towner, J. C. (1975). Sustained 

silent reading: Does it increase skills? Reading Teacher, 

29, 155-156. 

Holt, S. B., & O’Tuel, F. S. (1989). The effect of 

sustained silent reading and writing on achievement and 

attitudes of seventh and eighth grade students reading 

two years below grade level. Reading Improvement, 26, 

290-297. 

Langford, J. C., & Allen, E. G. (1983). The effects 

of U.S.S.R. on students’ attitudes and achievement. 

Reading Horizons, 23, 194-200. 

Manning, G. L., & Manning, M. (1984). What 

models of recreational reading make a difference. 

Reading World, 23, 375-380. 

Morrow, L. M., & Weinstein, C. S. (1986). 

Encouraging voluntary reading: The impact of a 

literature program on children’s use of library centers. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 330-346. 

Peak, J., & Dewalt, M. W. (1994). Reading 

achievement: Effects of computerized reading 

management and enrichment. ERS Spectrum, 12(1), 31­

34. 

Reutzel, D. R., & Hollingsworth, P. M. (1991). 

Reading comprehension skills: Testing the 

distinctiveness hypothesis. Reading Research and 

Instruction, 30, 32-46. 

Summers, E. G., McClelland, J. V. (1982). A fieldbased evaluation of sustained silent reading (SSR) in 

intermediate grades. Alberta Journal of Educational 

Research, 28, 100-112. 

Vollands, S. R., Topping, K. J., & Evans, R. M. 

(1999). Computerized self-assessment of reading 

comprehension with the Accelerated Reader: Action 

Research. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 15, 197-211. 

3-43 National Reading Panel 

Executive Summary

COMPREHENSION 

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

Comprehension is critically important to development of 

children’s reading skills and therefore their ability to 

obtain an education. Indeed, reading comprehension has 

come to be viewed as the “essence of reading” 

(Durkin, 1993), essential not only to academic learning 

but to life-long learning. As the National Reading Panel 

(NRP) began its analysis of the extant research data on 

reading comprehension, three predominant themes 

emerged: (1) reading comprehension is a cognitive 

process that integrates complex skills and cannot be 

understood without examining the critical role of 

vocabulary learning and instruction and its development; 

(2) active interactive strategic processes are critically 

necessary to the development of reading 

comprehension; and (3) the preparation of teachers to 

best equip them to facilitate these complex processes is 

critical and intimately tied to the development of reading 

comprehension. With this as background, the NRP 

decided to organize its review and analysis of reading 

comprehension research in these three areas, and to 

address each in a subreport. This executive summary 

covers these three areas, and the format therefore 

differs slightly in organization from the other report 

executive summaries. Although the methodological 

issues pertinent to each of the three subareas are 

discussed in a common section, the results and 

discussion, as well as conclusions, implications for 

reading instruction, and directions for further research 

are combined under “Findings” for each of these three 

areas: 

•	 Vocabulary Instruction 

•	 Text Comprehension Instruction 

•	 Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies 

Instruction 

This organization was adopted to accommodate the 

complexity of each of these subtopics. These reviews 

provide systematic evaluations and analyses of the 

research on these topics during the past 20 years. 

Through the analyses, the Panel sought answers to this 

question: What methods are effective in teaching 

vocabulary and text comprehension and in preparing 

teachers to teach comprehension strategies? 

Methodology 

Database 

To carry out scientific reviews, the NRP searched the 

research literature on vocabulary and text 

comprehension instruction from 1979 to the present. For 

vocabulary instruction, 47 studies met the NRP’s 

scientific criteria. These studies included 73 grade-level 

samples, 53 of which were distributed from grades 3 to 

8. For text comprehension instruction, 203 studies met 

the NRP’s scientific criteria. These studies included 215 

grade-level samples, 170 of which were distributed 

from grades 3 through 8. For preparation of teachers to 

teach text comprehension in naturalistic settings, the 

Panel intensively analyzed four relevant studies that 

appeared in the search of the text comprehension 

literature. These studies represent the only experimental 

attempts to prepare teachers to implement in naturalistic 

settings in the classroom instruction of proven text 

comprehension strategies that have evolved during the 

past 20 years. These studies also evaluated the 

effectiveness of the preparation on comprehension by 

the readers. The teacher preparation studies covered 53 

classroom teachers from grades 2 to11. 

Analysis 

The Panel performed extensive analyses on the 

research studies identified in each subarea under 

review. The levels of analyses are briefly stated below: 

Vocabulary Instruction

An exhaustive inquiry into recent research in 

vocabulary instruction techniques failed to elicit a 

numerically large database of studies that satisfied the 

NRP criteria for inclusion. Three meta-analyses 

included in the original search were analyzed separately 

from the instructional research studies. Although these 

4-1	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4: Comprehension 

analyses do not meet the formal criteria for inclusion in 

the analysis, they are relevant to the issues at hand. 

Consequently, they are included in the discussions of 

findings. 

Text Comprehension Instruction

A study had to meet the following criteria to be included 

in the NRP review: 

•	 Relevant to instruction of reading or 

comprehension. This criterion, in particular, 

excluded studies on comprehension instruction in 

reasoning and mathematics problem solving 

(Schoenfeld, 1985), physics (Larkin & Reif, 1976) 

and writing (Englert & Raphael, 1989; Scardamalia 

& Bereiter, 1985). 

•	 The study has to have been published in a scientific 

journal. A few exceptions are dissertations and 

conference proceedings that were reviewed in two 

meta-analyses by Rosenshine and his colleagues 

(Rosenshine & Meister, 1994; Rosenshine, Meister, 

& Chapman, 1996). 

•	 The study had to have an experiment that involved 

at least one treatment and an appropriate control 

group or it had to have one or more quasiexperimental variables with variations that served 

as comparisons between treatments. The latter 

were rare. 

•	 Insofar as could be determined, the participants or 

classrooms were randomly assigned to the 

treatment and control groups or were matched on 

initial measures of reading comprehension. This 

criterion was relaxed in a number of studies in 

which random assignment of classrooms was not 

carried out. 

The Panel coded and entered the coded contents of the 

205 studies that met these criteria into a database to 

identify the types of comprehension instruction that 

were reported as effective. First, the abstracts of the 

studies were examined and the type of instruction was 

coded, as were experimental treatments and controls 

(independent variables), grade and reading level of 

readers, instructor (teacher or experimenter), 

assessments (dependent variables), and type of text. 

The studies were then classified and grouped based 

upon the type of instruction used. A total of 16 distinct 

categories of instruction was identified. 

Teacher Preparation and Comprehension

Strategies Instruction

A study had to meet the following criteria to be included 

in the review: 

•	 It focused on the preparation of teachers for 

conducting reading comprehension strategy 

instruction. 

•	 The study had to have been published in a scientific 

journal. 

•	 It was empirical. 

•	 It was experimental, using random assignment, or 

quasi-experimental with initial matching on the basis 

of reading comprehension scores. 

•	 The complete set of results of the study was 

reported. 

Four studies met these criteria. The Panel developed a 

detailed outline of each of the selected studies, 

organized to permit comparison across studies. The 

Panel reviewed the research in reading comprehension 

instruction broadly and also selected certain specific 

topics for a deeper focus, that is, vocabulary and 

teacher preparation for teaching reading comprehension 

strategies. It should be noted that there are other 

relevant aspects of comprehension instruction, for 

example, instruction in listening comprehension and in 

writing, that the Panel did not address. In addition, the 

Panel did not focus on special populations such as 

children whose first language is not English and children 

with learning disabilities. It did not review the research 

evidence concerning special populations and thus 

cannot say that its conclusions are relevant to them. 

Consistency With the Methodology of the 

National Reading Panel 

The methods of the NRP were followed in the conduct 

of the literature searches and the examination and 

coding of the articles obtained. However, in most 

instances, the wide variations in methodologies and 

implementations required the Panel to qualify the use of 

the NRP criteria for evaluating single studies, multiple 

studies, and reviews of existing studies. These 

departures from the stated NRP criteria are briefly 

stated below and are discussed in greater detail in each 

of the reports. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-2 
Executive Summary 

Vocabulary Instruction

A formal meta-analysis was not possible. Inspection of 

the research studies that were included in the database 

revealed a heterogeneous set of methodologies, 

implementations, and conceptions of vocabulary 

instruction. The Panel found no research on vocabulary 

measurement that met the NRP criteria; therefore, a 

detailed review of implicit evidence is presented. 

For the analysis of research on vocabulary instruction, 

there were recent meta-analyses that dealt with only 

the variables amenable to a meta-analysis. For the most 

part, the experimental research in vocabulary instruction 

involves many different variables and methodologies. It 

was deemed inappropriate to analyze such disparate 

studies as a group. For comprehension instruction, there 

were simply too many studies involving too many 

variables to allow for a simple meta-analysis. The 

decision was made to do the preliminary work 

necessary to organize comprehension instruction 

research for possible future analyses. For research on 

preparation of teachers to teach comprehension, there 

were only four studies, and a meta-analysis was not 

possible. The general analysis of teacher education and 

professional development found too few studies on too 

many variables to conduct a formal meta-analysis. 

Similarly, for computer technology and reading 

instruction, there were relatively few studies, most of 

which used variables that differed from each other. 

Text Comprehension Instruction

A formal meta-analysis was not possible because even 

the studies identified in the same instructional category 

used widely varying sets of methodologies and 

implementations. Therefore, the Panel found few 

research studies that met all the NRP criteria; however, 

to the extent possible, NRP criteria were employed in 

the analyses. NRP criteria for evaluating existing 

reviews of research were used in the analyses of the 

two Rosenshine and colleagues meta-analyses. 

Teacher Preparation and Comprehension

Strategies Instruction

A formal meta-analysis was not possible because of the 

small number of studies identified. However, 

comprehensive summaries according to NRP guidelines 

for each of the four studies are included in the report. 

Vocabulary Instruction: Findings 

The importance of vocabulary knowledge has long been 

recognized. In 1925, the National Society for Studies in 

Education (NSSE) Yearbook (Whipple, 1925) noted: 

“Growth in reading power means, therefore, continuous 

enriching and enlarging of the reading vocabulary and 

increasing clarity of discrimination in appreciation of 

word values.” (Davis, 1942, p. 76) presented evidence 

that comprehension comprises two “skills”: Word 

knowledge or vocabulary and reasoning. Vocabulary 

occupies an important position in learning to read. As a 

learner begins to read, reading vocabulary encountered 

in texts is mapped onto the oral vocabulary the learner 

brings to the task. The reader learns to translate the 

(relatively) unfamiliar words in print into speech, with 

the expectation that the speech forms will be easier to 

comprehend. Benefits in understanding text by applying 

letter-sound correspondences to printed material come 

about only if the target word is in the learner’s oral 

vocabulary. When the word is not in the learner’s oral 

vocabulary, it will not be understood when it occurs in 

print. Vocabulary occupies an important middle ground 

in learning to read. Oral vocabulary is a key to learning 

to make the transition from oral to written forms. 

Reading vocabulary is crucial to the comprehension 

processes of a skilled reader. 

Vocabulary Instruction Methods 

Five main methods of teaching vocabulary were 

identified: 

1.	 Explicit Instruction: Students are given definitions or 

other attributes of words to be learned. 

2.	 Implicit Instruction: Students are exposed to words 

or given opportunities to do a great deal of reading. 

3.	 Multimedia Methods: Vocabulary is taught by going 

beyond text to include other media such as graphic 

representations, hypertext, or American Sign 

Language that uses a haptic medium. 

4.	 Capacity Methods: Practice is emphasized to 

increase capacity through making reading 

automatic. 

5.	 Association Methods: Learners are encouraged to 

draw connections between what they do know and 

words they encounter that they do not know. 

4-3	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4: Comprehension 

Results of Vocabulary Instruction 

There are age and ability effects learning gains that 

occur from vocabulary instruction. These findings point 

to the importance of selecting age- and abilityappropriate methods. 

1.	 Computer vocabulary instruction shows positive 

learning gains over traditional methods. 

2.	 Vocabulary instruction leads to gains in 

comprehension. 

3.	 Vocabulary can be learned incidentally in the 

context of storybook reading or from listening to the 

reading of others. 

4.	 Repeated exposure to vocabulary items is important 

for learning gains. The best gains were made in 

instruction that extended beyond single class 

periods and involved multiple exposures in authentic 

contexts beyond the classroom. 

5.	 Pre-instruction of vocabulary words prior to reading 

can facilitate both vocabulary acquisition and 

comprehension. 

6.	 The restructuring of the text materials or 

procedures facilitates vocabulary acquisition and 

comprehension, for example, substituting easy for 

hard words. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

These results indicate that 

1.	 There is a need for direct instruction of vocabulary 

items required for a specific text. 

2.	 Repetition and multiple exposure to vocabulary 

items are important. Students should be given items 

that will be likely to appear in many contexts. 

3.	 Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary 

learning. Vocabulary words should be those that the 

learner will find useful in many contexts. When 

vocabulary items are derived from content learning 

materials, the learner will be better equipped to deal 

with specific reading matter in content areas. 

4.	 Vocabulary tasks should be restructured as 

necessary. It is important to be certain that students 

fully understand what is asked of them in the 

context of reading, rather than focusing only on the 

words to be learned. Restructuring seems to be 

most effective for low-achieving or at-risk students. 

5.	 Vocabulary learning is effective when it entails 

active engagement in learning tasks. 

6.	 Computer technology can be used effectively to 

help teach vocabulary. 

7.	 Vocabulary can be acquired through incidental 

learning. Much of a student’s vocabulary will have 

to be learned in the course of doing things other 

than explicit vocabulary learning. Repetition, 

richness of context, and motivation may also add to 

the efficacy of incidental learning of vocabulary. 

8.	 Dependence on a single vocabulary instruction 

method will not result in optimal learning. A variety 

of methods was used effectively with emphasis on 

multimedia aspects of learning, richness of context 

in which words are to be learned, and the number 

of exposures to words that learners receive. 

Directions for Further Research 

The need in vocabulary instruction research is great. 

Existing knowledge of vocabulary acquisition exceeds 

current knowledge of pedagogy. That is, a great deal is 

known about the ways in which vocabulary increases 

under highly controlled conditions, but much less is 

known about the ways in which such growth can be 

fostered in instructional contexts. There is a great need 

for the conduct of research on these topics in authentic 

school contexts, with real teachers, under real 

conditions. 

1.	 What are the best ways to evaluate vocabulary 

size, use, acquisition, and retention? What is the role 

of standardized tests, what other measures should 

be used, and under what circumstances? 

2.	 Given the preliminary findings that age and ability 

levels can affect the efficacy of various vocabulary 

instruction methods (Tomesen & Aarnoutse, 1998; 

Robbins & Ehri, 1994; Nicholson & Whyte, 1992; 

McGivern & Levin, 1983), what are the specific 

vocabulary instruction needs of students at different 

grade and ability levels? 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-4 
Executive Summary 

3.	 What are the more general effects of vocabulary 

instruction across the grades? 

4.	 Empirical support has been found for the facilitation 

of vocabulary learning with computers as ancillary 

aids and replacements of other technologies 

(Reinking & Rickman, 1990; Heise, 1991; Davidson 

et al., 1996). What is the optimal use of computer 

(and other) technologies in vocabulary instruction? 

What is the precise role of multimedia learning in 

vocabulary acquisition? 

5.	 What is the precise role of multimedia learning in 

vocabulary instruction across the grades? 

6.	 How should vocabulary be integrated in 

comprehension instruction for optimal benefit to the 

student? 

7.	 What are the optimal combinations of the various 

methods of vocabulary instruction, including direct 

and indirect instruction, as well as different methods 

within these categories? 

8.	 What sort of professional development is needed 

for teachers to become proficient in vocabulary 

instruction? 

Text Comprehension Instruction: 

Findings 

Comprehension is a complex process. There exist as 

many interpretations of comprehension as there are of 

reading. This may be so because comprehension is 

often viewed as “the essence of reading” (Durkin, 

1993). Reading comprehension is further defined as 

“intentional thinking during which meaning is 

constructed through interactions between text and 

reader” (Durkin, 1993). According to this view, 

meaning resides in the intentional, problem-solving, 

thinking processes of the reader that occur during an 

interchange with a text. The content of meaning is 

influenced by the text and by the reader’s prior 

knowledge and experience that are brought to bear on 

it. Reading comprehension is the construction of the 

meaning of a written text through a reciprocal 

interchange of ideas between the reader and the 

message in a particular text (Harris & Hodges, 1995, 

definition #2, p. 39). 

The bulk of instruction of text comprehension research 

during the past 2 decades has been guided by the 

cognitive conceptualization of reading described above. 

In the cognitive research of the reading process, 

reading is purposeful and active. A reader reads a text 

to understand what is read and to put this understanding 

to use. A reader can read a text to learn, to find out 

information, or to be entertained. These various 

purposes of understanding require that the reader use 

knowledge of the world, including language and print. 

This knowledge enables the reader to make meanings 

of the text, to form memory representations of these 

meanings, and to use them to communicate information 

with others about what was read. 

Although instruction on text comprehension has been a 

major research topic for more than 20 years, the explicit 

teaching of text comprehension before 1980 was done 

largely in content areas and not in the context of formal 

reading instruction. The idea behind explicit instruction 

of text comprehension was that comprehension could 

be improved by teaching students to use specific 

cognitive strategies or to reason strategically when they 

encountered barriers to comprehension in reading. The 

goal of such training was the achievement of competent 

and self-regulated reading. 

Readers normally acquire strategies for active 

comprehension informally. Comprehension strategies 

are specific procedures that guide students to become 

aware of how well they are comprehending as they 

attempt to read and write. Explicit or formal instruction 

of these strategies is believed to lead to improvement in 

text understanding and information use. Instruction in 

comprehension strategies is carried out by a classroom 

teacher who demonstrates, models, or guides the reader 

in their acquisition and use. When these procedures are 

acquired, the reader becomes independent of the 

teacher. Using them, the reader can effectively interact 

with the text without assistance. 

Comprehension Instruction Methods 

Analyses of the 203 studies on instruction of text 

comprehension led to the identification of 16 different 

kinds of effective procedures. Of the 16 types of 

instruction, 8 offered a firm scientific basis for 

concluding that they improve comprehension. The eight 

kinds of instruction that appear to be effective and most 

promising for classroom instruction are 

4-5	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4: Comprehension 

1.	 Comprehension monitoring in which the reader 

learns how to be aware or conscious of his or her 

understanding during reading and learns procedures 

to deal with problems in understanding as they 

arise. 

2.	 Cooperative learning in which readers work 

together to learn strategies in the context of 

reading. 

3.	 Graphic and semantic organizers that allow the 

reader to represent graphically (write or draw) the 

meanings and relationships of the ideas that underlie 

the words in the text. 

4.	 Story structure from which the reader learns to ask 

and answer who, what, where, when, and why 

questions about the plot and, in some cases, maps 

out the time line, characters, and events in stories. 

5.	 Question answering in which the reader answers 

questions posed by the teacher and is given 

feedback on the correctness. 

6.	 Question generation in which the reader asks 

himself or herself what, when, where, why, what 

will happen, how, and who questions. 

7.	 Summarization in which the reader attempts to 

identify and write the main or most important ideas 

that integrate or unite the other ideas or meanings 

of the text into a coherent whole. 

8.	 Multiple-strategy teaching in which the reader uses 

several of the procedures in interaction with the 

teacher over the text. Multiple-strategy teaching is 

effective when the procedures are used flexibly and 

appropriately by the reader or the teacher in 

naturalistic contexts. 

Results of Comprehension Instruction 

With respect to the scientific basis of the instruction of 

text comprehension, the Panel concludes that 

comprehension instruction can effectively motivate and 

teach readers to learn and to use comprehension 

strategies that benefit the reader. 

These comprehension strategies yield increases in 

measures of near transfer such as recall, question 

answering and generation, and summarization of texts. 

These comprehension strategies, when used in 

combination, show general gains on standardized 

comprehension tests. Teachers can learn to teach 

students to use comprehension strategies in natural 

learning situations. Furthermore, when teachers teach 

these strategies, their students learn them and improve 

their reading comprehension. 

A common aspect of individual and multiple-strategy 

instruction is the active involvement of motivated 

readers who read more text as a result of the 

instruction. These motivational and reading practice 

effects may be important to the success of multiplestrategy instruction. 

Multiple-strategy instruction that is flexible as to which 

strategies are used and when they are taught over the 

course of a reading session provides a natural basis for 

teachers and readers to interact over texts. The 

research literature developed from the study of isolated 

strategies to their use in combination to the preparation 

of teachers to teach them in interaction over texts with 

readers in naturalistic settings. The Panel regards this 

development as the most important finding of the 

Panel’s review because it moves from the laboratory to 

the classroom and prepares teachers to teach strategies 

in ways that are effective and natural. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

The empirical evidence reviewed favors the conclusion 

that teaching of a variety of reading comprehension 

strategies leads to increased learning of the strategies, 

to specific transfer of learning, to increased retention 

and understanding of new passages, and, in some cases, 

to general improvements in comprehension. 

The important development of instruction of 

comprehension research is the study of teacher 

preparation for instruction of multiple, flexible strategies 

with readers in natural settings and content areas and 

the assessment of the effectiveness of this instruction 

by trained teachers on comprehension. 

Directions for Further Research 

The Panel’s analysis of the research on instruction of 

text comprehension left a number of questions 

unanswered. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-6 
Executive Summary 

1.	 More information is needed on the effective ways 

to teach teachers how to use proven strategies for 

instruction in text comprehension. This information 

is crucial to situations in which teachers and 

readers interact over texts in real classroom 

contexts. 

2.	 Some evidence was reviewed that indicated that 

instruction in comprehension in content areas 

benefits readers in terms of achievement in social 

studies. However, it is not clear whether instruction 

of comprehension strategies leads to learning skills 

that improve performance in content areas of 

instruction. If so, then it might be efficient to teach 

reading comprehension as a learning skill in content 

areas. 

3.	 Instruction of comprehension has been successful 

over the 3rd to 6th grade range. A next step will be 

to determine whether certain strategies are more 

appropriate for certain ages and abilities, what 

reader characteristics influence successful 

instruction of reading comprehension, and which 

strategies, in combination, are best for younger 

readers, poor or below-average readers, or for 

learning-disabled and dyslexic readers. 

4.	 It will be important to know whether successful 

instruction generalizes across different text genres 

(e.g., narrative and expository) and texts from 

different subject content areas. The NRP review of 

the research indicated that little or no attention was 

given to the kinds of text that were used and that 

there was little available information on the 

difficulty level of texts. 

5.	 It will also be important to determine what teacher 

characteristics influence successful instruction of 

reading comprehension and what the most effective 

ways are to train teachers, both preservice and 

inservice. 

6.	 Criteria of internal and external validity should be 

considered in the design of future research, to 

address problems that were noted in prior studies. 

Specifically, these issues were random assignment 

of students to treatments and control conditions; 

exposure of experimental and control participants to 

the same training materials; provision of information 

about the amount of time spent on dependent 

variable tasks; the study of fidelity of treatment and 

analyzing teacher and reader performance during 

instruction; use of appropriate units (individual, 

group, classroom) in analyses; and assessment of 

either long-term effects or generalization of the 

strategies to other tasks and materials. 

Teacher Preparation and 

Comprehension Strategies 

Instruction: Findings 

The preparation of teachers to deliver comprehension 

strategy instruction is important to the success of 

teaching reading comprehension. As indicated by the 

Panel’s review of text comprehension, reading 

comprehension can be improved by teaching students to 

use specific cognitive strategies or to reason 

strategically when they encounter barriers to 

comprehension when reading. The goal of such training 

is the achievement of competent and self-regulated 

reading. The research on comprehension strategies has 

evolved dramatically over the course of the last 2 

decades. At first, investigators focused on teaching 

students one strategy at a time. A wide variety of 

strategies was studied, including imagery, question 

generating, prediction, and a host of others. In later 

studies, several strategies were taught in combination. 

However, implementation in the context of the actual 

classroom of this promising approach to comprehension 

has been problematic. Acquiring and practicing 

strategies in isolation and then attempting to provide 

transfer opportunities during the reading of text is not 

the kind of instruction that is required in naturalistic 

contexts. Proficient reading involves a constant, ongoing 

adaptation of many cognitive processes. 

Thus, teachers must be skillful in their instruction and 

must respond flexibly and opportunistically to students’ 

needs for instructive feedback as they read. To be able 

to do this, teachers must themselves have a firm grasp 

not only of the strategies that they are teaching the 

children but also of instructional strategies that they can 

employ to achieve their goal. Many teachers find this 

type of teaching a challenge, most likely because they 

have not been trained to do such teaching. The focus of 

the review was on four recent and promising studies 

that addressed the need for specific teacher preparation 

in the implementation of strategy instruction in 

naturalistic classroom contexts. In these four studies, 

teachers were trained to teach strategies, and the focus 

4-7	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4: Comprehension 

was on the effectiveness of that training on students’ 

reading. It is not surprising that only a few relevant 

studies have been done on this topic. Interest in the 

topic is rather new, and preparing teachers to deliver 

effective strategy instruction is a lengthy and complex 

process. 

Methods of Teacher Preparation 

There have been two major approaches to 

comprehension strategy instruction in the classroom: 

direct explanation (DE) and transactional. 

The DE approach was designed to improve on the 

approach in which students are taught to use one or 

several strategies as described and reviewed in the 

previous section on text comprehension instruction. This 

kind of instruction did not attempt to provide students 

with an understanding of the reasoning and mental 

processes involved in reading strategically. Therefore, 

Gerald Duffy and Laura Roehler developed the DE 

approach. In this approach, teachers do not teach 

individual strategies but focus instead on helping 

students to (1) view reading as a problem-solving task 

that necessitates the use of strategic thinking and (2) 

learn to think strategically about solving reading 

comprehension problems. The focus is on developing 

teachers’ ability to explain the reasoning and mental 

processes involved in successful reading comprehension 

in an explicit manner, hence the use of the term “direct 

explanation.” The implementation of DE requires 

specific and intensive teacher training on how to teach 

the traditional reading comprehension skills found in 

basal readers as strategies, for example, to teach 

students the skill of how to find the main idea by casting 

it as a problem-solving task and reasoning about it 

strategically. The transactional strategy instruction 

(TSI) approach includes the same key elements as the 

direct explanation approach, but it takes a somewhat 

different view of the role of the teacher in strategy 

instruction. The TSI approach focuses on the ability of 

teachers to facilitate discussions in which students 

(1) collaborate to form joint interpretations of text and 

(2) explicitly discuss the mental processes and cognitive 

strategies that are involved in comprehension. In other 

words, the emphasis is on the interactive exchange 

among learners in the classroom, hence use of the term 

“transactional.” 

In both approaches, teachers explain specific strategies 

to students and model the reasoning associated with 

their use. Both approaches include the use of 

systematic practice of new skills, as well as scaffold 

support, in which teachers gradually withdraw the 

amount of assistance they offer to students. The 

different emphases of the two approaches (explanation 

vs. discussion) result in differences in the level of 

collaboration among students. 

Results of Teacher Preparation 

All four studies showed that teachers can be taught to 

be effective in teaching comprehension to their students 

in naturalistic reading contexts. These studies indicate 

that teaching teachers to use comprehension instruction 

methods leads to students’ awareness of strategies and 

use of strategies, which can in turn lead to improved 

reading. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

Teachers need training to become effective in 

explaining fully what it is that they are teaching (what to 

do, why, how, and when), modeling their own thinking 

processes for their students, encouraging students to 

ask questions and discuss possible answers and problem 

solutions among themselves, and keeping students 

engaged in their reading by providing tasks that demand 

active involvement. 

There should be greater emphasis in teacher education 

on the teaching of reading comprehension. Such 

instruction should begin during preservice training, and it 

should be extensive, especially with respect to preparing 

teachers to teach comprehension strategies. 

Directions for Further Research 

It will be important to determine how well teachers 

maintain their effectiveness in the classroom after they 

have had preparation in teaching reading 

comprehension. Thus, several research questions 

remain to be investigated. 

1.	 Which components of a successful teacher 

preparation program are the effective ones? These 

could include characteristics of the teacher 

preparation program itself, such as its focus or 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-8 
Executive Summary 

intensity, as well as characteristics of the instruction 

delivered to the students, such as the amount of 

instruction provided, the particular strategies taught, 

and the amount of collaborative discussion involved. 

2.	 Can instruction in reading comprehension strategies 

be successfully implemented and incorporated into 

content area instruction? 

3.	 How should the effectiveness of strategy 

instruction be assessed, especially with respect to 

reading achievement and subject matter proficiency, 

but also with respect to student interest and teacher 

satisfaction? 

4.	 Comprehension instruction research has been 

limited to grades 3 through 8. It will be important to 

examine comprehension instruction in the primary 

grades when children are mastering phonics and 

word recognition and developing reading fluency. 

5.	 How should the effectiveness of strategy 

instruction be assessed, for example, by reading 

achievement or subject matter achievement? 

6.	 Should the teaching of reading comprehension begin 

during preservice or inservice training or both, and 

how extensive should it be? 

Conclusions 

Vocabulary is one of the most important areas within 

comprehension and should not be neglected. The NRP 

found a variety of methods by which readers acquire 

vocabulary through explicit instruction and improve their 

comprehension of what they read. The Panel also found 

that although there has been considerable success in 

teaching a variety of effective text comprehension 

strategies that lead to improved text comprehension, the 

most promising lines of research within the reading 

comprehension strategies area focused on teacher 

preparation to teach comprehension. Teachers can be 

helped by intensive preparation in strategy instruction, 

and this preparation leads to improvement in the 

performance of their students. 

4-9	 National Reading Panel 
Executive Summary

COMPREHENSION 

Introduction 

Learning to read is one of the most important 

things children accomplish in elementary 

school because it is the foundation for most of 

their future academic endeavors. From the 

middle elementary years through the rest of 

their lives as students, children spend much of 

their time reading and learning information 

presented in text. The activity of reading to 

learn requires students to comprehend and 

recall the main ideas or themes presented in 

. . . text. (Stevens et al., 1991, p. 8). 

Inherent in the view expressed by Stevens et al. (1991) 

in the preceding quotation is the critical importance of 

reading comprehension and the developmental view that 

children must first learn how to recognize and relate 

print to oral language knowledge and to make this 

recognition automatic through practice. Indeed, 

comprehension has come to be viewed as the “essence 

of reading” (Durkin, 1993), essential not only to 

academic learning but to lifelong learning as well. 

Despite the critical and fundamental importance of 

reading comprehension, comprehension as a cognitive 

process began to receive scientific attention only in the 

past 30 years. 

As the National Reading Panel initiated its analysis of 

the extant research data on reading comprehension, 

three major themes emerged. First, reading 

comprehension as a process and an amalgam of 

complex skills cannot be understood without examining 

the critical role and importance of vocabulary and 

vocabulary instruction. Second, in contrast to earlier 

speculation that reading comprehension was a passive 

process, more recent data clearly indicate that robust 

comprehension is dependent on active and thoughtful 

interaction between the text and the reader. Therefore, 

the development and investigation of reading 

comprehension strategies now occupy a central role in 

teaching readers how to maximize their understanding 

of what is read and in explaining the different strategies 

that enable readers to optimally understand text. Third, 

given the importance of comprehension strategies in 

fully understanding text, it is critical to know how 

teachers can best be prepared to teach their students 

specific strategies that will facilitate this understanding. 

With this as background, this section of the NRP report 

is organized in three subsections. The first section 

examines specific evidence on the effects of 

vocabulary instruction on reading achievement, 

particularly text comprehension. In the second section, 

data relevant to the effects of different types of 

instruction to facilitate the comprehension of text are 

analyzed and interpreted. In the third section, available 

data on the preparation of teachers to teach reading 

comprehension strategies are reviewed and interpreted. 

In addition, a comprehensive description of the review 

methodology employed in the evaluation of studies 

relevant to vocabulary instruction, text comprehension 

instruction, and teacher preparation is provided in 

Appendix A of this report. 

In contrast to the sections in the NRP report that 

address phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency, 

studies undertaken with young children at risk for 

reading failure and older disabled readers were not 

reviewed and analyzed as part of the Comprehension 

report. Time and resource limitations prevented the 

Panel from examining this subtopic in an optimal 

manner. Thus, it was decided to examine only literature 

that pertained to the normal reading process. 

The reader will also note that the organization of this 

section of the report differs from the structure 

employed in adjacent sections in that each subsection 

(Vocabulary Instruction, Text Comprehension 

Instruction, Teacher Preparation and Comprehension 

Strategies Instruction) provides a topic-specific 

introduction, an overview of methodology, results and 

discussion of the findings, implications for reading 

instruction, and directions for future research. This 

organization was adopted to accommodate the 

complexity of each of these subtopics and differences 

in the review and data analytic procedures employed 

for each of the topics. 

4-11 National Reading Panel 

Report

COMPREHENSION I 

Vocabulary Instruction 

Introduction 

The importance of vocabulary in reading achievement 

has been recognized for more than half a century. As 

early as 1925, in the National Society for Studies in 

Education (NSSE) Yearbook, this quotation appears: 

Growth in reading power means, therefore, 

continuous enriching and enlarging of the 

reading vocabulary and increasing clarity of 

discrimination in appreciation of word values 

(Whipple, 1925, p. 76). 

Even today, evidence of the importance of vocabulary is 

usually attributed to Davis (1942), who presented 

evidence that comprehension comprised two “skills”: 

word knowledge or vocabulary and reasoning in 

reading. The Panel reflects this position with the 

inclusion of the current analysis of research on 

vocabulary instruction with the other comprehension 

research analyses. Since Davis’ work, there have been 

questions regarding the “skills” perspective, but the 

finding that vocabulary is strongly related to 

comprehension seems unchallenged. 

Given the prominence of vocabulary in the reading 

process, the comprehension subgroup determined that 

vocabulary instruction merited a specific review. 

Therefore, the purpose of this report was to examine 

the scientific evidence on the effect of vocabulary 

instruction on reading achievement. This was done is 

two stages: first examining the literature on vocabulary 

instruction and, second, the literature on the 

measurement of vocabulary. 

Vocabulary Instruction 

Vocabulary occupies an important position in learning to 

read. As a learner begins to read, reading vocabulary 

encountered in texts is mapped onto the oral vocabulary 

the learner brings to the task. That is, the reader is 

taught to translate the (relatively) unfamiliar words in 

print into speech, with the expectation that the speech 

forms will be easier to comprehend. A benefit in 

understanding text by applying letter-sound 

correspondences to printed material only comes about if 

the resultant oral representation is a known word in the 

learner’s oral vocabulary. If the resultant oral 

vocabulary item is not in the learner’s vocabulary, it will 

not be better understood than it was in print. Thus, 

vocabulary seems to occupy an important middle 

ground in learning to read. Oral vocabulary is a key to 

learning to make the transition from oral to written 

forms, whereas reading vocabulary is crucial to the 

comprehension processes of a skilled reader. 

Despite the clear importance of vocabulary, recent 

research has focused more on overall comprehension 

than on vocabulary. This appears to be a function of the 

more inclusive nature of many contemporary 

comprehension methods, which seem to incorporate at 

least some vocabulary instruction. Even in traditional 

methods of teaching reading, lesson formats always 

include vocabulary instruction. 

Many studies have shown that reading ability and 

vocabulary size are related, but the causal link 

between increasing vocabulary and an increase in 

comprehension has not been demonstrated. That is, it 

has been difficult to demonstrate that teaching 

vocabulary improves reading ability. 

Why this should be so difficult is sometimes obscured 

by the imprecise nature of the definitions of vocabulary 

and comprehension. Both vocabulary and 

comprehension involve the meaning of the text, albeit at 

different levels. Vocabulary is generally tied closely to 

individual words while comprehension is more often 

thought of in much larger units. To get to the 

comprehension of larger units requires the requisite 

processing of the words. Precisely separating the two 

processes is difficult, if not impossible. 

Measurement of Vocabulary 

Even the measurement of vocabulary is fraught with 

difficulties. Researchers distinguish between many 

different “vocabularies.” Receptive vocabulary is the 

vocabulary that we can understand when it is presented 

to us in text or as we listen to others speak, while 

productive vocabulary is that vocabulary we use in 

writing or when speaking to others. It is generally 

believed that receptive vocabulary is much larger than 

productive vocabulary since we often recognize words 

4-15 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction 

that we would rarely use. Vocabulary is also 

subcategorized as oral vs. reading vocabulary, where 

oral refers to words that are recognized in speaking or 

listening while reading vocabulary refers to words that 

are used or recognized in print. Sight vocabulary is a 

subset of reading vocabulary that does not require 

explicit word recognition processing. Conclusions about 

some of these different types of vocabularies often do 

not apply to all; what may be true for one may or may 

not be true for another. 

At a conceptual level, vocabulary can be measured in 

many ways. One major distinction in the measurement 

of vocabulary parallels the receptive/productive 

distinction. Vocabulary that is recognized by an 

individual is often different from vocabulary that is 

produced. Another distinction is made between reading 

vocabulary and writing vocabulary—the vocabularies 

that are available to the reader or writer—and between 

speaking and listening vocabularies. Still another type of 

vocabulary is often referred to as sight vocabulary— 

those words that can be identified without explicit 

decoding during reading. 

Because there are so many definitions of vocabulary, 

the format for assessing or evaluating vocabulary is an 

important variable in both practice and research. One 

way of assessing recognition vocabulary is to have the 

learner select a definition for a word from a list of 

alternatives. Conversely, the task could be to select a 

word for the definition. In many cases, such as 

standardized tests, this method is used as a means of 

obtaining efficiency in testing. A second method of 

assessing vocabulary is by having the learner generate 

a definition for a word. Because this method requires a 

judgment about the response, it is often deemed less 

efficient than a recognition method. Most often, 

recognition vocabulary is measurably larger than 

productive vocabulary. 

Another difficulty with the measurement of vocabulary 

is that we can only ask a learner for a relatively small 

number of words. Those words must be representative 

of a larger pool of vocabulary items. In short, we can 

never know exactly how large a vocabulary an 

individual has. Instead, we often measure only specific 

vocabulary items that we want the individual to know, 

for example, in the context of a reading or a science 

lesson. Standardized tests attempt to deal with this by 

selecting words that differ widely in their familiarity. 

Persons who can correctly identify unfamiliar words 

are assumed to have larger vocabularies. The more 

unfamiliar words that can be identified, the larger the 

vocabulary. However, these are estimates, rather than 

precise measurements. Furthermore, the definition of 

“familiar” or “known” words is difficult to pin down 

outside of a specific context. What does it mean if a 

learner “almost” knows a word? The assessment of 

such a circumstance has no objective answer. 

Finally, evaluation of vocabulary knowledge is measured 

either by standardized tests or by informal, 

experimenter- or teacher-generated tests on one 

dimension and by receptive vs. productive techniques 

on another dimension. 

Methodology 

Database 

A search using Endnote 3.0 connected to the ERIC 

online database with a Z39.50 connection was initiated. 

Using the term “vocabulary” alone (in any field) yielded 

18,819 citations. A search using “vocabulary” and 

“instruction” and “reading” and “research” and 

“method” yielded 141 citations. A similar search 

undertaken using the PsycINFO database yielded a 

total of 56 nonoverlapping citations. The 197 citations 

were downloaded into an Endnote library for further 

analysis. From this set, citations were removed if they 

were not reports of research, did not report 

experimental or quasi-experimental studies, dealt with 

foreign languages or non-English-speaking groups, or 

dealt exclusively with learning disabled or other special 

populations, including second-language learners. 

There are many studies that describe aspects of 

vocabulary without specifically addressing the questions 

of how vocabulary instruction is conducted. The Panel 

does recognize the importance of many of these studies 

in designing vocabulary instruction, but the Panel did not 

analyze these studies unless they contained at least 

some experimental work on instructional methods. 

Additional bibliographic searching was conducted, 

guided by three meta-analyses (Stahl & Fairbanks, 

1986; Klesius & Searls, 1990; Fukkink & de Glopper, 

1998) and two reviews of the literature on vocabulary 

instruction research (Nagy & Scott, in press; 

Blachowicz & Fisher, in press). These procedures 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-16 
Report 

yielded a total of 50 studies that were candidates for 

further analysis. The studies were coded in a Filemaker 

4.0 database, using the categories established by the 

NRP. 

As the Panel analyzed the studies in the database, the 

Panel found no research that met the NRP criteria that 

explicitly addressed the issues of measuring vocabulary. 

This is clearly a gap in our knowledge and a research 

need. 

Analysis 

An exhaustive inquiry into recent research in 

vocabulary instruction techniques failed to elicit a 

numerically large database of studies that satisfied the 

NRP criteria for inclusion. Although the small size of 

the database of experimental research might temper 

some of the conclusions from the data, important and 

interesting trends do appear in the body of available 

studies. Following is a discussion of some salient 

observations from the extant data set, as well as some 

preliminary analyses of trends and important findings. 

Three meta-analyses included in the original search 

were analyzed separately from the instructional 

research studies. Although these analyses do not meet 

the formal criteria for inclusion in the analysis, they are 

relevant to the issues at hand. Consequently, they are 

included in the discussions of findings. 

Consistency With the Methodology of the 

National Reading Panel 

The methods of the NRP were followed in the conduct 

of the literature searches and the examination and 

coding of the articles obtained. A formal meta-analysis 

was not possible. Inspection of the research studies that 

were included in the database revealed a heterogeneous 

set of methodologies, implementations, and conceptions 

of vocabulary instruction. As noted, the Panel found no 

research on vocabulary measurement that met the NRP 

criteria; therefore, implicit evidence is presented below 

on this issue. 

Indirect Instruction

Results 

Summary and Preliminary Taxonomy of 

Instruction Methods 

Because so many of these studies examined involve 

unique instructional programs, it was deemed 

appropriate to provide a summary of the methods used 

to study vocabulary. Table 1 in Appendix A lists the 

methods, a description of the basic techniques, and 

some sample citations for the method. 

Because there were so many different methods 

represented in the database, a scheme for categorizing 

the methods was attempted. There are so many 

dimensions on which vocabulary instruction can be 

categorized that each implementation often appears to 

be unique. This seems to be the case for two reasons. 

First, there are typically so few vocabulary studies that 

each seems to distinguish itself from others by its 

differences from rather than its similarities to other 

methods. The second reason is that the similarities 

between methods have not been systematically 

organized at the conceptual level. The following scheme 

is an attempt to produce a simplified taxonomy of 

methods for vocabulary instruction. 

Explicit Instruction

In explicit instruction, students are given definitions or 

other attributes of words to be learned. They are often 

given specific algorithms for determining meanings of 

words, or they are given external cues to connect the 

words with meaning. A common example of this 

technique is the pre-teaching of vocabulary prior to 

reading a selection. Other common methods of explicit 

instruction involve the analysis of word roots or affixes. 

In indirect instruction, students are exposed to words or 

given opportunities to do a great deal of reading. It is 

assumed that students will infer any definitions they do 

not have. At least one version of the implicit methods 

simply suggests that students should be encouraged to 

do wide reading to increase vocabulary. 

4-17 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction 

Multimedia Methods

In these methods, vocabulary is taught by going beyond 

text to include other media. Semantic mapping and 

graphic representations of word attributes are among 

these methods (Margosein, Pascarella, & Pflaum, 1982; 

Levin, Johnson, Pittelman, Levin, Shriberg, TomsBronowski, & Hayes, 1984.) Newer developments like 

hypertext go beyond the single medium of text in 

attempts to enhance vocabulary learning. American 

Sign Language (Daniels, 1994, 1996) has been used to 

increase vocabulary, capitalizing on encoding in a haptic 

medium. 

Capacity Methods

At least a few methods attempt to reduce the cognitive 

capacity devoted to other reading activities by 

practicing them to make them more nearly automatic. 

These methods assume that the additional capacity 

freed up can be used for vocabulary learning. These 

methods work to allow the student to concentrate on 

meaning of words rather than their orthographic or oral 

representations. 

Association Methods

In this category of methods, learners are encouraged to 

draw connections between what they do know and 

words they encounter that they do not know. 

Sometimes these associations are semantic or 

contextual. At other times, they are based on imagery 

students invoke in learning the words. 

Conclusion About the Taxonomy

Although the taxonomic scheme developed above 

describe the research at a general level, the Panel 

found that the differences between studies within the 

taxonomy were too great to be useful. In addition, many 

of the studies seemed to combine elements that would 

place them in one or more categories when the actual 

methods were developed. Consequently, although the 

Panel thinks it is important to think about vocabulary 

along these dimensions, the taxonomy was only used in 

a conceptual manner in subsequent analyses of the 

vocabulary instruction studies. 

Analysis of the Research Studies 

In the following analysis, the reading instruction 

database was reviewed for trends across studies, 

accounting for the great diversity in methods and the 

relatively small number of studies. The fact that the 

same studies are represented in more than one finding 

testifies to the complex nature of the instruction 

represented by many methods. For each of the trends, 

representative examples of studies are included with 

brief sketches of the findings. 

Age and Ability Effects on Vocabulary Learning

The distribution of research studies in vocabulary 

instruction as a function of grade level is shown in 

Figure 1 on the next page. What is most striking in 

these data is the fact that there are relatively few 

studies outside the range of 3rd to 8th grade. For the 50 

studies categorized, there were 73 different grade 

samples because some studies used more than one 

grade level. Of these 73 grade samples, 53 were grades 

3 to 8, with relatively little research on vocabulary 

instruction in the early grades. One possible explanation 

is that there is less emphasis on methods in the early 

grades. Another is that teaching of vocabulary is often 

not separate from other instruction in the early grades. 

As students begin to read content material they may 

need to learn vocabulary specific to the material, giving 

rise to the instructional need for vocabulary learning. 

Another possibility is that much of early reading is, at 

least theoretically, done with texts that do not exceed 

the vocabularies of most early readers. In this event, 

there would be little need for vocabulary instruction. 

Despite the restricted range of studies, one trend in the 

database suggests that various ability levels and age 

differences can significantly affect learning gains from 

vocabulary instruction methods. The studies underscore 

the need to consider carefully the different impacts that 

various vocabulary instruction techniques can have for 

students of different ages and abilities, and, accordingly, 

the importance of selecting appropriate methods. 

•	 Senechal and Cornell (1993) found that a single 

book reading was enough to significantly improve 

children’s new expressive vocabulary of ten target 

words in the stories, and that after 1 week, the 5­

year-olds remembered more than 4-year-olds. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-18 
Report 

Figure 1. NIH Vocabulary Studies: Distribution of Grades Studied in Research

(N = 72 Grade samples in 47 studies)

•	 Meyerson, Ford, and Jones (1991) found that 5th 

graders were more likely than 3rd graders to assign 

science vocabulary into conceptual groupings. 

•	 Tomesen and Aarnoutse (1998) studied reciprocal 

teaching and direct instruction in deriving word 

meanings from context as provided to 4th graders; 

the instruction was more helpful for poor readers 

rather than average readers. 

•	 Robbins and Ehri (1994) found that storybook 

readings helped teach children meanings of 

unfamiliar words; those with larger entering 

vocabularies learned more words. 

•	 Nicholson and Whyte (1992) explored how 8- to 

10-year-old students learned vocabulary from 

incidental exposure (listening to stories). The largest 

effects were for high-ability students. They propose 

that low-ability and average students should do 

more independent reading with a dictionary than 

listening to stories. 

•	 McGivern and Levin (1983) reported positive 

effects for the keyword method, with greater 

effects for low- than for high-ability students; the 

low-ability students had more difficulty in 

operationalizing dual components of the task. 

Computer Use for Vocabulary Instruction

A small but clear trend in recent years shows computer 

technology making inroads in literacy and literacy 

instruction. Four studies that employ computers for 

vocabulary instruction appear in the database. These 

studies show learning gains with computer use as 

compared to traditional methods or when computers are 

used as an ancillary aid. 

•	 Heller, Sturner, Funk, and Feezor (1993) examined 

the issue of cognitive demands of technology for 

preschool learners, by studying the effect of 

different input devices (touch screen vs. keyboard) 

on vocabulary identification. They concluded that 

the greater cognitive demands of keyboard use 

disrupted the children’s ability to process the limited 

acoustic information available in speech. 

•	 Reinking and Rickman (1990) found that 6th grade 

students receiving computer instruction of difficult 

text words with electronic text scored higher on 

vocabulary measures than students reading printed 

pages with dictionaries or glossaries. 

•	 Heise, Papelweis, and Tanner (1991) compared 3rd 

and 6th through 8th grade students in conditions 

with computer-assisted and conventional direct 

instruction; the trend was for improved 

4-19	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction 

performance with computer assistance, although 

the difference was not statistically significant. 

•	 Davidson, Elcock, and Noyes (1996) used a 

computer that gave speech prompts when the 

learner requested them; 5- to 7-year-old students 

improved on three measures of vocabulary with 

these prompts. 

Vocabulary Instruction Effects on Comprehension

In this category are studies that attempt to map the 

causal relationships between vocabulary and 

comprehension. The following studies underscore the 

notion that comprehension gains and improvement on 

semantic tasks are results of vocabulary learning. 

Although all of these studies focus on vocabulary, they 

also typify the heterogeneity among definitions and 

implementations of vocabulary instruction. 

•	 Beck, Perfetti, and McKeown (1982) demonstrated 

that 4th graders receiving vocabulary instruction 

performed better on semantic tasks than those who 

did not receive instruction. 

•	 McKeown, Beck, Omanson, and Perfetti (1983) 

also found that vocabulary instruction had a strong 

relation to text comprehension for 4th grade 

students. 

•	 Wixson (1986) examined teaching the concept vs. 

dictionary definitions and showed that pre-teaching 

vocabulary words for understanding was effective, 

although the precise effects were unclear because 

of interaction with story. 

•	 Carney, Anderson, Blackburn, and Blessings (1984) 

found that for 5th grade students, pre-teaching 

vocabulary words had a significant effect on 

retention and acquisition of social studies content. 

•	 Kameenui, Carnine, and Freschi (1982) found that 

substitution of easy for hard vocabulary words, 

inclusion of redundant information, and instruction 

on difficult words facilitated comprehension. 

•	 Stahl and Fairbanks (1986) conducted a metaanalysis and concluded that vocabulary instruction 

was an important component for comprehension. 

The best instructional techniques were mixes of 

definitional and contextual programs; the keyword 

method produced some significant gains in recall. 

Repeated exposures to words were also found to 

be effective. 

•	 Medo and Ryder (1993) found that text-specific 

vocabulary instruction prior to reading expository 

texts helped 8th grade students to make causal 

connections and that this method benefited both 

average and high-ability students. 

However, one study found that vocabulary instruction 

did not transfer to general reading comprehension. 

Tomesen and Aarnoutse (1998) conducted vocabulary 

instruction in the context of reciprocal teaching for 4th 

grade students. They used direct instruction in deriving 

word meanings from context and found it to be more 

helpful for poor readers than for average readers, but 

they reported a lack of transfer to general reading 

comprehension. 

Keyword Method

In the database, some positive findings with the 

keyword method research indicate that this method may 

significantly augment recall, and may be more helpful 

than many other vocabulary instruction methods. One 

study found that the keyword method interacts with 

student ability levels, and that low-ability students had 

considerably more difficulty with certain keyword 

methods than high-ability students. However, another 

study reported that the initial keyword gains were 

temporary, fading out within a week. 

•	 Levin and colleagues (1984) noted gains for 4th and 

5th grade students with the keyword method as 

compared to semantic and contextual analysis 

methods in the short term. However, the advantage 

had faded in the 1-week-delayed test. 

•	 Levin, McCormick, Miller, and Berry (1982) found 

that 4th grade students outperformed controls in 

vocabulary acquisition with the keyword method as 

compared to the picture context, control and 

experiential context conditions. 

•	 Levin, Levin, Glasman, and Nordwall (1992) found 

strong effects for 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 8th grade 

students when comparing the keyword method to 

free study and science context vocabulary methods. 

•	 McGivern and Levin (1983) found that 5th grade 

students showed positive effects of the keyword 

method. However, there was more of a difference 

for low-ability students than for high-ability 

students, although low-ability students had more 

difficulty in operationalizing the components of the 

task. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-20 
Report 

Indirect Learning Effects

Because of the rapid rate at which vocabulary is 

acquired, it has always been assumed that much 

vocabulary was learned incidentally. One instantiation 

of this method is found in vocabulary learning in the 

context of storybook reading. Recent research studies 

in the area suggest that indirect learning can definitely 

occur, and that vocabulary can be acquired through 

incidental exposure. In addition, one particular study 

(Schwanenflugel, Stahl, & McFall, 1997) is important 

because it looks beyond the issue of whether word 

acquisition occurs from reading, examining the 

characteristics of words and texts that were most 

amenable to vocabulary acquisition from stories. In this 

study of 4th grade students, researchers found that nonnoun words (adverbs, verbs, and adjectives) were 

easier to learn than nouns and that words with high 

imageability were easier to learn from the stories. 

•	 Robbins and Ehri (1994) demonstrated that 

storybook readings helped teach children meanings 

of unfamiliar words. However, those with larger 

entering vocabulary learn more words. 

•	 Leung (1992) studied kindergartners and 1st grade 

students, finding that the frequency of a target word 

in stories influenced the occurrence of the word in 

the child’s retellings and that read-aloud events 

seemed to help children to learn new words by 

incidental learning. 

•	 Senechal and Cornell (1993) found that for 4- to 5­

year-old children, one single book reading was 

enough to significantly improve new expressive 

vocabulary of ten target words in the stories. In a 

delayed transfer test after 1 week, 5-year-old 

children remembered more than 4-year-olds. 

•	 Nicholson and Whyte (1992) explored student 

vocabulary learning through incidental exposure by 

having children 8 to 10 years old listen to stories; 

the largest effects were for high-ability students. 

They proposed that low-ability and average-ability 

students do more independent reading with a 

dictionary than listening to stories. 

•	 Stewart, Gonzalez et al. (1997) examined 

acquisition of sight-reading vocabulary learned 

incidentally during articulation training and found 

that this learning generalized beyond printed words 

on cards to words on a list. 

•	 Stahl, Richek, and Vandevier (1991) evaluated the 

indirect learning of vocabulary words among 6th 

grade students designated as less able readers and 

found that the students were able to learn a 

significant number of vocabulary words from 

listening to orally presented passages. 

Two studies revealed great detail about the actual 

process of vocabulary learning by examining the 

characteristics of words that were most conducive to 

vocabulary acquisition. Schwanenflugel, Stahl, and 

McFalls (1997) found that among their 4th grade 

sample, certain word characteristics had a significant 

impact on vocabulary learned from reading stories. In 

particular, non-noun words (verbs, adverbs, and 

adjectives) were learned better than nouns, and 

concrete words (high in imageability) were learned 

more readily than less easily imageable words. The 

authors conclude that the characteristics of vocabulary 

words are more important variables in the learning of 

vocabulary words from stories than are text features 

(word repetitions, contextual support, etc.). Another 

study, McFalls, Schwanenflugel, and Stahl (1996), 

examined the impact of semantic variables related to 

concreteness on the development of reading vocabulary 

among a predominantly African American and low SES 

2nd grade sample. They found that the children read 

abstract words with less accuracy than concrete words 

on tasks of recognition and reading accuracy and that 

the concreteness of the words determined whether 

children were able to remember them and to learn to 

read them more easily. 

The nature of the interaction (emphasizing active 

participation) during storybook readings may also have 

an impact on learning. Three studies found that studentinitiated talk or active participation was important. 

•	 Dickinson and Smith (1994) examined storybook 

readings for preschoolers and the effects of teacher 

talk on vocabulary acquisition and concluded that 

the amount of child-initiated analytic talk was 

important for vocabulary gains. 

•	 Senechal (1997) found that for pre-kindergarten 

children, repeated readings of a story created 

greater performance gains in vocabulary. Students 

learned more from answering questions during 

readings than they did when simply listening to the 

narrative. 

4-21	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction 

•	 Drevno, Kimball, Possi, Heward, Gardner, and 

Barbetta (1994) examined the effects of active 

student response (ASR) error correction on the 

learning of science vocabulary for a small group of 

elementary students. In the ASR condition, when a 

student made an error, the teacher modeled the 

correct definition and the student repeated it, but in 

the no response (NR) condition, students would not 

repeat the definition. ASR was found to be superior 

to the NR error-correction condition on all the 

dependent variables. 

Vocabulary Gains From Repeated, Multiple

Exposures

One trend that was strongly reflected in the database 

was that high frequency and multiple, repeated 

exposures to vocabulary material are important for 

learning gains. In accordance with this finding, a trend 

was also noted that extended and rich instruction of 

vocabulary (applying words to multiple contexts, etc.) 

was superior to less comprehensive methods. The 

following studies share this finding: 

•	 Senechal (1997) found that for pre-kindergarten 

children, repeated readings of a story were 

associated with greater performance gains in 

vocabulary. 

•	 Leung (1992) studied kindergarten and 1st grade 

students, finding that the frequency of a target word 

in stories influenced occurrence of the word in a 

child’s retellings. 

•	 Daniels, M. (1994) showed that pre-K students 

who learned American Sign Language (ASL) did 

significantly better than controls on the Peabody 

Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). In a 1996 study, 

Daniels also found that kindergarten students who 

learned ASL did significantly better on language 

development and vocabulary growth measures of 

the PPVT than those who had not learned ASL. 

Effect of Rich Contexts on Vocabulary Growth

•	 McKeown, Beck, Omanson, and Pople (1985) 

found that 4th graders performed well with 

instruction that extended beyond single class 

periods and involved multiple exposures in authentic 

contexts. The instruction added activities to extend 

use of learned words beyond the classroom and 

high-frequency encounters with words. 

•	 Kameenui, Carnine, and Freschi (1982) found that 

providing redundant information facilitated 

comprehension and that instruction on difficult 

vocabulary words also helped vocabulary learning 

in grades 4 through 6. 

•	 Dole, Sloan, and Trathen (1995) worked with 10th 

grade students on an “alternative” vocabulary 

treatment condition: teach students how to select 

relevant words, learn the words on a deep level, 

and discuss them. These students outscored 

students taught with the traditional conditions in 

which students did not learn this criterion or discuss 

the words in context. 

Pre-instruction of Vocabulary Words

It has been a given for reading instruction in almost 

every formal lesson format that vocabulary instruction 

will occupy a central part of the lesson, typically prior to 

reading. This pre-instruction has often been justified on 

the basis of making the passage easier to comprehend 

by reducing the cognitive load during subsequent 

reading. In fact, a few studies suggest that preinstruction of vocabulary words facilitates both 

vocabulary acquisition and comprehension. 

•	 Brett, Rothlein, and Hurley (1996) found that 4th 

grade students who were given pre-instruction of 

target words in the story had greater vocabulary 

gains than the children in the non-instructional 

control group. 

•	 Wixson (1986) pre-taught vocabulary words to 

grade students. Although there were some gains in 

understanding, the instructional treatment (concept 

vs. dictionary) effects were unclear because of 

interaction with story. 

•	 Carney, Anderson, Blackburn, and Blessing (1984) 

also pre-taught vocabulary to 5th grade students; 

the treatment had a significant effect on retention 

and acquisition of social studies content. 

Restructuring the Task

One emergent trend in the database is the restructuring 

of the task (materials or procedures) in various ways to 

facilitate vocabulary acquisition and comprehension. A 

way of doing this is to alter the passage, such as 

substituting easy for hard words. Another is clarifying 

the task of learning vocabulary definitions for students, 

such as teaching what components make a good 

definition, and selecting relevant words. Group-assisted 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-22 
Report 

reading in student dyads also yielded significant 

vocabulary gains over the comparison, unassisted 

group. Although the diversity among these studies is a 

salient feature, the following studies did found positive 

results with a wide range of task alterations: 

•	 Kameenui, Carnine, and Freschi (1982) found that 

providing redundant information facilitated 

comprehension and that instruction on difficult 

vocabulary words also helped vocabulary learning 

in grades 4 through 6. 

•	 Gordon, Schumm, Coffland, and Doucette (1992) 

revised text versions to help define vocabulary 

words for 5th grade students. Using these revised 

texts helped students understand passages better. 

•	 Schwartz and Raphael (1985) clarified the task of 

defining a word for 4th and 5th grade students, 

giving them the components of a definition; this 

increased students’ independent vocabulary 

acquisition. 

•	 Scott and Nagy (1997) evaluated the effect of 

altering presentation of vocabulary definitions 

(traditional dictionary definition with or without a 

sample sentence and definitions that were 

specifically written to be easier to understand) on 

the learning of novel vocabulary words. In general, 

regardless of the type of definition given, both the 

4th and 6th grade students scored poorly on the 

task of assessing whether vocabulary usage was 

consistent with the definition in sentence fragments. 

However, small but significant gains were found 

when students were given sample sentences along 

with the definitions. 

•	 Wu and Solman (1993) investigated the effects of 

extrapictorial prompts on the learning of words by 

kindergartners. They found that the best learning 

occurred equally in two circumstances: in the 

absence of the pictorial prompts where words were 

presented alone, and in a feedback cueing 

condition. 

•	 Eldredge (1990) devised a group-assisted reading 

method for 3rd grade students. The vocabulary 

gains for students reading in dyads were greater 

than for the comparison group of unassisted 

students who did independent reading. 

•	 Malone and McLaughlin (1997) compared 

reciprocal peer tutoring with a traditional 

vocabulary program. The 7th and 8th grade 

students in the reciprocal peer-tutoring group had 

significantly higher scores on weekly vocabulary 

quizzes. 

Context Method

The research dealing with contextual approaches to 

vocabulary acquisition yielded some interesting findings 

on the role of context and definitional approaches. In 

accordance with the research findings on rich, extended 

instruction and multiple exposures to words, one 

emerging trend was the possibility that the mix of 

definitional and contextual approaches worked better 

than either method used alone. Two studies reflect this 

finding. Kolich (1991) provided computer-assisted 

practice for 11th grade students; those receiving mixed 

instruction (context optional word choices and 

definitional) scored highest. Similarly, Stahl (1983) found 

those 5th grade students receiving a mixed treatment 

(definitional and contextual) outscored both students 

receiving the definitional alone and the students in the 

control conditions. 

However, some studies found specific gains using a 

single approach. Margosein, Pascarella, and Pflaum 

(1982) worked with junior high school students and 

found significant effects for semantic mapping over 

context-rich or target-word treatment; their work 

suggests that students should focus on word with 

similarities to other known words. Gipe and Arnold 

(1979) compared several vocabulary methods for 3rd 

and 5th grade students: instruction from context, 

association, dictionary, and category. They found the 

highest gains for the context method. 

Several studies demonstrated that direct instruction in 

learning word meanings was helpful for vocabulary 

acquisition. 

•	 Tomesen and Aarnoutse (1998) included 

vocabulary instruction for 4th grade students in a 

program of reciprocal teaching. Students were 

given direct instruction in deriving word meanings 

from context. This was found to be more helpful for 

poor than for average readers, but there was no 

transfer to general reading comprehension 

•	 White, Graves, and Slater (1990) explored the need 

for assisting minority or disadvantaged children in 

grades 1 through 4 and found that direct instruction 

4-23	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction 

in meaning and decoding may help them to an 

extent. 

•	 Dole, Sloan, and Trathen (1995) worked with 10th 

grade students on an “alternative” vocabulary 

treatment condition: teaching students how to select 

relevant words, learn them on a deep level, and 

discuss them. These students outscored students 

taught with the traditional conditions in which 

students did not learn to this criterion or discuss the 

words in context. 

•	 Rinaldi, Sells, and McLaughlin (1997) worked with 

10.8- to 11.5-year-old students and 3rd graders with 

reading difficulties to examine effectiveness of a 

drill and practice intervention on sight word 

acquisition. During the intervention, all the students 

more than doubled their correct rates in oral reading 

and reduced their numbers of errors. 

•	 Dana and Rodriguez (1992) studied the effects of 

the TOAST (test, organize, anchor, say, test) 

method of vocabulary learning as compared to 

various student-selected methods of vocabulary 

instruction among 6th grade students. They found 

that students using the TOAST method scored 

higher than those using student-selected methods on 

measures of both immediate and delayed retention 

of words. 

•	 Stump, Lovitt, Fister, Kemp, Moore, and Schroeder 

(1992) assessed the effects of a precision teaching 

intervention for general and special education. 

Assessments of timed vocabulary quizzes supported 

the finding that the majority of students in the study 

scored higher on measures of accuracy and 

fluency. 

Results and Discussion 

Measurement of Vocabulary 

What is available on the issue of measuring vocabulary, 

despite the noted research gap, is some implicit 

evidence, which the Panel provided in a breakdown of 

the types of measures that have been used by 

researchers studying vocabulary. To obtain this 

information the Panel tallied, for each study, whether 

the vocabulary assessment instrument was standardized 

or experimenter-generated. In some of the studies, 

vocabulary was assessed with a pretest as well as a 

posttest. 

It was possible to determine what types of assessments 

(standardized of experimenter-generated) were used in 

37 of the studies as dependent variables. Figure 2 on 

the next page shows the distribution of studies in the 

database as a function of the type of assessment used. 

There were six studies that used standardized 

assessments as the only dependent variable. One of 

these studies used two measures. There was almost no 

overlap in the type of standardized measures used, with 

six different instruments represented. 

One other feature in the data was that of the 50 studies 

coded, 32 administered pretests. Of these 32 studies, 17 

used standardized tests. There were 11 different 

instruments represented in the total. 

These analyses seem to suggest two implications that 

might be drawn for practice. First, the standardized 

tests did not seem to be sufficiently sensitive to 

vocabulary changes to be used as dependent measures. 

For practice, this would suggest that assessing 

vocabulary growth would be best done with teachergenerated instruments as at least one component of 

evaluation. It also suggests that there may be a need for 

the development of standardized measures that are 

much more sensitive to the nuances and complexities 

involved in vocabulary acquisition. A further implication 

is that standardized instruments appear to be useful for 

general screening pretests. Again, the implication for 

practice might be that standardized tests could be used 

to identify students who need vocabulary instruction. 

However, a note of caution is critical here. These 

implications are tentative and need to be researched 

before being implemented. 

Despite the relatively small body of data available, the 

collective body of research clearly indicates that 

vocabulary increases with instruction of many different 

sorts. 

Direct and Indirect Instruction

It is clear that vocabulary should be taught both directly 

and indirectly. Vocabulary instruction should be 

incorporated into reading instruction. There is a need 

for direct instruction of vocabulary items that are 

required for a specific text to be read as part of the 

lesson. Direct instruction was found to be highly 

effective for vocabulary learning (Tomeson & 

Aarnoutse, 1998; White, Graves, & Slater, 1990; Dole, 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-24 
Report 

Figure 2. Distribution of Assessment Types Included in Database

(N = 37 studies)

Sloan, & Trathen, 1995; Rinalid, Sells, & McLaughlin, 

1997). In addition, the more connections that can be 

made to a specific word, the better it seems to be 

learned. For example, there is empirical evidence 

indicating that making connections with other reading 

material or oral language in other contexts seems to 

have large effects. 

Pre-instruction of vocabulary in reading lessons can 

have significant effects on learning outcomes (Brett, 

Rothlein, & Hurley, 1996; Wixson, 1986; Carney, 

Anderson, Blackburn, et al., 1984). At least, it 

guarantees that there will be fewer unfamiliar concepts 

in the material to be read. It also helps in making the 

translation of print to speech meaningful by trying to 

guarantee that the vocabulary items are in the oral 

language of the reader. Because almost all early 

reading is based on oral language, this is a critically 

important implication. 

Repetition and Multiple Exposures

It also seems clear from the Panel’s data set that 

having students encounter vocabulary words often and 

in various ways can have a significant effect (Senechal, 

1997; Leung, 1992; Daniels, 1994, 1996; Dole, Sloan, & 

Trathen, 1995).Although not a surprising finding, this 

does have direct implications for instruction. Students 

should not only repeat vocabulary items in learning; they 

should be given items that will be likely to appear in 

many other contexts. 

Context

In much the same way that multiple exposures are 

important, the context in which a word is learned is 

critical (McKeown, Beck, Omanson, and Pople, 1985; 

Kameenui, Carnine, & Freschi, 1982; Dole, Sloan, & 

Trathen, 1995). Vocabulary words should be words that 

the learner will find useful in many contexts. To that 

end, a large portion of vocabulary items should be 

derived from content learning materials. This would 

serve at least two functions: first, it would assist the 

4-25 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction 

learner in dealing with the specific reading matter in 

content area materials; second, it would provide the 

learner with vocabulary that would be encountered 

sufficiently often to make the learning effort 

worthwhile. 

Task Restructuring

Direct vocabulary instruction often assumes that the 

learner is fully aware of what the task is and how to 

complete it. However, restructuring tasks can ensure 

this. Some empirical research has demonstrated the 

efficacy of being certain that students fully understand 

the task and the components of vocabulary learning, 

rather than creating a focus only on the words to be 

learned (Schwartz & Raphael, 1985). Restructuring the 

task, such as group learning or revising learning 

materials, can also lead to increased vocabulary 

learning (Kameenui, Carnine, & Freschi, 1982; Gordon, 

Schumm, Coffland, and Doucette, 1992; Wu & Solman, 

1993; Eldredge, 1990; Malone & McLaughlin, 1997). 

This seems to be most effective for low-achieving or 

at-risk students. 

Active Engagement

The few studies that addressed active engagement in 

learning all reported results consistent with conventional 

wisdom about learning: Active learning is best. When 

students were engaged in the tasks in which they were 

learning vocabulary, they had larger gains (Dickinson & 

Smith, 1994; Senechal, 1997; Drevno et al., 1994; 

Daniels, 1994, 1996). This suggests that vocabulary 

learning tasks that advance other knowledge would be 

more effective. 

Computer Technology

While the use of computer technology in reading is still 

in its infancy, the few studies reported in the literature 

suggest that this may be a powerful way of increasing 

vocabulary (Reinking & Rickman, 1990; Heise et al., 

1991; Davidson, Elcock, & Noyes, 1996; Heller, 

Sturner, Funk & Feezor, 1993). Two possibilities arise 

here. The first is that the computer might be used as an 

adjunct to direct vocabulary instruction. In this way, 

students could obtain more practice in learning 

vocabulary. A second possibility is that computer 

technology could bring to bear many different media. 

This is one way of adding a number of different 

modalities to the teaching of vocabulary and, 

consequently, helping ensure more effective vocabulary 

learning. The availability of online access to vocabulary 

definitions combines both of these possibilities. 

Implicit Learning

It is both a theoretical and an empirical fact that not all 

vocabulary can or must be learned through formal 

instruction and that vocabulary words can also be 

learned through incidental and indirect ways (Robbins 

& Ehri, 1994; Leung, 1992; Senechal & Cornell, 1993; 

Nicholson & Whyte, 1992; Stewart et al., 1997). 

Estimates of vocabulary size seem to suggest that there 

would never be sufficient classroom time to instruct 

students to the level of their acquired vocabulary. This 

implies that much of a student’s vocabulary will have to 

be learned in the course of doing things other than 

explicit vocabulary learning. Students may well pick up 

vocabulary in contexts different from the formal 

learning of a classroom reading group. It may even be 

that the vocabulary acquired in this way is more 

memorable, given the role of motivation in its acquisition 

because the vocabulary acquired in this way may be far 

more useful. Repetition, richness of context, and 

motivation may also add to the efficacy of incidental 

learning. 

Assessment and Evaluation of Vocabulary

Although there is no research in the NRP database that 

bears directly on the issue of how vocabulary is 

assessed, the Panel believes that the way vocabulary is 

measured can have differential effects on instruction. 

The Panel bases this belief on several things. First, the 

plethora of ways in which vocabulary was measured 

and evaluated in the studies in our database clearly 

indicates that there is no single standard. Consequently, 

the Panel suggests that using more than a single 

measure of vocabulary is critical for sound evaluation. 

Second, each way of measuring vocabulary produces 

different results. Furthermore, the category of 

vocabulary being measured varies. Receptive 

vocabulary is clearly different from productive 

vocabulary, and sight vocabulary is yet another concept. 

Finally, the fact that the Panel found most of the 

researchers using their own instruments to evaluate 

vocabulary suggests the need for this to be adopted in 

pedagogical practice. That is, the more closely the 

assessment matches the instructional context, the more 

appropriate the conclusions about the instruction will be. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-26 
Report 

Standardized tests provide a global measure of 

vocabulary and may be used to provide a baseline. Few 

researchers depended on standardized instruments to 

assess the efficacy of the instruction they studied. The 

implication for practice is the same: instruments that 

match the instruction will provide better information 

about the specific learning of the students related 

directly to that instruction. The implications for the use 

of standardized instruments need to be viewed as 

tentative until the findings can be confirmed by 

instructional research. 

Single vs. Multiple Methods of Instruction

The Panel is reluctant to suggest a single method of 

learning vocabulary because there were rarely more 

than a few studies on each individual method. The 

categories represented in the earlier discussion and the 

summary of specific methods in Table 1 (Appendix A) 

reinforce this point. A comprehensive analysis of the 

collective research studies suggests that a variety of 

direct and indirect methods of vocabulary instruction 

can be effective. Effective instructional methods 

emphasized multimedia aspects of learning, richness of 

context in which words are to be learned, active student 

participation, and the number of exposures to words 

that learners will receive. 

Moreover, the age and ability effects discussed above 

suggest that different methods may be differentially 

effective. In light of this, dependence on a single 

method would be a risky course of action. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

Based on these trends in the data, the Panel offers the 

following implications for practice: 

1.	 Vocabulary should be taught both directly and 

indirectly. 

2.	 Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary 

items are important. 

3.	 Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary 

learning. 

4.	 Vocabulary tasks should be restructured when 

necessary. 

5.	 Vocabulary learning should entail active 

engagement in learning tasks. 

6.	 Computer technology can be used to help teach 

vocabulary. 

7.	 Vocabulary can be acquired through incidental 

learning. 

8.	 How vocabulary is assessed and evaluated can 

have differential effects on instruction. 

9.	 Dependence on a single vocabulary instruction 

method will not result in optimal learning. 

Directions for Further Research 

The following questions do not seem to have clear 

answers in the research reviewed for this report. They 

are questions at a relatively high level of generality and 

are not, in the present form, researchable. That is, they 

need to be translated into the appropriate variables, 

operations, and data collection techniques before 

research can be conducted. 

The need in vocabulary instruction research is great. 

Our knowledge of vocabulary acquisition exceeds our 

knowledge of pedagogy. That is, the Panel knows a 

great deal about the ways in which vocabulary 

increases under highly controlled conditions, but the 

Panel knows much less about the ways in which such 

growth can be fostered in instructional contexts. There 

is a great need for the conduct of research on these 

topics in authentic school contexts, with real teachers, 

under real conditions. 

1.	 What are the best ways to evaluate vocabulary 

size, use, acquisition, and retention? What is the role 

of standardized tests, what other measures should 

be used, and under what circumstances? 

2.	 Given the preliminary findings that age and ability 

levels can affect the efficacy of various vocabulary 

instruction methods (Tomesen & Aarnoutse, 1998; 

Robbins & Ehri, 1994; Nicholson & Whyte, 1992; 

McGivern & Levin, 1983), what are the specific 

vocabulary instruction needs of students at different 

grade and ability levels? 

3.	 What are the more general effects of vocabulary 

instruction across the grades? 

4.	 Empirical support has been found for the facilitation 

of vocabulary learning with computers as ancillary 

aids and replacements of other technologies 

(Reinking & Rickman, 1990; Heise, 1991; 

4-27	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction 

Davidson, Elcock, & Noyes, 1996). What is the 

optimal use of computer and other technologies in 

vocabulary instruction? What is the precise role of 

multimedia learning in vocabulary acquisition? 

5. What is the precise role of multimedia learning in	 

vocabulary instruction across the grades?	 

6.	 How should vocabulary be integrated into 

comprehension instruction for optimal benefit to the 

student? 

7. What are the optimal combinations of the various 

methods of vocabulary instruction, including direct 

and indirect instruction, and of different methods 

within these categories? 

8. What sort of professional development is needed 

for teachers to become proficient in vocabulary 

instruction?

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-28 
Report 

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Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction 

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Reports of the Subgroups 4-32 
4-33 National Reading Panel 

Appendix A

Vocabular y Instruction Methods
 

TABLE 1: A SUMMARY OF VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION METHODS 

Vocabulary Method: Description: Representative Studies: 

Keyword Method Students are instructed to learn the meanings of new words by learning a keyword

"word clue" for each vocabulary word. The keywords are usually words acoust callyi

ilar to a salmiis ent part of the vocabulary word. Somet ons areiustratlonal iliatlmes, rei

shown to students, or students are asked to generate the ir owni mages linking the

two words. 

ln, Levin, GiLev assman, & Nordwa 

l

iMcCarv lle, 1993; Levin, Levin, Glas

lNordwa l, 1992; Levin, Levin, Cotton

Hasty, Hughes, & Townsend, 1990; 

iKu per, Bryant, & Mitchener, 1982; A

Semantic Mapping Students are taught the meanings of new vocabu lary words by categorizing them into

ifamil ar topics with other known words. New words are learned by ident fyingi

ities and diarlimis fferences with related, known words. Target words are often

in categorintroducedi es, and semantic maps are developed for each set of items.

ln, Levin, GiLev assman, & Nordwa 

l

McCarville, 1993; Levin, Levin, Glas

il, 1992; LevlNordwa n, Levin, Cotton

Hasty, Hughes, & Townsend, 1990; 

iKu per, Bryant, & Mitchener, 1982; A

Contextual Analysis Students use context clues embedded in paragraphs to help them learn meanings of 

the target vocabulary words. Usually, the words and definitions are then rev ewed.i

iBu kema & Graves, 1993; Friedl&, 

1993. 

Sign Language Enrichment of curr ium with slcui gn language for pre-kindergarten hearing children to

i mprove their receptive English vocabulary.

iDan els, 1994, 1998.

Wide Reading ith or wies (wing storistening/readiL thout pre-explanation of target words). Some

labiient varlsa es to consider include the number of exposures to the words,

frequency of book read ings, nature of ing questionion (usinstructi ng, etc.), word

redundancy, and t ime between read ngs.i

Anderson & Nagy, 1992; Riddell, 1

Krashen, 1989. 

Deriving Word Meanings Students are taught strategies for deriving mean ing of an unfamiliar word. One

lexamp e of a strategy is the SCANR method (substitute a word for unknown word;

check the context for clues; ask if substitution fits context clues; need a new dea?;irevise idea to fit context) 

Tomeson, 1998; Jenkins, Matlock, 

Elaborate/Rich Instruction Students learn to identify the re lationship between words, respond to words both

iaffect vely and cogn ltivei y, and apply words to various contexts. Promotes a

'student s use of words outside of vocabulary class and el edge.lor knowits prici

McKeown, Beck, Omanson, & Pop& Ginther, 1991; Stahl, 1983. 

Roots/Affix Analysis Students use word orig in clues and learn the meanings of common roots, pref xes,i

and affixes to determ ons.itiary definlne vocabui

iIrw n, 1991; Ryder & Graves, 1994; 

Pressley, 1988. 
TABLE 1: A SUMMARY OF VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION METHODS (CONTINUED) 

Vocabulary Method: Description: Representative Studies: 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-34 Dictionary/Glossary Students are g iven dicti onaries or glossaries to find the definitions of unknown words. Variations of this method include g ivi ng students passages to read along with ia dict onary or glossary to find the def ini tions of unknown words, writing new isentences w th the words, and comp ietl ng worksheets and crossword puzzles. Knight, 1994; Wixson, 1986; Gipe & Arn

Frayer Model Frayer model (and Grave is modificat' on). A method to teach spec c new wordsifi using a seven-step mode l. Basic tenets of the Frayer mode veiude: glncil word/name and its relevant attributes, eliminate irrelevant attributes, give examples, give nonexamples, and list subord inate, superordinate, and coordinate terms. Frayer, Frederick, & K iausmel er, 1969; G

1984, 1985; Ryder & Graves, 1994. Task Clarification With the premise that students have only a vague notion of what const tutes ai inidef tion, vocabulary instruction is designed to c iarl fy the student's knowledge of the task. Students are instructed on ways to gather information from relevant sources to uncover the components of a definit on.i l, Snyder, GiGuzzett ass, & Gamas, 1993

1982, 1985; Fisher, B lachowicz, & Smith

isher & DaniF elsen, 1998; Palinscar & B

Computer/Multimedia Instruction Various methods incorporate computer and multimedia techno n theidiogy to al instruction of vocabu lary words. Examples include CD-ROM, ta ng software,ikl Hypertext dict ionary support, speech prompts, adaptive software, visual

irepresentat ons, and multisensory nput.i

inkioff, 1996; Relil & DanlTerre ng & Rick

Text Revision Students are given revised versions of text passages. Variations include subst tutingi

easy for difficult vocabulary words, adding redundant informat ion to facilitate wordlearning and comprehens ion, and wri ting vocabulary words with context information to

iconstra n vocabulary word learn ng.i

Britton, Woodward, & B lnki ey, 1993; Me

Interactive Vocabulary 

Techniques 

iVar ous techniques that allow students to get act earning.lved in wordlvely invoi

Examples include students act ing out word meanings, self-selection of vocabulary

words to learn, and a llowing students to compare strategies and methods.

Duffelmeyer, 1980; Rekrut, 1993; Press 

e

l

1988. 

Passage Integration 

Training 

Teachers stop and prompt the students to generate the meanings of the diff tlcui

vocabulary words immediate ly after they encounter them during the passage read ng.i

Kameenui, Carn ine, & Freschi, 1982.

Concept Method Assists students in learni ng words as concepts rather than as dict nitions.ionary defi

Based on a concept-attainment model, this method rel ies more heavi y onldiscussion than on independent activities. Students study examples and

lfy the criticaies to identlnonexamp attributes of each word or concept.

lFrayer et a ., 1969; Klausmeier, 1976,19

Tennyson, 1977. 

Pre-Instruction of 

Vocabulary Words 

Students are taught or exposed to the defin ltions of rei evant vocabulary words before

ing themiread n context. In addition to assessing effects on vocabulary acquisit on,i

this is often researched as a way to enhance read ing comprehension.

Koury, 1996; Ryder & Graves, 1994; Wix
4-35 National Reading Panel 

TABLE 1: A SUMMARY OF VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION METHODS (CONTINUED) 

Vocabulary Method: Description: Representative Studies: Association Methods iPa rs unknown word with fami il ar synonym. Students must memorize the pairings to

rs.ipalnaigite the orirewr 

Gipe & Arnold 1979; McKeown, Beck, OPople, 1985. 

TOAST Program Students are taught a method of vocabulary instruction by the acronym of TOAST that 

prompts students to: test, organ ize words, anchor words, and test target words.

Dana & Rodr guez, 1992.i

Basic Mnemonic 

Techniques 

iTradit onal memory techniques, lnci uding vocabu lary drill s, flash cards, vocabulary

games, notebooks, repetitions, and reca ll tests. An example program is the Reading

Racetrack, which uses error correct imion, ti ng, and drill and practice procedures to

ihelp bu ld sight word acqu isi tion and reading fluency.

McLaughlin, 1997; R ldi, Selnai ls, & McL1997. 

Decoding Instruction To enhance read ith theing fluidity wi ntention of facilitat lng vocabui ary comprehens on,i

is giinstruction ven in methods such as phono iniogical tral ng, phonemic awareness,

or the whole-word approach 

Eldredge, Quinn, & Butterf eld, 1990.i

Report

 

COMPREHENSION II 

Text Comprehension Instruction 

Introduction 

An examination of the scientific basis for instruction of 

text comprehension was undertaken by members of the 

NRP. The Panel decided to focus on instruction of 

vocabulary, on instruction of comprehension of text, and 

on the preparation of teachers to teach comprehension 

of text. This report presents a review of the scientific 

evidence on the instruction of comprehension of text in 

normal readers. 

Comprehension has come to be viewed as “the essence 

of reading” (Durkin, 1993). Although comprehension of 

text is now regarded as essential to reading and 

learning, comprehension as a process began to receive 

scientific attention only in the past 30 years. Beginning 

in the 1970s, researchers such as Markman (1977, 

1981) began to study the awareness that readers had of 

their comprehension processes during reading. The 

questions were whether readers knew that they did not 

understand what they were reading in a text and what 

they did if they recognized that they had an 

understanding failure. The initial, surprising finding by 

Markman was that both young and mature readers 

failed to detect logical and semantic inconsistencies in 

the text. This discovery of comprehension failure led to 

the identification and teaching of strategies that readers 

could learn to enhance their comprehension 

(see below). 

An important development in theories about reading 

comprehension occurred in the 1970s. Reading 

comprehension was seen not as a passive, receptive 

process but as an active one that engaged the reader. 

Reading came to be seen as intentional thinking during 

which meaning is constructed through interactions 

between text and reader (Durkin, 1993). According to 

this view, meaning resides in the intentional, problemsolving, thinking processes of the reader that occur 

during an interchange with a text. The content of 

meaning is influenced by the text and by the reader’s 

prior knowledge that is brought to bear on it (Anderson 

& Pearson, 1984). Reading comprehension was seen as 

the construction of the meaning of a written text 

through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the 

reader and the message in a particular text (see, for 

example, Harris & Hodges, 1995, definition #2, p. 39). 

The important theoretical idea here was that readers 

construct meaning representations of the text as they 

read and that these representations were essential to 

memory and use of what was read and understood. 

This view was furthered by the publication of important 

papers on dynamic models of the comprehension 

processes such as that by Kintsch and van Dijk (1978). 

Here, readers were assumed to construct mental 

representations of what they read. These 

representations were stored in memory and contained 

the semantic interpretations of the text made by the 

reader during reading. The memory representations 

provided the basis for subsequent use of what was read 

and understood. 

The bulk of instruction of text comprehension research 

during the past 3 decades has been guided by this 

cognitive conceptualization of reading. In the cognitive 

research of the reading process, reading is purposeful 

and active (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). According to 

this view, a reader reads a text to understand what is 

read, to construct memory representations of what is 

understood, and to put this understanding to use. A 

reader can read a text to learn, to find out information, 

or to be entertained. These various purposes of 

understanding require that the reader use knowledge of 

the world, including language and print. This knowledge 

enables the reader to make meaning of the text, to form 

memory representations of these meanings, and to use 

them to communicate with others information about 

what was read. 

Although instruction on text comprehension has been a 

major research topic for more than 20 years, the explicit 

teaching of text comprehension before the 1970s was 

done largely in content areas and not in the context of 

formal reading instruction (Durkin, 1979). The idea 

behind explicit instruction of text comprehension is that 

comprehension can be improved by teaching students to 

use specific cognitive strategies or to reason 

4-39 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

strategically when they encounter barriers to 

comprehension when reading. The goal of such training 

was the achievement of competent and self-regulated 

reading. 

Readers normally acquire strategies for active 

comprehension informally. Comprehension strategies 

are specific procedures that guide students to become 

aware of how well they are comprehending as they 

attempt to read and write. Explicit or formal instruction 

on these strategies is believed to lead to improvement in 

text understanding and information use. Instruction in 

comprehension strategies is carried out by a classroom 

teacher who demonstrates, models, or guides the reader 

on their acquisition and use. When these procedures 

have been acquired, the reader becomes independent of 

the teacher. Using them, the reader can effectively 

interact with the text without assistance. Readers who 

are not explicitly taught these procedures are unlikely to 

learn, develop, or use them spontaneously. 

The past 30 years of the scientific study of instruction 

of text comprehension reveal a distinct trend. The initial 

investigations focused on the training of particular 

individual strategies such as comprehension monitoring 

or identifying main ideas. Here the question was 

whether readers could learn to use an individual 

strategy. Then, the focus was on whether particular 

strategies could be learned and whether they could 

facilitate comprehension. This was an important 

advance because it validated the teaching of text 

comprehension strategies. Next, researchers began to 

study whether the teaching of combinations of different 

strategies lead to their acquisition and improvement of 

text comprehension. The success of these “multiple” 

strategy teaching methods led to study of the 

preparation of teachers to teach strategies in natural 

classroom contexts. This historical development from 

the instruction of individual strategies to the preparation 

of teachers to implement them in interaction with 

readers in the classroom is an important contribution of 

the scientific approach to the study of reading 

instruction. The Panel’s review covers this history of 

instruction of text comprehension. 

Cognitive Strategies for Improving 

Reading Comprehension 

Comprehension strategies are procedures that guide 

students as they attempt to read and write. For 

example, a reader may be taught to generate questions 

about the text as it is read. These questions are of the 

why, what, how, when, or where variety; and by 

generating and trying to answer them, the reader 

processes the text more actively. The value of cognitive 

strategies in comprehension instruction is, first, their 

usefulness in the development of instructional 

procedures, and second, the learning of these 

procedures by students as an aid in their reading and 

learning, independent of the teacher. 

Instruction of strategies for comprehending during 

reading is a way for teachers to break though students’ 

passivity and involve them in their own learning (Mier, 

1984). Typically, instruction of cognitive strategies 

employed during reading consists of: 

1.	 The development of an awareness and 

understanding of the reader’s own cognitive 

processes that are amenable to instruction and 

learning 

2.	 A teacher guiding the reader or modeling for the 

reader the actions that the reader can take to 

enhance the comprehension processes used during 

reading 

3.	 The reader practicing those strategies with the 

teacher assisting until the reader achieves a gradual 

internalization and independent mastery of those 

processes (Palinscar & Brown, 1984; Paris & Oka, 

1986; Pressley et al., 1994). 

The general finding is that when readers are given 

cognitive strategy instruction, they make significant 

gains on measures of reading comprehension over 

students trained with conventional instruction 

procedures (Pressley et al., 1989; Rosenshine & 

Meister, 1994; Rosenshine, Meister, & Chapman, 1996). 

From a historical perspective, instruction in how to 

comprehend is not new. Benjamin Franklin invented a 

“weighted characteristics test” used in a current 

instruction curriculum for readers to apply for making 

decisions about ideas in texts while reading (Block, 

1993). E. L. Thorndike claimed back in 1917 that 

“reading is reasoning.” Despite Thorndike’s arguments, 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-40 
Report 

however, beginning readers were seldom taught 

cognitive strategies that could assist them in reading. 

Durkin’s (1979) highly cited observational studies of 

reading instruction in grade 4 showed that teachers, in 

fact, spent little time on comprehension instruction. Only 

20 minutes of comprehension instruction was observed 

in 4,469 minutes of reading instruction. This lack was 

echoed by Duffy, Lanier, and Roehler (1980). They 

described teachers as spending time in assigning 

activities, supervising and monitoring students as to 

being on task, directing recitation sessions as a way of 

assessing what the students were doing, and providing 

corrective feedback when the students erred. The 

teachers did not teach or show the students skills, 

strategies, or processes that they could use in reading to 

comprehend what they read and to be successful in 

learning information in the text. 

Research on instruction of comprehension strategies 

that could help students improve their reading 

comprehension began in the late 1970s and has thrived 

since. According to Rosenshine, Meister, and Chapman 

(1996), the earliest uses of the term “comprehension 

monitoring” is found in Markman (1978, 1979), Gagne 

(1977), and Weinstein (1978). Researchers and 

educators have long been interested in what we think 

about thinking, in how our knowledge develops, and in 

how what we know about how our own thought 

processes affect reading comprehension. The focus on 

what we know about cognition has led to the 

development of practical strategies for improving 

students’ comprehension. The cumulative result of 

nearly 3 decades of research is that “there is ample 

extant research supporting the efficacy of cognitive 

strategy training during reading as a means to enhance 

students’ comprehension” (Baumann, 1992, p. 162). 

Methodology 

Database 

In order to conduct a scientific review of the research 

on comprehension instruction during the past 2 decades, 

the Panel located studies since 1980 by searching the 

PsycINFO and ERIC databases electronically. The 

Panel used the terms comprehension, strategy, and 

instruction. From this search, the Panel identified 453 

studies on comprehension. In addition, the Panel added 

other studies that were from the 1970s or otherwise not 

revealed in the search. In this regard, reviews or studies 

on strategy instruction by Duffy and Roehler (1989); 

Lysynchuk, Pressley, d’Ailly, Smith, and Cake (1989); 

Pressley, Johnson, Symons, McGoldrick, and Kurita 

(1989); Pressley (1998); Rosenshine and Meister 

(1994); and Rosenshine, Meister, and Chapman (1996) 

proved to be very helpful. As a result, an additional 28 

studies not found initially in the electronic search were 

added to the Panel’s review. 

Analysis 

In order to be included in the NRP’s scientific review of 

the research literature on instruction of text 

comprehension, a study had to be: 

1.	 Relevant to instruction of reading or comprehension 

among normal readers. This criterion, in particular, 

excluded studies on comprehension instruction in 

reasoning and mathematics problem solving 

(Schoenfeld, 1985), physics (Larkin & Reif, 1976), 

and writing (Englert & Raphael, 1989; Scardamalia 

& Bereiter, 1985). 

2.	 Published in a scientific journal. A few exceptions 

are dissertations and conference proceedings that 

were reviewed in two meta-analyses by 

Rosenshine and his colleagues (Rosenshine & 

Meister, 1994; Rosenshine, Meister, & Chapman, 

1996). 

3.	 Have an experiment that involved at least one 

treatment and an appropriate control group or have 

one or more quasi-experimental variables with 

variations that served as comparisons between 

treatments. The latter was rare. 

4.	 In so far as could be determined, have the 

participants or classrooms randomly assigned to the 

treatment and control groups or matched on initial 

measures of reading comprehension. This criterion 

was relaxed in a number of studies where random 

assignment of classrooms was not carried out. 

The application of these criteria reduced the number of 

studies to be reviewed from 481 to 205. The Panel then 

coded and entered the coded contents of these studies 

into a database to identify the types of comprehension 

instruction that were reported as effective. Because the 

studies numbered 205, the Panel first analyzed the 

abstracts of the studies, coding the kind of instruction, 

experimental treatments and controls (independent 

4-41	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

variables), grade and reading level of readers, instructor 

(teacher or experimenter), assessments (dependent 

variables), and kind of text. The Panel then classified 

and grouped studies based upon the kinds of instruction 

used. The Panel identified 16 distinct categories of 

instruction. Table 1, on the following page, summarizes 

the 16 categories of a total of 203 studies that met the 

NRP criteria for inclusion as scientific studies on 

comprehension instruction. It shows the type of 

instruction used, the number of studies using that kind of 

instruction, a brief rationale as to why instruction was 

used, and generally whether and how it was effective. 

Each category of studies is summarized in Appendix A. 

The summaries define and describe the rationale for 

each kind of instructional strategy, the procedures used, 

and how the instruction is assessed by the researchers. 

The Panel then evaluated the category of instruction, 

based on reported results. 

In Appendix B, a table summarizes the 16 categories of 

instruction, describing the effects claimed by the 

researchers, the grade levels that were studied, and 

how the method might be taught in a classroom setting. 

In order to draw scientific conclusions about a finding, 

one needs evidence that an experimental effect is 

reliable, robust, replicable, and general. Reliability of an 

effect is decided by differences that statistically favor a 

treatment. Robustness of an effect is determined by the 

magnitude of effects over replications. Replication is 

determined by independent validation of significant 

treatment effects. Generality is determined by the 

transfer measures. In this review, experimenter tasks 

reflect near transfer and standardized tests reflect far 

transfer. The NRP evaluated how well each strategy 

met these criteria. The main criteria that the NRP used 

are reliability, replication, and generality. Robustness 

was not determined in most cases because effect sizes 

could not be calculated for almost all of the studies. 

Effect size data, however, were available from two 

meta-analyses by Rosenshine and his colleagues 

(Rosenshine & Meister, 1994; Rosenshine et al., 1996). 

Consistency With the Methodology 

of the National Reading Panel 

The methods of the NRP were followed in the conduct 

of the literature searches and the examination and 

coding of the articles obtained. A formal meta-analysis 

was not possible because even the studies identified in 

the same instructional category used widely varying 

sets of methodologies and implementations. Therefore, 

the Panel found few research studies that met all the 

NRP criteria; however, to the extent possible, NRP 

criteria were employed in the analyses. An examination 

of the quality of the research studies appears in the 

Discussion section of this report. NRP criteria for 

Evaluating Existing Reviews of Research were used in 

the analyses of the two Rosenshine and colleagues 

meta-analyses. 

Results 

Of the 16 categories of instruction, 7 appear to have a 

firm scientific basis for concluding that they improve 

comprehension in normal readers. The seven individual 

strategies that appear to be effective and most 

promising for classroom instruction are (in alphabetical 

order) comprehension monitoring, cooperative learning, 

graphic and semantic organizers including story maps, 

question answering, question generation, and 

summarization. In addition, many of these strategies 

have also been effectively used in the category 

“multiple strategy,” where readers and teachers interact 

over texts. 

Mental Imagery and Mnemonic (Keyword)

Strategies have reliable effects on improving memory 

for text. These procedures may be useful when 

teachers wish to use an alternative way of having the 

reader try to understand and represent text. These 

procedures are useful for recall of individual sentences 

or paragraphs. 

Curriculum-Plus-Strategies, Psycholinguistic, and

Listening Actively studies were so few that an 

assessment of the scientific merit of a particular 

treatment could not be made. The use of instructional 

procedures that activate prior knowledge was found to 

be quite varied. The activation of prior knowledge may 

be obtained through other means such as question 

elaboration, question generation, or question answering 

as well as other forms of content area exposure such as 

teacher lectures, films, and discussion before reading. 

Two categories on which there were few studies have, 

in the view of the NRP, considerable promise for future 

study. Only four studies were found on the Preparation 

of Teachers on comprehension instruction strategies. 

These studies are important because they represent a 

culmination in the evolution of text comprehension 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-42 
Report 

TABLE 1 

CATEGORIES OF COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION 

TYPE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

# OF 

STUDIES 

WHY INSTRUCT? HOW EFFECTIVE? 

Comprehension 

Monitoring 

22 Readers do not show 

comprehension strategy 

awareness. 

Readers learn to monitor how well 

they comprehend. 

Cooperative 

Learning 

10 Readers need to learn to 

work in groups, listen and 

understand their peers as 

they read, and help one 

another use strategies that 

promote effective reading 

comprehension. 

Readers learn to focus and discuss 

reading materials. Readers learn 

reading comprehension strategies 

and do better on comprehension 

tests. Teachers provide cognitive 

structure. 

Curriculum 8 Strategies should be 

integrated into the normal 

curriculum. 

Readers improve reading ability 

and academic achievement. 

Graphic Organizer 11 Readers do not use 

external organization aids 

that can benefit their 

understanding. 

Readers improve memory and 

comprehension for text. 

Listening Actively 4 Readers do not listen 

effectively. 

Readers improve memory and 

comprehension for text. 

Mental Imagery 7 Readers do not use 

imagery. 

Readers improve memory and 

comprehension for text. 

Mnemonic 2 Pictorial aids are not 

usually available; and 

these, plus keywords, 

help readers learn and 

organize information. 

Readers improve memory and 

comprehension for text. 

Multiple Strategies 38 Readers need to learn to 

coordinate several 

processes in order to 

construct meaning from 

texts. 

Readers improve reading ability 

and academic achievement. 

Prior Knowledge 14 Readers may not have 

relevant knowledge during 

reading. 

Readers improve memory and 

comprehension for text. 

Psycholinguistic 1 Reader may lack relevant 

knowledge about 

language. 

Readers learn to identify 

antecedents of pronouns. 

4-43 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 1 

CATEGORIES OF COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION (continued) 

TYPE OF # OF WHY INSTRUCT? HOW EFFECTIVE? 

INSTRUCTION STUDIES 

Question Answering 17 Readers do not know 

how to answer questions, 

nor do they know how to 

make inferences. 

Readers improve answering 

questions. 

Question Generation 27 Readers do not know 

how to generate questions 

or inferences. 

Readers learn to generate and 

answer inferential questions. 

Story Structure 17 Poor readers cannot 

identify structure. 

Readers improve memory and 

identification of story structure. 

Summarization 18 Readers do not know 

how to summarize text. 

Readers improve memory and 

identification of main ideas. 

Teacher Preparation 6 Teachers do not ordinarily 

use effective transactional 

strategies. 

Teachers learn strategies. Readers 

improve reading comprehension. 

VocabularyComprehension 

Relationship 

3 Reading comprehension 

depends upon word 

knowledge. 

Readers learn word meanings and 

improve comprehension. 

instruction during the past 2 decades. These studies also 

represent essential investigations because in most of the 

text comprehension strategy instruction reviewed, 

strategies were taught by experimenters rather than 

classroom teachers. It is important to know whether 

strategies can be learned and used faithfully and 

effectively by teachers in classroom contexts. These 

four studies are intensively reviewed as a part of the 

Comprehension report section on teacher preparation. 

Success in instruction on the relation of vocabulary to 

comprehension has been found in only two studies with 

8th graders. This is an important kind of instruction that 

needs to be investigated on a wider range of grade 

levels. The Panel would like to know what the 

relationship is between word learning and 

comprehension. The review on vocabulary in 

Comprehension I (Vocabulary Instruction) shows that 

vocabulary can be successfully taught over a wide 

range of grades. 

Comprehension Monitoring meets criteria of 

reliability and replication for the specific learning of the 

strategy (100% effectiveness in 14 studies across 

grades 2 through 6). Although comprehension 

monitoring is believed to be important as a part of a 

multiple strategy method, the evidence for it alone 

having a general effect is less compelling. Reliable 

effects are reported on only three experimenter tasks 

(error detection, recall, question answering) with two 

reported failures on 2nd graders. The number of studies 

reporting the use of transfer tests is small (four on 

reliable experimenter effects and five on reliable 

standardized tests). The method does not seem to 

generalize for 2nd graders. Nevertheless, it may be a 

useful addition to a program of instruction that employs 

flexibility and the teaching of multiple comprehension 

strategies. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-44 
Report 

Cooperative Learning showed 10 studies that 

reported reliable effects of instruction on grade levels 3 

through 6 on experimenter tasks. Only three studies 

used standardized tests. Thus, cooperative learning 

produces reliable and replicable near transfer. The 

evidence for generalization is based on a small number 

of studies. Having peers instruct or interact over the 

use of reading strategies leads to an increase in the 

learning of the strategies, promotes intellectual 

discussion, and increases reading comprehension. This 

procedure saves on teacher time and gives the students 

more control over their learning and social interaction 

with peers. 

Graphic Organizers were used in 11 studies on texts 

used in Social Studies and Science. The most frequent 

grade levels were 4 to 6. Children who can learn and 

benefit from this instruction have to have skill in writing 

and reading. The empirical evidence indicates reliable 

and replicable effects on near transfer tasks of memory 

for reading content (six of seven studies). The main 

effect of graphic organizers appears to be on the 

improvement of the reader’s memory for the content 

that has been read. General effects are reported in four 

studies on achievement gains in content areas. Although 

the number is small, success in increasing achievement 

in a context subject is promising. Only two studies 

report the use of standardized tests so that evidence is 

limited in replication on this kind of general transfer. 

Teaching students to organize the ideas that they are 

reading about in a systematic, visual graph benefits the 

ability of the students to remember what they read and 

may transfer, in general, to better comprehension and 

achievement in Social Studies and Science content 

areas. The success here suggests that the instruction of 

comprehension could be carried out in content area 

teaching. 

Question Answering was investigated in 17 studies, 

mainly in grades 3 through 5. The evidence is primarily 

that the effects are specific to increased success on 

experimenter tests of question answering. There are no 

reports of standardized or other general tests. This 

procedure may be best used as a part of multiple 

strategy packages where the teacher uses questions to 

guide and monitor readers’ comprehension. 

Question Generation. The strongest scientific 

evidence was found for the effectiveness of asking 

readers to generate questions during reading. There 

were 27 studies on this treatment that was used on 

readers in grades 3 through 9 (mode = 6). The main 

support comes from the large number of studies that 

assessed effectiveness by both experimenter and 

standardized tests as well as a meta-analysis by 

Rosenshine, Meister, and Chapman (1996). In the latter 

analysis, the respective effect sizes for multiple choice 

(n = 6), short-answer (n = 14), and summary (n = 3) 

measures were 0.95, 0.85, and 0.85, respectively. On 

standardized tests, the median effect size for 13 studies 

that used standardized comprehension tests was 0.36. 

Although there is a positive effect size for standardized 

tests, only 3 of 13 effects were statistically significant, 

casting doubt on the generality of this single strategy 

instruction. In contrast, experimenter tests fared better 

because 16 of 19 were statistically significant. Thus, 

there was stronger evidence for near transfer than for 

generalized effects. There is mixed evidence that 

general reading comprehension is improved on 

standardized, comprehension tests. Question generation 

may also be best used as a part of a multiple strategy 

instruction program. 

Story Structure is a procedure used extensively in 

reading comprehension of narrative texts. There are 17 

studies over grades 3 through 6, about one half of which 

were focused on poor readers. The success in the 

treatment is more frequent with poor or below-average 

readers; good readers do not seem to need this kind of 

instruction. The treatment successfully transfers to 

question answering and recall. Only a few (two of 

three) studies report transfer to standardized 

comprehension tests. The instruction of the content and 

organization of stories thus improves comprehension of 

stories as measured by the ability of the reader to 

answer questions and recall what was read. This 

improvement is more marked for less able readers. 

More able readers may already know what a story is 

about and therefore do not benefit as much from the 

training. However, this kind of instruction may aid both 

kinds of readers in terms of writing as well as reading 

literary texts. Because stories are used extensively in 

elementary school, instruction on how to understand a 

story is warranted by the data, especially for less able 

readers. 

4-45 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

Summarization has a large number of studies (18) that 

replicate treatment effects, mainly at grades 5 and 6. 

Summarization presupposes writing as well as reading 

skill, hence its late study. The effects are largely 

specific to improving the writing of summaries, but 

there are 11 studies that show transfer effects on recall 

of what was summarized and on question answering. 

Standardized tests as general transfer were used rarely 

(only two studies). Instruction of summarization 

succeeds in that readers improve on the quality of their 

summaries of text, mainly identifying the main idea but 

also in leaving out detail, including ideas related to the 

main idea, generalizing, and removing redundancy. This 

indicates that summarizing is a good method of 

integrating ideas and generalizing from the text 

information. Furthermore, the instruction of 

summarization improves memory for what is read, both 

in terms of free recall and answering questions. This 

strategy instruction is used as a part of treatments that 

teach multiple strategies. 

Multiple Strategy Instruction represents an 

evolution in the field from the study of individual 

strategies to their flexible and multiple use. This method 

finds considerable scientific support for its effectiveness 

as a treatment, and it is the most promising for use in 

classroom instruction where teachers and readers 

interact over texts. The NRP reviewed 11 studies not 

covered by the meta-analysis of Rosenshine and 

Meister (1994), who reviewed 16 reciprocal teaching 

studies on readers in grades 3 through 7. 

One of the main methods is to have the teacher model 

an approach by showing how she or he would try to 

understand the text, using two or more combinations of 

four strategies: question generation, summarization, 

clarification, and prediction of what might occur. 

Rosenshine and Meister found strong evidence that the 

reciprocal teaching treatment showed near transfer. 

Experiment tests in ten studies had an average effect 

size of 0.88. There was also support for general 

transfer in nine studies where the average effect size 

was 0.32. All readers show more near transfer benefit 

in these treatments, whereas only the better readers 

show significant effect sizes in the 0.32 range. These 

data suggest that good readers benefit and generalize 

what they learn as strategies more than poor or belowaverage readers. Furthermore, the significant effect 

sizes do not occur for grade 3, are mixed for grades 4 

through 6, and do occur for grades 7 and 8. 

There were 11 other multiple strategy studies on 

readers in grades 2 through 11, with grade 4 as the 

modal grade. The strategies taught varied across these 

studies. In 6 of the 12 studies, students were taught 

summarizing or identification of main ideas. Three 

studies used question answering or generation, two used 

monitoring, and others used cooperative reading, recall, 

retelling, hypothesis testing, story structure, and 

psycholinguistic training (word, phrase, and sentence 

classification, morphological analysis). There was 

evidence for specific learning and near transfer. No 

studies reported the use of standardized tests. 

Taken together, the evidence supports the use of 

combinations of reading strategies in natural learning 

situations. These findings build on the empirical 

validation of strategies alone and attest to their use in 

the classroom context. A common aspect of individual 

and multiple strategy instruction is the active 

involvement of motivated readers who read more text 

as a result of the instruction. These motivational and 

reading practice effects may be important to the 

success of multiple strategy instruction. Furthermore, 

multiple strategy instruction that is flexible as to which 

strategies are used and when they are taught over the 

course of a reading session provides a natural basis on 

which teachers and readers can interact over texts. 

Discussion 

In the preceding section, the Panel summarized the 

research claims and implications for instruction of 

comprehension. In this section, the kinds of claims being 

made are illustrated by three quotations: 

“The best way to pursue meaning is through 

conscious, controlled use of strategies” (Duffy, 

1993, p. 223). 

“Becoming an effective transactional strategies 

instruction teacher takes several years” (Brown et 

al., 1996, p. 20). 

“The data suggests that students at all skill levels 

would benefit from being taught these strategies” 

(Rosenshine, Meister, & Chapman, 1996, p. 201). 

The past 2 decades of research appear to support the 

enthusiastic advocacy of instruction of reading 

strategies expressed in the above quotations. The 

Panel’s review of the literature indicates that there has 

been an extensive effort to identify reading 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-46 
Report 

comprehension strategies that can be taught to students 

to increase their comprehension and memory for text. 

The instruction of cognitive strategies improves reading 

comprehension in readers with a range of abilities. 

This improvement occurs when teachers demonstrate, 

explain, model, and implement interaction with students 

in teaching them how to comprehend a text. In studies 

involving even a few hours of preparation, instructors 

taught students who were poor readers but adequate 

decoders to apply various strategies to expository texts 

in reading groups, with a teacher demonstrating, guiding, 

or modeling the strategies, and with teacher scaffolding 

(e.g., Palinscar & Brown, 1984; see Rosenshine, 

Meister, & Chapman, 1996 for a review). Such 

instruction is consistent with socially mediated learning 

theory (Pressley & McCormick, 1995; Vygotsky, 1978). 

Students using these strategies, even in limited ways, 

produced noticeable improvement in the use of the 

instructed strategies, albeit with only modest 

improvement on standardized reading tests (Rosenshine 

& Meister, 1994). More intensive instruction and 

modeling have been more successful in improving 

reading and standardized test scores (Bereiter & Bird, 

1985; Block, 1993; Brown et al., 1996). 

Many of the studies involve teaching one group of 

students a particular cognitive strategy to use while 

reading. These studies show that readers can learn a 

strategy and use it effectively in improving their 

comprehension. Reading, however, requires the 

coordinated and flexible use of several different kinds 

of strategies. Considerable success has been found in 

improving comprehension by instructing students on the 

use of more than one strategy during the course of 

reading. Skilled reading involves an ongoing adaptation 

of multiple cognitive processes. Becoming an 

independent, self-regulated, thinking reader is a goal 

that can be achieved through instruction of text 

comprehension (Brown et al., 1996). 

Rosenshine and Meister (1994) conclude that the main 

weakness in understanding the practice of instruction is 

that not enough studies have been devoted to 

implementation. The NRP concurs with this conclusion. 

Implementation of Instruction in Reading 

Comprehension 

The major problem facing the teaching of reading 

comprehension strategies is that of implementation in 

the classroom by teachers in a natural reading context 

with readers of various levels on reading materials in 

content areas. For teachers, the art of instruction 

involves a series of “wh” questions: knowing when to 

apply what strategy with which particular student(s). 

Having students actually develop independent, 

integrated strategic reading abilities may require subtle 

instructional distinctions that go well beyond techniques 

such as instruction, explanation, or reciprocal teaching 

(Duffy, 1993). Duffy argues that strategies are not skills 

that can be taught by drill; they are plans for 

constructing meaning. Teaching students to acquire and 

use strategies may require altering traditional 

approaches to strategy instruction. It may be necessary 

to free teachers of the expectation that their job is to 

follow directions narrowly. Being strategic is much 

more than knowing the individual strategies. When 

faced with a comprehension problem, a good strategy 

user will coordinate strategies and shift strategies as it 

is appropriate to do so. They will constantly alter, adjust, 

modify, and test until they construct meaning and the 

problem is solved. 

How well has the knowledge gleaned from research 

filtered into the classroom to impact teachers’ actual 

practice? In spite of apparent effectiveness, teachers 

may not be using effective comprehension instruction 

strategies without having themselves had preparation in 

instruction (Anderson, 1992; Bramlett, 1994; Brown, 

1996; Duffy, 1993; Durkin, 1979; Pressley, Johnson, 

Symons, McGoldrick, & Kurita, 1989; Pressley, 1998; 

Reutzel and Cooter, 1988). Pressley (1998) reports that 

a yearlong observation of ten upstate New York grade 

4 and 5 classes in the 1995–1996 school year showed 

that teachers varied in several factors: their class 

management, their extent of monitoring student 

progress, their extent of engaging students, how 

concerned they were with external standards and state 

tests, and their frequency of assigning homework and 

skills practices. However, regarding comprehension 

instruction: 

4-47 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

In some classrooms . . . we observed explicit 

comprehension instruction only rarely, despite a 

great deal of research in the past two decades 

on how to promote children’s comprehension of 

what they read . . . Indeed, the situation seemed 

to be much as Durkin (1979) described it two 

decades ago, with a great deal of testing of 

comprehension but very little teaching of it 

(Pressley, 1998, p. 198). 

Durkin (1981) observed that when comprehension skill 

instruction is present, in many classrooms teachers 

appear to be “mentioning” a skill to students and 

“assigning” it to them rather than employing the 

effective instruction modeling and transactional 

practices that research supports (Durkin, 1981; Reutzel 

& Cotter, 1988). In the United States, reading from 

basal reading series accounts for 75% to 90% of 

classroom reading instruction time (Franklin et al., 

1992). Although some basal teachers’ manuals do 

provide more evaluative comprehension skill lessons, 

these lessons are usually not instructional and offer little 

structure and rationale for helping teachers give 

effective skill instruction (Reutzel & Cotter, 1988). 

In a 5-year study of how teachers help low-achieving 

students become strategic readers, using monthly 

inservice strategy preparation sessions, biweekly 

individual teacher coaching with a strategy expert staff 

developer, and collaborative discussion of principals’ 

and teachers’ experiences in individual schools, Duffy 

(1993) suggests that effective reading instruction is 

associated more with independent teacher action than 

with implementation of basal text prescriptions. He 

argues that developing metacognitive readers who 

understand their reasoning requires teachers who 

themselves understand their reasoning, as well as a 

supportive environment in the schools for strategy 

learning. Pressley’s (1998) recent observations suggest 

that too little has changed in the classroom since 

Durkin’s 1978–1979 school year observations: 

A twist on this [1995–1996 school year] 

situation, however, was that the 

comprehension tasks now being given to 

students did seem to be informed by the 

comprehension process research of the past 

two decades. It was not uncommon, for 

example, for students to be asked to respond 

to short-answer questions requiring them to 

summarize what they read, identify confusing 

points in a text, construct questions pertaining 

to a text, or predict what might be next in a 

text. That is, they were asked to respond to 

questions constructed around the cognitive 

processes involved in skilled comprehension 

(i.e., summarizing, monitoring confusion, selfquestioning, predicting based on prior 

knowledge). However, there was little 

evidence that students were being taught to 

self-regulate comprehension processes as they 

read, and in some classrooms, there was no 

evidence that they were being taught the 

active comprehension process validated in the 

last two decades. In general, students were 

provided with opportunities to practice 

comprehension strategies, but were not 

actually taught the strategies themselves nor 

the utility value of applying them. (Pressley, 

1998, p. 198). 

Deshler and Schumaker (1988) have taught learning 

disabled students how to comprehend, write, and 

remember in a learning disabilities curriculum. They 

emphasize the role of controllable factors, such as the 

use of strategies. One problem they encountered is that 

learning disabled students make attributions that render 

them dysfunctional (e.g., “I am stupid.”). These kinds 

of attributions can defeat what might otherwise be 

effective comprehension instruction. Alternatively, 

effective comprehension instruction might lead learning 

disabled students to make more positive, functional 

attributions. 

When conscientious, diligent, and highly professional 

teachers apply their strategy instruction in the 

classroom, even when applied imperfectly, their 

students do improve in reading comprehension 

(Bramlett, 1994; Duffy, 1993; Pressley, Johnson, 

Symons, McGoldrick, & Kurita, 1989). However, close 

observation of inservice trained strategy teachers 

suggests that: 

Progress was not easily accomplished. It was 

a struggle. For much of the academic year, the 

four [strategic] teachers [in the study] required 

from their students counterproductive 

‘answers’ and ‘routes’—that is, answers and 

thinking that led students to construct 

inaccurate conceptions [of strategies]. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-48 
Report 

Although by May it appeared that [their grade 

2 poor reading] students were developing an 

integrated concept of what it means to be 

strategic, students’ responses to interview 

probes during fall and winter suggested 

incomplete conceptions or misconceptions 

about what it means to be strategic (Duffy, 

1993, p. 237). 

In spite of heavy emphasis on modeling and 

metacognitive instruction, even very good teachers may 

have trouble implementing, and may even omit, crucial 

aspects of strategic reasoning. The research suggests 

that, when partially implemented, students of strategy 

teachers will still improve. But it is not easy for 

teachers or readers to develop readers’ conceptions 

about what it means to be strategic. It takes time and 

ongoing monitoring of success to evolve readers into 

becoming good strategy users. 

Helping teachers [become good strategy 

teachers] will require a significant change in 

how teacher educators and staff developers 

work with teachers and what they count as 

important about learning to be a teacher. 

Current practices that require teachers to 

successfully complete university course work, 

to attend mandated half-day in-service 

programs, or to be ‘trained’ in the ‘right way’ 

to teach and then [be] held accountable for 

that encourage teachers, like the children . . . 

to learn only the labels of professional 

knowledge without learning how to be 

strategic themselves. Such practices must be 

replaced by teacher education/staff 

development experiences that account for (1) 

the complexity involved in teaching [students] 

to be strategic and for (2) the creative 

adaptations teachers must make as they deal 

with that complexity (Duffy, 1993, p. 244-245). 

Strategic reading requires strategic teaching, which 

involves putting teachers in positions where their minds 

are the most valued educational resource (Duffy, 1993). 

Skilled reading is constructive reading, and the activities 

of the reader matter (Pressley, Harris, & Marks, 1992; 

Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). 

What is the scientific basis for claims 

made about instruction of 

comprehension? 

The Panel now begins a more critical analysis of the 

literature on instruction of comprehension. First, the 

quality of the studies is discussed. Second, scientific 

criteria are applied and the Panel’s prior evaluations to 

arrive at an overall set of conclusions are discussed. 

Quality of Studies: An Overlooked Issue 

In half the studies reviewed by Rosenshine and Meister 

(1994), experimenters failed to address the quality of 

instruction in the intervention study. There are several 

papers, however, that have raised questions about the 

quality issues of reading research: Almasi, Palmer, 

Gambrell, and Pressley (1994); Lysynchuk, Pressley, 

d’Ailly, Smith, and Cake (1989); Pressley et al. (1989); 

Rosenshine et al. (1996); Rosenshine and Meister 

(1994); and Troia (1999). Of these, Lysynchuk et al. 

(1989) evaluated the methodological adequacy of 37 

studies of reading comprehension instruction. Several 

problems were identified. Of particular importance 

were (1) failure to randomly assign students to 

treatments and control conditions, (2) failure to expose 

experimental and control participants to the same 

training materials, (3) failure to provide information 

about the amount of time spent on dependent variable 

tasks, (4) failure to study fidelity of treatment by not 

including analysis of teacher and reader performance 

during instruction, (5) use of inappropriate units 

(individual, group, classroom) in analyses, and (6) failure 

to assess either long-term effects or generalization of 

the strategies to other tasks and materials. 

Lysynchuk et al. (1989) applied 24 criteria of internal 

validity (classified in four categories as to general 

design, possible confounds, measurement, and statistics) 

and five criteria of external validity (theory, sample, 

reading ability, text properties, measures of transfer). 

The range of percentages of studies that met internal 

validity criteria was from 17 to 100, median = 78%. For 

external validity, the range was from 8% to 100%, 

median = 82.5 percent. Although most studies specified 

the experimental and control groups and the 

independent and dependent variables in their general 

design presentations, only 64% randomly assigned 

participants or classes to the experimental and control 

conditions, compromising cause-and-effect conclusions. 

4-49 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

With respect to confounds, in 75% of the studies, 

control subjects were lead to believe that they were in 

an experimental condition; therefore, 25% were not, 

allowing for possible Hawthorne effects. In nearly onethird of the studies, there were possible confounds of 

differences in training materials between the 

experimental and control groups with the experimental 

groups given more materials to read. However, in these 

studies they were, with one exception, exposed to 

materials for the same amount of time. 

In other studies, time on task was confounded with 

condition. Experimental groups may have been allowed 

more time to read than control groups. Only 10 of 37 

studies reported the amount of time, and 8 of 10 of 

these were the same. However, these studies did not 

analyze what students did during the time assigned; 

therefore, it is unknown whether they used the time to 

read. In addition, there were possible experimenter-bycondition or teacher-by-condition confounds in some 

studies because neither the experimenters nor the 

teachers were randomly assigned to groups. 

Measurement problems involved not measuring 

reliability (37% of the studies), floor and ceiling effects 

(33% of the studies), and failure to assess fidelity of 

treatment through checks on manipulation (only 37% 

did so for teachers, and 27% measured ongoing 

processes). On statistical practices, the most serious 

flaw was in the use of appropriate units—if one assigns 

groups to conditions and then conducts analyses on 

individuals, the unit of analysis differs from the unit of 

treatment. Errors then cannot be assumed to be 

independent. With respect to external validity, most 

studies met theory and reporting of sample criteria. 

Other problems involved omission of data on reading 

level (16%), failures to measure transfer or delayed 

effects (76%), and failures to measure transfer to 

school subjects (92%). 

Future studies would benefit from attention to quality 

criteria for internal and external validity. In particular, 

researchers should conduct reliability assessments of 

their scoring of data when raters are used; should use 

random assignment of experimenters, teachers, 

classrooms, or students where possible; or should at 

least collect data on comparability of instructors and on 

participant characteristics in the treatment and control 

conditions. Researchers should try to meet quasiexperimental criteria if random assignment is not 

possible (Cook & Cambell, 1979). Hawthorne effects 

can be reduced by motivating controls to believe that 

they are receiving the same benefits and treatment as 

experimental participants. Often the tasks themselves 

motivate experimental and controls differently, 

confounding motivation with the variable of study. 

Similarly, Hawthorne effects on teachers can occur if 

they believe that the experimental group will benefit 

more than controls. One way to deal with this problem 

is to assign the teacher to both groups but with the 

belief that either treatment would benefit the 

participants. 

Future studies should include fidelity to treatment 

measures of the preparation of teachers, of the 

teachers’ teaching the strategies as intended, and of the 

students’ performance during training. There is a need 

to observe, document, and analyze all components of 

the experiment, from training to implementation to 

learning to assessment. The amount of time on each 

task should be recorded and reported as well as 

examined in relation to outcome measures. Floor and 

ceiling effects on measures should be avoided. The unit 

of analysis should be the same as the unit of treatment. 

All these steps would improve the design and internal 

validity of studies on reading strategy instruction. 

External validity could be improved by the inclusion and 

measurement of training and transfer of training to 

other measures, particularly performance in content 

areas. Text, as a variable, has been sorely neglected. 

The external validity of a study could also be improved 

by the kind of texts used (both expository and narrative 

and sampled from content areas), an analysis of text 

difficulty, the content and structure of the text, the 

vocabulary and sentence complexity of the text, 

appropriateness of the level of text difficulty to the 

ability of readers, and possible interactions between 

difficulty of the text and ability of reader. Long-term 

benefits could be assessed through followup studies 

later so that the effects are not just short term. 

In the section of this Text Comprehension report on 

quality of studies, the Panel describes a set of criteria 

for internal and external validity that should be used to 

plan, conduct, and report research in individual studies 

but also that can be applied in evaluation of single and 

multiple studies and reviews of studies. That section 

includes several criteria for internal and external 

validity. These criteria incorporate, elaborate, extend, 

and adapt to the reading situation the 24 categories of 

the Lysynchuk et al. (1989) review. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-50 
Report 

Scientific Evaluation of the Claims 

Made in the Literature 

The empirical evidence reviewed favors the conclusion 

that teaching of a variety of reading comprehension 

strategies leads to increased learning of the strategies, 

to specific transfer of learning, to increased memory 

and understanding of new passages, and, in some cases, 

to general improvements in comprehension. In 

particular, individual strategies that can be used in 

natural reading or content area instruction and through 

interaction with the teacher over a text appear to have 

a strong scientific support for their effectiveness and 

for their inclusion in classroom programs on 

comprehension instruction. 

The NRP now integrates its evaluations of the 

instruction strategies that have the best scientific basis 

for effectiveness and use by teachers in the classroom. 

The Panel first considers the grade level 

appropriateness and general effectiveness, then the 

evidence of reliability, robustness, replication, and 

transfer for a set of particular strategies in support of 

the general conclusion above. 

On what grade levels has text comprehension 

instruction been effectively studied? Figure 1 shows the 

distribution of the grade levels at which investigations of 

instruction in comprehension have been successfully 

carried out. 

Figure 1. Distribution of Grade Levels Across

All Studies of Direction

In Figure 1, grades 3 through 6 constitute 76% of the 

grade levels studied. The modal grade is 4 with the next 

highest percentages occurring with grades 3 and 5. 

Thus, instruction of comprehension begins mainly at the 

3rd grade and continues through the 6th grade. In 

examining the studies, the Panel found that the lower 

three grades (K through 2) were studied primarily as a 

part of an experimental curriculum. The higher grades 

(above grade level 6) tend to focus on less able readers. 

The increase in percentage at grade level 3 suggests 

that researchers taught readers who had achieved 

decoding and other basic reading skills before they 

were taught strategies. 

To determine the effectiveness of instruction and 

whether it was related to grade level, the Panel found 

the percentage of reported significant findings where 

the experimental treatment was favored over the 

control group. The overall average percentages of 

success, as measured by experimenter tasks or by 

standardized tests, were 97 and 93%, respectively. The 

high overall rates of success are not surprising because 

these data are based upon published studies. For grades 

K through 1 and 7 through 11, the reported percentage 

of success was 100 on experimenter tasks and 

standardized tests; for grades 2 through 6, the average 

was 92%. For standardized tests, the average success 

was 89% for grades 2 through 6. There was no 

relationship between grade level and the respective 

percentages of success in treatment. 

These data indicate that instruction is likely to be more 

successful when measured on experimenter designed 

tasks than on standardized tests of comprehension. The 

instruction of comprehension appears to be effective on 

grades 3 through 6. 

With respect to the scientific basis of the instruction of 

text comprehension, the NRP concludes that 

comprehension instruction can effectively motivate and 

teach normal readers to learn and to use comprehension 

strategies that benefit them. 

These comprehension strategies yield increases in 

measures of near transfer such as recall, question 

answering and generation, and summarization of texts. 

Furthermore, when used in combination, these 

4-51 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

comprehension strategies produce general gains on 

standardized comprehension tests. Teachers can learn 

to teach students to use comprehension strategies in 

natural learning situations. In addition, when teachers 

teach these strategies, their students learn them and 

improve their reading comprehension. 

A common aspect of individual and multiple strategy 

instruction is the active involvement of motivated 

readers who read more text as a result of the 

instruction. These motivational and reading practice 

effects may be important to the success of multiple 

strategy instruction. 

Multiple strategy instruction that is flexible as to which 

strategies are used and when they are taught over the 

course of a reading session provides a natural basis on 

which teachers and readers can interact over texts. The 

research literature developed from early studies of 

isolated strategies then moved to the use of strategies in 

combination, and finally to the preparation of teachers 

to teach strategies in interactions about texts with 

readers in naturalistic settings. The Panel regards this 

development as the most important finding of its review 

because it moves from the laboratory to the classroom 

and prepares teachers to teach strategies in ways that 

are effective and natural. 

The empirical evidence reviewed favors the conclusion 

that teaching of a variety of reading comprehension 

strategies leads to increased learning of the strategies, 

to specific transfer of learning, to increased memory 

and understanding of new passages, and, in some cases, 

to general improvements in comprehension. 

The important development of instruction of 

comprehension research is the study of teacher 

preparation for instruction of multiple, flexible strategies 

with readers in natural settings and content areas and 

the assessment of the effectiveness of this instruction 

by prepared teachers on comprehension. 

Directions for Further Research 

The Panel’s analysis of the research on instruction of 

text comprehension left a number of questions 

unanswered: 

1.	 More information is needed on the effective ways 

to teach teachers how to use proven strategies for 

instruction in text comprehension. This information 

is crucial to situations where teachers and readers 

interact over texts in real classroom contexts. 

2.	 The Panel reviewed some evidence that instruction 

in comprehension in content areas benefit readers 

in terms of achievement in social studies. There is a 

need to know whether instruction of comprehension 

strategies leads to learning skills that improve 

performance in content areas of instruction. If so, it 

might be efficient to teach reading comprehension 

as a learning skill in content areas. 

3.	 It is already known that instruction of 

comprehension has been successful over the grade 

3 through 6 range. Further evidence is needed on 

whether certain strategies are more appropriate for 

certain ages and abilities, what the important reader 

characteristics are that influence successful 

instruction of reading comprehension, and which 

strategies, in combination, are best for younger 

readers, poor or below-average readers, and for 

learning disabled and dyslexic readers. 

4.	 It is also important to know whether successful 

instruction generalizes across different text genres 

(e.g., narrative and expository) and across texts 

from different subject content areas. The NRP’s 

review of the research indicated that little or no 

attention has been given to the kinds of text used. 

The review also indicated that there was little 

available information on the difficulty level of texts. 

5.	 Information is needed on the important teacher 

characteristics that influence successful instruction 

of reading comprehension, as well as the effective 

ways to prepare teachers, both preservice and 

inservice. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-52 
Report 

6.	 Prior studies suffer when the quality of the studies 

is assessed (Lysynchuk et al., 1989) according to 

criteria of internal and external validity. These 

issues need to be considered when designing future 

research. The main problems were: 

(a) Failure to randomly assign students to 

treatments and control conditions and failure to 

expose experimental and control participants to 

the same training materials 

(b) Failure to provide information about the amount 

of time spent on dependent variable tasks 

(c) Failure to study fidelity of treatment, by failing 

to analyze teacher and reader performance 

during instruction 

(d) Use of inappropriate units (individual, group, 

classroom) in analyses 

(e) Failure to assess either long-term effects or 

generalization of the strategies to other tasks 

and materials. 

4-53	 National Reading Panel 
 

Report 

References 

The references of this report are listed, first, as 

references cited in text, and second, as references used 

in each category of text comprehension instruction. 

Text References 

Almasi, J. F., Palmer, B. M., Gambrell, L. B., & 

Pressley, M. (1994). Toward disciplined inquiry: A 

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Educational Psychologist, 29, 193-202 

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Anderson, V. (1992). A teacher development 

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of severely reading-disabled adolescents. Teaching and 

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Anderson, V., & Riot, M. (1993). Planning and 

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Research Quarterly, 21(1), 70-90. 

Question Generation (Reviewed by 

Rosenshine, Meister, & Chapman, 1996) 

Signal Word Prompts

Brady, P. I. (1990). Improving the reading 

comprehension of middle school students through 

reciprocal teaching and semantic mapping strategies. 

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Alaska. 

Cohen, R. (1983). Students generate questions as 

an aid to reading comprehension. Reading Teacher, 36, 

770-775. 

Davey, B., & McBride, M. (1986). Effects of 

question-generation on reading comprehension. Journal 

of Educational Psychology, 22, 2-7. 

Lysynchuk, L. M., Pressley, M., & Vye, N. J. 

(1990). Reciprocal teaching improves standardized 

reading-comprehension performance in poor 

comprehenders. Elementary School Journal, 90(5), 469­

484. 

MacGregor, S. K. (1988). Use of self-questioning 

with a computer-mediated text system and measures of 

reading performance. Journal of Reading Behavior, 

20(2), 131-148. 

Palinscar, A. S. (1987). Collaborating for 

collaborative learning of text comprehension. Paper 

presented at the Annual Meeting of the American 

Educational Research Association, Washington, DC. 

Palinscar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1984). 

Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and 

comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and 

Instruction, 2, 117-175. 

Taylor, B. M., & Frye, B. J. (1992). Comprehension 

strategy instruction in the intermediate grades. Reading 

Research and Instruction, 32(1), 39-48. 

Williamson, R. A. (1989). The effect of reciprocal 

teaching on student performance gains in third grade 

basal reading instruction. Unpublished doctoral 

dissertation, Texas A&M University. 

Generic Questions or Question Stems Prompts

King, A. (1989). Effects of self-questioning training 

on college students’ comprehension of lectures. 

Contemporary Educational Psychology, 14, 366-381. 

King, A. (1990). Improving lecture comprehension: 

Effects of a metacognitive strategy. Applied 

Educational Psychology, 29, 331-346. 

King, A. (1992). Comparison of self questioning, 

summarizing, and note taking-review as strategies for 

learning from lectures. American Educational Research 

Journal, 29, 303-325. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-64 
Report 

Main Idea Prompts

Blaha, B. A. (1979). The effects of answering selfgenerated questions on reading. Unpublished doctoral 

dissertation, Boston University. 

Dreher, M. J., & Gambrell, L. B. (1985). Teaching 

children to use a self-questioning strategy for studying 

expository text. Reading Improvement, 22, 2-7. 

Lonberger, R. (1988). The effects of training in a 

self-generated learning strategy on the prose processing 

abilities of fourth and sixth graders. Unpublished 

doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at 

Buffalo. 

Ritchie, P. (1985). Graduate research: reviews and 

commentary: The effects of instruction in main idea and 

question generation. Reading-Canada-Lecture, 3(2), 

139-146. 

Wong, Y. L., & Jones, W. (1982). Increasing 

metacomprehension in learning disabled and normally 

achieving students through self-questioning training. 

Learning Disability Quarterly, 5, 228-239. 

Question Type Prompts

Dermody, M. (1988). Metacognitive strategies for 

development of reading comprehension for younger 

children. Paper presented at the American Association 

of Colleges for Teacher Education, New Orleans. 

Labercane, G., & Battle, J. (1987). Cognitive 

processing strategies, self-esteem, and reading 

comprehension of learning disabled students. Journal of 

Special Education, 11, 167-185. 

Smith, N. J. (1977). The effects of training teachers 

to teach students at different reading ability levels to 

formulate three types of questions on reading 

comprehension and question generation ability. 

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of 

Georgia. 

Story Grammar Prompts

Nolte, R. Y., & Singer, H. (1985). Active 

comprehension: Teaching a process of reading 

comprehension and its effects on reading achievement. 

Reading Teacher, 39(1), 24-31. 

Short, E. J., & Ryan, E. B. (1984). Metacognitive 

differences between skilled and less skilled readers: 

remediating deficits through story grammar and 

attribution training. Journal of Educational Psychology, 

76(2), 225-235. 

No Prompts

Helfeldt, J. P., & Lalik, R. (1976). Reciprocal studentteacher questioning. Reading Teacher, 33, 283-287. 

Manzo, A. V. (1969). Improving reading comprehension 

through reciprocal teaching. Unpublished doctoral 

dissertation, Syracuse University. 

Simpson, P. S. (1989). The effects of direct training in 

active comprehension on reading achievement, selfconcepts, and reading attitudes of at-risk sixth grade 

students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Texas 

Technological University. 

Other Question Generation Studies (Not

Reviewed by Rosenshine et al., 1996)

Hansen, J., & Pearson, P. D. (1983). An 

instructional study: Improving the inferential 

comprehension of good and poor fourth-grade readers. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 75(6), 821-829. 

Singer, H., & Donlan, D. (1982). Active 

comprehension: Problem-solving schema with question 

generation for comprehension of complex short stories. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 17(2), 166-186. 

Question Answering 

Anderson, R., & Biddle, W. (1975). On asking 

people questions about what they are reading. In G. H. 

Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation 

(Vol. 9, pp. 90-132). New York: Academic Press. 

Ezell, H. K., et al. (1992). Use of peer-assisted 

procedures to teach QAR reading comprehension 

strategies to third-grade children. Education and 

Treatment of Children, 15(3), 205-227. 

Fischer, J. A. (1973). Effects of cue synthesis 

procedure and post questions on the retention of prose 

material. Dissertation Abstracts International, 34, 615. 

4-65 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

Garner, R., Hare, V. C., Alexander, P. A., Haynes, 

J., & Winograd, P. (1984). Inducing use of a text 

lookback strategy among unsuccessful readers. 

American Educational Research Journal, 21, 789-798. 

Garner, R., Macready, G. B., & Wagoner, S. 

(1984). Readers’ acquisition of the components of the 

text-lookback strategy. Journal of Educational 

Psychology, 76, 300-309. 

Griffey, Q. L., Jr., et al. (1988). The effects of selfquestioning and story structure training on the reading 

comprehension of poor readers. Learning Disabilities 

Research, 4(1), 45-51. 

Levin, J. R., & Pressley, M. (1981). Improving 

children’s prose comprehension: Selected strategies that 

seem to succeed. In C. M. Santa & B. L. Hayes 

(Eds.), Children’s prose comprehension: Research and 

practice (pp. 44-71). Newark, DE: International 

Reading Association. 

Pressley, M., & Forrest-Pressley, D. (1985). 

Questions and children’s cognitive processing. In A. C. 

G. B. Black (Ed.), The psychology of questions (pp. 

277-296). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 

Raphael, T. E., & McKinney, J. (1983). An 

examination of fifth- and eighth-grade children’s 

question-answering behavior: An instructional study in 

metacognition. Journal of Reading Behavior, 15(3), 67­

86. 

Raphael, T. E., & Pearson, P. D. (1985). Increasing 

students’ awareness of sources of information for 

answering questions. American Educational Research 

Journal, 22, 217-235. 

Raphael, T. E., & Wonnacott, C. A. (1985). 

Heightening fourth-grade students’ sensitivity to 

sources of information for answering comprehension 

questions. Reading Research Quarterly, 20(3), 282-296. 

Richmond, M. G. (1976). The relationship of the 

uniqueness of prose passages to the effect of question 

placement and question relevance on the acquisition and 

retention of information. In G. H. Mc Ninch (Ed.). 

Reflections and investigations on reading. Twenty-fifth 

Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 

268-278). Clemson, SC: National Reading Conference. 

Rowls, M. D. (1976). The facilitative and 

interactive effects of adjunct questions on retention of 

eight graders across three prose passages: Dissertation 

in prose learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 68, 

205-209. 

Serenty, M. L., & Dean, R. S. (1986). Interspersed 

post passage questions and reading comprehension 

achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(3), 

228-229. 

Sheldon, S. A. (1984). Comparison of two teaching 

methods for reading comprehension. Journal of 

Research in Reading, 7(1), 41-52. 

Watts, G. H. (1973). The “arousal” effect of 

adjunct questions on recall from prose materials. 

Australian Journal of Psychology, 25, 81-87. 

Wixson, K. K. (1983). Questions about a text: What 

you ask about is what children learn. Reading Teacher, 

37(3), 287-293. 

Story Structure 

Baumann, J. F., & Bergeron, B. S. (1993). Story 

map instruction using children’s literature: Effects on 

first graders’ comprehension of central narrative 

elements. Journal of Reading Behavior, 25(4), 407-437. 

Buss, R. R., Ratliff, J. L., & Irion, J. C. (1985). 

Effects of instruction on the use of story structure in 

comprehension of narrative discourse. National Reading 

Conference Yearbook, 34, 55-58. 

Fitzgerald, J., & Spiegel, D. L. (1983). Enhancing 

children’s reading comprehension through instruction in 

narrative structure. Journal of Reading Behavior, 15(2), 

1-17. 

Gordon, C. J., & Rennie, B. J. (1987). 

Restructuring content schemata: An intervention study. 

Reading Research and Instruction, 26(3), 162-188. 

Greenewald, M. J., & Rossing, R. L. (1986). Shortterm and long-term effects of story grammar and selfmonitoring training on children’s story comprehension. 

National Reading Conference Yearbook, 35, 210-213. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-66 
Report 

Griffey, Q. L., Jr., et al. (1988). The effects of selfquestioning and story structure training on the reading 

comprehension of poor readers. Learning Disabilities 

Research, 4(1), 45-51. 

Idol, L. (1987). Group story mapping: A 

comprehension strategy for both skilled and unskilled 

readers. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 20, 196-205. 

Idol, L., & Croll, V. J. (1987). Story-mapping 

training as a means of improving reading 

comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 10, 214­

229. 

Nolte, R. Y., & Singer, H. (1985). Active 

comprehension: Teaching a process of reading 

comprehension and its effects on reading achievement. 

Reading Teacher, 39(1), 24-31. 

Omanson, R. C., Beck, I. L., Voss, J. F., 

McKeown, M. G., et al. (1984). The effects of reading 

lessons on comprehension: A processing description. 

Cognition and Instruction, 1(1), 45-67. 

Reutzel, D. R. (1984). Story mapping: an alternative 

approach to communication. Reading World, 24(2), 16­

25. 

Reutzel, D. R. (1985). Story maps improve 

comprehension. Reading Teacher, 38(4), 400-404. 

Reutzel, D. R. (1986). Clozing in on comprehension: 

The Cloze story map. Reading Teacher, 39(6), 524-528. 

Short, E. J., & Ryan, E. B. (1984). Metacognitive 

differences between skilled and less skilled readers: 

Remediating deficits through story grammar and 

attribution training. Journal of Educational Psychology, 

76(2), 225-235. 

Singer, H., & Donlan, D. (1982). Active 

comprehension: Problem-solving schema with question 

generation for comprehension of complex short stories. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 17(2), 166-186. 

Spiegel, D. L., & Fitzgerald, J. (1986). Improving 

reading comprehension through instruction about story 

parts. Reading Teacher, 39(7), 676-682. 

Varnhagen, C. K., & Goldman, S. R. (1986). 

Improving comprehension: Causal relations instruction 

for learning handicapped learners. Reading Teacher, 

39(9), 896-904. 

Summarization 

Afflerbach, P., & Walker, B. (1992). Main idea 

instruction: An analysis of three basal reader series. 

Reading Research and Instruction, 32(1), 11-28. 

Armbruster, B. B., Anderson, T. H., & Ostertag, J. 

(1987). Does text structure/summarization instruction 

facilitate learning from expository text? Reading 

Research Quarterly, 22, 331-346. 

Baumann, J. F. (1983). Children’s ability to 

comprehend main ideas in content textbooks. Reading 

World, 22(4), 322-331. 

Baumann, J. F. (1984). The effectiveness of a 

direct instruction paradigm for teaching main idea 

comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 20(1), 93­

115. 

Bean, T. W., & Steenwyk, F. L. (1984). The effect 

of three forms of summarization instruction on sixth 

graders’ summary writing and comprehension. Journal 

of Reading Behavior, 16(4), 297-306. 

Berkowitz, S. J. (1986). Effects of instruction in 

text organization on sixth-grade students’ memory for 

expository reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(2), 

161-178. 

Brown, A. L., & Day, J. D. (1983). Macro rules for 

summarizing texts: The development of expertise. 

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22, 1­

14. 

Brown, A. L., Day, J. D., & Jones, R. S. (1983). 

The development of plans for summarizing texts. Child 

Development, 48, 968-979. 

Carnine, D. W., Kameenui, E. J., & Woolfson, N. 

(1982). Training of textual dimensions related to textbased inferences. Journal of Reading Behavior, 14(3), 

335-340. 

4-67 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

Doctorow, M., Wittrock, M., & Marcks, C. (1978). 

Generative processes in reading comprehension. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 109-118. 

Jenkins, J. R., Heliotis, J., Stein, M. L., & Haynes, 

M. (1987). Improving reading comprehension by using 

paragraph restatements. Exceptional Children, 54, 54-59. 

Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B., Jr. (1988). 

Research implications for improving basal skill 

instruction. Reading Horizons, 28(3), 208-215. 

Reutzel, D. R., & Hollingsworth, P. M. (1988). 

Highlighting key vocabulary: A generative-reciprocal 

procedure for teaching selected inference types. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 23(3), 358-378. 

Rinehart, S. D., Stahl, S. A., & Erickson, L. G. 

(1986). Some effects of summarization training on 

reading and studying. Reading Research Quarterly, 

21(4), 422-438. 

Sjostrom, C. L., & Hare, V. C. (1984). Teaching 

high school students to identify main ideas in expository 

text. Journal of Educational Research, 78(2), 114-118. 

Taylor, B. M. (1982). Text structure and children’s 

comprehension and memory for expository material. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(3), 323-340. 

Taylor, B. M. (1986). Teaching middle-grade 

students to read for main ideas. In J. A. Niles & R. V. 

Lalik (Eds.). Solving Problems in Literacy: Learners, 

Teachers, and Researchers: Thirty-fifth Yearbook of 

the National Reading Conference (pp. 99-108). 

Rochester, NY: The National Reading Conference. 

Taylor, B. M., & Beach, R. W. (1984). The effects 

of text structure instruction on middle-grade students’ 

comprehension and production of expository prose. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 134-136. 

Teacher Training 

Anderson, V. (1992). A teacher development 

project in transactional strategy instruction for teachers 

of severely reading-disabled adolescents. Teaching and 

Teacher Education, 8(4), 391-403. 

Duffy, G. G. (1993). Rethinking strategy instruction: 

Four teachers’ development and their low achievers’ 

understandings. Elementary School Journal, 93(3), 231­

247. 

Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., Sivan, E., Rackliff, G., 

Book, C., Meloth, M. Vavrus, L., Wesselman, R., 

Rutnma, J., & Bassiri, D. (1987). Effects of explaining 

the reasoning associated with using reading strategies. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 22(3), 347-368. 

Franklin, M. R., et al. (1993). Overcoming the 

reading comprehension barriers of expository texts. 

Educational Research Quarterly, 16(1), 5-14. 

Vocabulary Comprehension Relationship 

Beck, I. L., Perfetti, C. A., & McKeown, M. G. 

(1982). Effects of long term vocabulary instruction on 

lexical access and reading comprehension. Journal of 

Educational Psychology, 74, 506-521. 

McKeown, M. G., Beck, I. L., Omanson, R. C., & 

Perfetti, C. A. (1983). The effects of long-term 

vocabulary instruction on reading comprehension: A 

replication. Journal of Reading Behavior, 15(1), 3-18. 

McKeown, M. G., Beck, I. L., Omanson, R. C., & 

Pople, M. T. (1985). Some effects of the nature and 

frequency of vocabulary instruction on the knowledge 

and use of words. Reading Research Quarterly, 20(5), 

522-535. 

Tomesen, M., & Aarnoutse, C. (1998). Effects of an 

instructional programme for deriving word meanings. 

Educational Studies, 24(1), 107-128. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-68 
Appendices

COMPREHENSION II 

Appendices 

Appendix A 
 

A total of 203 studies met the Panel’s criteria for 

inclusion as scientific studies on comprehension 

instruction. These studies were grouped into 16 

different categories, each representing a particular 

instructional strategy or collection of strategies. In the 

following pages, each category of studies is 

summarized. The Panel defines and describes the 

rationale for each kind of instructional strategy, the 

procedures used, and how the instruction was assessed 

by the researchers. The Panel then evaluates the 

category of instruction, based on reported results. 

Comprehension Monitoring (Also Known 

as Metacognitive Awareness) 

“Comprehension monitoring in the act of reading is the 

noting of one’s successes and failures in developing or 

attaining meaning, usually with reference to an 

emerging conception of the meaning of the text as a 

whole, and adjusting one’s reading processes 

according” (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 39). A related 

concept is “metacognitive awareness,” which is 

“knowing when what one is reading makes sense by 

monitoring and controlling one’s own comprehension” 

(Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 153). 

Comprehension monitoring, first studied by Markman 

(1978), involves the readers becoming aware of when 

they understand what they are reading. Instruction of 

comprehension monitoring involves teaching readers to 

become aware of when they do understand, to identify 

where they do not understand, and to use appropriate 

fix-up strategies to improve comprehension when it is 

blocked (Taylor et al., 1992). For reading, 

comprehension monitoring is “thinking about thinking,” 

an awareness by readers of their ongoing 

comprehension process while reading. Typically, 

readers do not spontaneously select comprehension 

strategy awareness. This instruction strategy involves 

self-listening (monitoring) or listening to others (ElliottFaust & Pressley, 1986) and thinking that is designed to 

help the reader or listener identify when there are 

problems understanding particular content, such as 

noticing the comprehension blocks. Comprehension 

monitoring training is intended to provide readers with 

steps that they can take to resolve reading problems as 

they arise. Steps may include formulating what the 

difficulty is, restating what was read, looking back 

through the text, and looking forward in the text for 

information that might help to resolve a problem 

(Bereiter & Bird, 1985). 

The Panel found 20 studies on comprehension 

monitoring. Table 2, on the following page, summarizes 

the rationale, procedures, and assessment of research 

studies on the instruction of comprehension monitoring 

strategies. 

Evaluation 

Grade Level

In this search, the Panel found 20 studies on 

comprehension monitoring instruction. The 20 studies 

are listed in the bibliography under the rubric 

Comprehension Monitoring. The distribution of grade 

levels studied in research on comprehension monitoring 

ranged from grades 2 to 6: grade level 2, n = 3; level 3, 

n = 6; level 4, n = 8; level 5, n = 5; level 6, n = 6. 

Hence, the mode was at grade 4. 

Texts

Comprehension monitoring has been studied mainly with 

expository texts that are used in the elementary grades, 

particularly social studies and science texts. These 

present problems with novel concepts and vocabulary 

as well as novel facts and relationships. 

Experimenter Tests 

Awareness During Reading

The vast majority of studies on comprehension 

monitoring investigated whether children could learn to 

become aware of their comprehension difficulties and 

verbally report them to the teacher. In terms of success, 

16 of 16 studies (100%) measured and obtained more 

4-69 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 2 

COMPREHENSION MONITORING INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

The goal of comprehension 

monitoring is to develop 

awareness by readers of the 

cognitive processes involved 

during reading. 

Readers learn to become aware 

of whether they are understanding 

a text and what steps they should 

take to correct comprehension 

difficulties. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT 

OR PRACTICED 

The teacher demonstrates 

awareness of difficulties in 

understanding words, 

phrases, clauses, or 

sentences. Students are 

taught to: 

1. Formulate what it is that 

is causing them difficulty 

in understanding. 

2. Use think-aloud 

procedures that show the 

readers and the teacher 

where and when 

understanding difficulties 

occur. 

3. Look back in the text to 

try to solve a problem. 

4. Restate or paraphrase a 

text in terms more 

familiar to readers. 

5. Look forward ("watch" 

for information) in a text 

to solve a problem. 

ASSESSMENT 

Learning of comprehension 

monitoring itself. Experimenter 

tests 

1. Detection of inconsistencies in 

logic of an argument or 

meaning of a passage. 

2. Recall. 

3. Long-term maintenance of 

comprehension monitoring. 

4. Self-esteem. 

5. Creative thinking. 

Standard comprehension tests. 

success in awareness of comprehension during reading 

(or listening) for the treatment as compared to the 

control groups. This success occurs at about the same 

rate across grades 2 through 6. 

Detection of Inconsistencies in Text

Asking the reader to detect inconsistencies in the text is 

one of the primary means that researchers have used to 

evaluate success of training and its transfer. Although 

this is difficult to do, even for adults (Markman, 1983), 

five studies report significant improvement in error 

detection for comprehension monitoring conditions. 

Other Experimenter Measures

Recall, question answering, and course achievement 

gains were used once, twice, and once, respectively. 

The recall and question-answering effects were null for 

2nd graders, suggesting that this method does not 

generalize, at least for the youngest readers. However, 

one study that measured improvement in science course 

achievement found that 2nd graders benefited from the 

training. 

Standard Comprehension Tests

Seven studies used standardized comprehension tests to 

assess general transfer effects of learning 

comprehension monitoring. Of these, five reported 

significant effects (grades 3 through 6), and two had no 

significant effects (grades 3 and 4). 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-70 
Appendices 

Summary Evaluation of

Comprehension Monitoring

Children in grades 2 through 6 can be taught to monitor 

their comprehension, become aware of when and 

where they are having difficulty, and learn procedures 

to assist them in overcoming the problem. There is 

evidence that this training has specific and general 

transfer benefits. The main transfer is to improved 

detection of text inconsistencies and memory for the 

text and on standardized reading comprehension test 

performance. 

Cooperative Learning 

Cooperative learning is defined as any pattern 

of classroom organization that allows students 

to work together to achieve their individual 

goals (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 45). 

A related approach is called “collaborative learning,” 

which is defined as “learning by working together in 

small groups, so as to understand new information or to 

create a common product” (Harris & Hodges, 1995, 

p. 35). 

As indicated above, cooperative learning involves 

students working together as partners or in small groups 

on clearly defined tasks. The tasks require the 

participation of each student. Mixed ability groups may 

work together. Readers teach each other. The readers 

are encouraged to break down the content area 

material from “teacher-talk” to “kid-talk” to facilitate 

learning (Klinger, Vaughn, & Schumm, 1998). 

Cooperative learning instruction has been successfully 

used to teach reading comprehension strategies in 

content subject areas and for teaching across the 

curriculum. Cooperative learning classes lead to 

improved academic performance, greater motivation 

toward learning, and increased time on task (Bramlett, 

1994). Students of all abilities benefit from cooperative 

learning. Furthermore, it has been found to be effective 

for integrating academically and physically handicapped 

students into regular classrooms (Klinger et al., 1998). 

The majority of teaching, reciprocal teaching, and 

transactional strategy instruction programs have taken 

place in small groups rather than large classrooms 

(Klinger et al., 1998). Cooperative learning is a means 

for teaching a variety of comprehension strategies in 

small groups. 

The Panel found 10 studies on cooperative learning. 

Table 3 summarizes the rationale, procedures, and 

assessment of research studies on cooperative learning 

and strategy instruction. 

Evaluation 

Grade Level

The grade levels for cooperative learning were evenly 

distributed at two each over grades 3 to 6. 

Experimenter Tests

The reading strategies that were instructed were 

successfully learned in the ten studies that measured 

them. Two studies evaluated the success of the 

instructional arrangement by analyses of the talk of the 

children. These analyses showed increased focus on 

intellectual content and what was being read. 

Standardized Tests

Three studies found significant improvement in reading 

comprehension as measured by standardized tests. 

Summary Evaluation of Cooperative 

Learning 

Having peers instruct or interact over the use of reading 

strategies leads to an increase in the learning of the 

strategies, promotes intellectual discussion, and 

increases reading comprehension. This procedure saves 

on teacher time and gives the students more control 

over their learning and social interaction with peers. 

Curriculum Plus Strategies 

Curriculum plus strategy instruction integrates strategy 

skill training across content areas. A curriculum plus 

strategy instruction provides the students with cognitive 

strategy instruction in the context of ongoing academic 

activities, across school subjects, and throughout the 

school year. In this approach, each strategy may be 

taught individually, allowing students to practice a 

strategy to attain skill. Then students learn to apply the 

strategies as they need them while reading in each 

subject area. Individual strategies such as question 

generation and asking, prediction, clarification, and 

summarization are taught in conjunction with 

metacognitive support and flexible use of the strategies 

(Pressley, Gaskins, Wile, Cunicelli, & Sheridan, 1991). 

4-71 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 3 

COOPERATIVE LEARNING INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND RATIONALE 

OF INSTRUCTION 

The aim of cooperative learning is to 

teach children to read together with 

a partner. Readers learn to read 

aloud with a partner and to listen to 

the partner's reading. Readers are 

given activities that teach them 

strategies for effective reading 

comprehension. 

The readers become independent of 

the teacher and learn to tutor each 

other. This reduces the amount of 

time that the teacher spends with a 

student. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Students are taught and allowed 

to participate in partner reading, 

summarization of paragraphs, and 

turn-taking in making predictions. 

Oral reading and listening is done 

by reader and peers. 

Training is given, and children 

learn to carry out activities that 

follow the self or partner reading, 

including word recognition 

(decoding), story structure, 

prediction, and story summary 

activities related to texts. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter tests 

Analyses of peer talk 

during cooperative learning 

Summarization 

Prediction 

Standardized tests 

TABLE 4 

CURRICULUM PLUS STRATEGY INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

The goal of a curriculum strategy 

is to provide students with 

multiple opportunities, in an 

ongoing school context, to 

become aware of and develop 

their cognitive processes across 

school subjects and throughout 

the school year. 

A curriculum strategy provides 

students with opportunities to 

adapt and practice various 

cognitive strategies in different 

subjects: reading, writing, social 

studies, science, and mathematics. 

Experiences that integrate 

listening, speaking, reading, and 

writing promote growth in reading 

and written composition. 

Motivates students who are at 

potentially high risk for 

educational failure. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT 

OR PRACTICED 

The focus of these studies is 

the interaction between 

teachers and students. The 

idea behind adding strategic 

teaching is to attain 

consistency in this 

interaction despite variation 

in content. 

In reading instruction, 

students are given 

opportunities to identify text 

structure. In writing 

instruction, the students are 

given opportunities to apply 

structures. In social studies 

instruction, students attempt 

a structural analysis of the 

texts. 

Cooperation is encouraged 

among students working in 

small groups practicing and 

applying strategies. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter tests 

- Comprehension

- Monitoring

Standardized tests 

Achievement grades 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-72 
Appendices 

The Panel found eight studies on curriculum plus 

strategies instruction. Table 4, on the following page, 

summarizes the rationale, procedures, and assessment 

of research studies on curriculum plus strategies 

instruction. 

Evaluation 

The Panel found eight studies that investigated the 

effects of curriculum experimentally. As noted in Table 

4, these studies added strategic instruction to the 

program of instruction, notably comprehension 

monitoring, which often differed from standard reading 

instruction that used basal or directed reading. 

Grade Level

The grade levels studied were K through 8 for two of 

the curriculum investigations. These were literary in 

nature and focused on real literature rather than basal 

readers. The remainder of grade levels studies were 

level 2, n = 1; level 3, n = 2; and level 4, n = 1. These 

studies used curricula that focused on content areas, 

literary content, and writing as part of literacy 

instruction. 

Experimenter Tests

General comprehension improvement was reported in 

seven out of eight studies; four studies reported 

significant gains in standardized tests. Because 

instruction in strategy comprehension is a part of the 

curriculum, it is difficult to assess how the strategies 

and their learning benefited the readers. Our analysis of 

multiple strategies and transactional instruction below, 

however, is consistent with the idea that teaching 

comprehension strategies as part of the content areas 

or reading curriculum is an effective procedure. 

Summary Evaluation Curriculum Plus 

Strategies 

The variation and complexity of curricula across these 

studies do not permit one to argue for the scientific 

support of a particular curriculum or for the particular 

strategies added to the instruction. However, the 

success of these individual studies indicates that there 

may be merit in adding comprehension instruction of 

reading strategies to a given curriculum and evaluating 

the results scientifically against those of control groups. 

Graphic Organizer 

A graph is a “diagram or pictorial device that displays 

relationships” (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 101). In 

teaching readers to use external means of representing 

the meaning of relationships in a text, teachers instruct 

students to organize their ideas through the construction 

of graphs of ideas based upon what they read, hence 

the term “graphic organizer.” 

To help readers construct meanings and organize the 

ideas presented in a text, the use of graphs or the 

construction of graphs focuses the readers on concepts 

and their relations to other concepts. Graphic organizers 

are methods used to teach the reader to use diagrams 

of the concepts and their relationships. They are 

particularly appropriate for expository texts used in 

content areas such as science or social studies, but they 

have also been applied to stories as “story maps.” The 

external graphic aids (1) help students focus on text 

structure while reading, (2) provide tools to examine 

and visually represent textual relationships, and (3) 

assist in writing well-organized summaries. 

The Panel found 11 studies on graphic organizer 

instruction. Table 5, on the following page, summarizes 

the rationale, procedures, and assessment of research 

studies on graphic organizer instruction. 

Evaluation 

The Panel found 11 studies that used graphic organizers 

to assist students in framing and identifying the main 

ideas in social studies and science texts. 

Grade Level

The grade level distribution for the use of graphic 

organizers is level 2, n = 1; level 3, n = 1; level 4, n = 5; 

level 5, n = 4; level 6, n = 6; level 7, n = 2; level 8, n = 2. 

Hence, the modal level is grade 6 with the technique 

becoming more frequent at grade level 4. Graphic 

organizing is an activity that is taught to readers in the 

higher elementary and middle school grades, 4 through 

8, with the mode occurring at grade 6. This suggests 

that children who can learn and benefit from this 

instruction have to have skill in writing and reading. 

4-73 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 5 

GRAPHIC ORGANIZER INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

Readers are instructed to make 

graphic representations of text 

material. 

Graphic organizers include 

semantic maps, expository maps, 

story maps, story schema, and 

graphic metaphors. 

Graphic organizers visually 

(spatially) represent superordinate and more important 

subordinate ideas of a passage, 

story, or exposition. 

Spatial (graphic) metaphors are 

assumed to facilitate learning and 

memory of text and the making of

well-organized summaries. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT 

OR PRACTICED 

Teachers show readers how 

to create graphic 

organization of ideas. 

Teachers may provide 

graphic metaphors such as 

making an umbrella for main 

ideas and putting details 

below the topic. 

or 

Teachers show readers how 

to construct maps of 

expository passages by 

locating the title or main 

concept in the center of a 

circle and then writing in the 

 related ideas from a survey 

of the text for main ideas. 

or 

Teachers show readers how 

to make box diagrams of a 

story, for example, problem 

box-action box-results box 

and filling in the content of 

the boxes. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter tests 

- Summaries 

- Text recall 

Standardized tests 

- Comprehension subtest of 

- Gates-MacGinitie 

Reading Test 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-74 
Appendices 

Experimenter Tests

Seven studies used recall of the text content to evaluate 

the effect of training on the use of a graphic organizer. 

Six of the seven report significant benefits to the 

experimental groups; one reported a null finding. Four 

studies (three other than those using recall) report 

significant achievement gains in the content area. Thus, 

the main effect of graphic organizers is on improving 

the reader’s memory for the content that is read. 

Standardized Tests

Two studies reported positive findings on grades 6 

through 8 for standardized tests to evaluate transfer 

from learning to organize content graphically. 

Summary Evaluation of Graphic 

Organizer Instruction 

Teaching students to use a systematic, visual graph to 

organize the ideas that they are reading about develops 

the ability of the students to remember what they read 

and may transfer in general to better comprehension 

and achievement in social studies and science content 

areas. 

Listening Actively 

Listening is the “act of understanding speech.” A 

child’s “listening comprehension level” is the “highest 

grade level of material that can be comprehended well 

when it is read aloud to the student,” also known as 

“auding, the processes of perceiving, recognizing, 

interpreting, and responding to oral language” (Harris & 

Hodges, 1995, p. 140 and p. 14, respectively). 

Listening to another person read and following what is 

being read by reading the text is a method used to teach 

students how to listen while reading. In the 1970s, 

efforts were made to train listening skills in general. 

Dickson (1981) summarizes the relevant work on this 

kind of training. 

Active listening by the student can promote reading 

comprehension. Students have been taught more 

effective listening by applying Palinscar’s and Brown’s 

(1984) reciprocal teaching (see below) strategies to 

listening (Grant, 1989). For students in a remedial 

reading class, listening lessons improved their critical 

listening, critical reading, and general reading 

comprehension. 

The Panel found four studies on listening instruction and 

comprehension of text. Table 6, on the following page, 

summarizes the rationale, procedures, and assessment 

of research studies on listening instruction. 

Evaluation

The Panel found four studies that investigated how 

listening during reading affects comprehension 

Grade Level

Listening studies were carried out on students in grade 

level 1, n = 1; level 4, n = 1; level 5, n = 1; and level 6, 

n = 1. 

Experimenter Tests

Questions answering showing improvement in two 

studies. 

Standardized Tests

Improvement is reported in two studies on standardized 

tests. 

Summary Evaluation of Listening Instruction

Direct instruction on learning to listen to others 

(teachers or peers) who read while following in the text 

what is read may benefit students’ comprehension in 

specific and in more general ways. 

Mental Imagery 

A mental image is “a perceptual representation or 

ideational picture of a perceptual experience, 

remembered or imagined” (Harris & Hodges, 1995, 

p. 152). 

In imagery training, students are instructed to construct 

visual images to represent a text as they read it. The 

text is often a short passage or a sentence. Imagery 

training improves students’ memory (Levin & DivineHawkins, 1974) and inferential reasoning about written 

text (Borduin, 1994). 

The Panel found seven studies on mental imagery 

instruction. Table 7, on the following page, summarizes 

the rationale, procedures, and assessment of research 

studies on mental imagery instruction. 

4-75 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 6 

LISTENING ACTIVELY INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND RATIONALE 

OF INSTRUCTION 

Instruction is aimed at achieving 

active listening for meaning by the 

reader. 

Emphasis on listening for meaning 

produces better sentence recall than 

emphasis on accurate oral reading. 

Students who take "active listening 

turns" are assumed to remember 

more sentences from a lesson than 

those who follow along. 

Listening instruction focuses interest 

in material. Subject interest is a 

major factor in sentence recall that 

is more important than readability. 

Listening instruction supposedly 

improves critical listening, reading, 

and general reading comprehension. 

It increases participation in group 

discussions and leads to more 

thoughtful responses to questions. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT 

OR PRACTICED 

The teacher guides the 

students in critical listening 

instruction. The teacher 

poses questions for the 

students to answer while 

they listen to the teacher 

read the text. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimental tests 

- Pretest and posttest on 

reading and listening 

Standardized tests 

- Subtests of Sequential Test 

of Educational Progress 

TABLE 7 

MENTAL IMAGERY STRATEGY INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND RATIONALE 

OF INSTRUCTION 

Readers are instructed to make an 

image to represent the text content. 

Generating an image requires an 

interpretation of the text as to its 

referent(s). 

When the reader can construct an 

image of what is read, the reader is 

assumed to have understood the 

referent of the text. 

The constructed image serves as a 

memory representation of the 

reader's interpretation of the text. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT 

OR PRACTICED 

Teachers ask readers to 

construct an image(s) that 

represents the content. This 

is most often done at the 

sentence level. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter Tests 

- Recall 

- Short-answer questions 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-76 
Appendices 

Evaluation 

The Panel located seven studies that used mental 

imagery training and examined its effects 

experimentally. 

Grade Level

Imagery has been used in studies at all grade levels 

higher than the 2nd grade. The distribution of grades 

studied was grade level 2, n = 1; level 3, n = 2; level 4, n 

= 2; level 5, n = 1; level 7, n = 1; and level 8, n = 1. 

Mental imagery instruction while reading sentences 

appears to be applicable to grades 2 through 8. 

Experimenter Tests

The main effect of imagery is to increase memory for 

the sentence imaged. The main memory tests used 

were recall (3 studies) and question answering (6 

studies). Keyword cues were used as prompts in five of 

these studies. In addition, detection of inconsistency 

showed improvement in two studies. 

Summary Evaluation of Mental Imagery 

Instruction 

Instructing readers to imagine what they are reading 

and coding what they imagine with a keyword cue 

facilitates readers’ memory of what they have read. 

Mnemonic Instruction 

“Mnemonic procedures include devices or techniques 

that are aimed at improving memory” (Harris & 

Hodges, 1995, p. 156). 

Mnemonic instruction is a procedure that uses external 

memory aids. It is a procedure that trains students to 

use a picture or a concept as a proxy for a person, 

concept, sentence, or passage. Students are taught to 

generate an interactive image between the proxy (a 

word or a picture) and the information covered in the 

text. This procedure increases learned associations 

between the proxy and other information in text. The 

method has been used successfully to teach unfamiliar 

concepts (e.g., biographies of unfamiliar people, 

information about unfamiliar places). Although both 

good and poor readers benefit from this procedure, 

good readers seem to benefit more (Peters & Levin, 

1986). A “keyword” can serve as a proxy. 

The Panel’s search yielded only two studies on 

mnemonic instruction and comprehension instruction. 

Both these studies used keyword methods. Table 8, 

shown on the following page, summarizes the rationale, 

procedures, and assessment of research of these 

studies. 

Evaluation 

The two studies that used keywords as mnemonics 

were done on 8th graders. Both found improved recall 

for passages that had keywords. 

Summary Evaluation for Mnemonics 

Mnemonic methods using keywords as organizers 

increase memory and recall. The relationship to other 

measures of comprehension is not known. 

Multiple Strategy Instruction 

A “strategy” is “in education, a systematic plan, 

consciously adapted and monitored, to improve one’s 

performance in learning” (Harris & Hodges, 1995. p. 

244). Strategies can be taught and reading requires the 

flexible use of several different kinds of strategies. 

Skilled reading involves the coordinated use of several 

cognitive strategies. Readers can learn and flexibly 

coordinate these strategies to construct meaning from 

texts. Several individual strategies are reviewed in this 

report. In this section, we examine studies that teach 

readers to use more than one strategy in the context of 

reading and in interaction with a teacher over the text. 

Hence, multiple strategy instruction occurs in a dialog 

between the teacher and the student. Students are 

taught individual strategies when and where they are 

appropriate, usually through modeled use by the 

teacher. Over the course of reading a passage, several 

strategies may be taught in conjunction with one 

another. For example, the reader may predict along with 

clarification of a word’s meaning, activation of 

knowledge about a story schema, and summarization of 

the main idea, and all with awareness of problems that 

are encountered during the reading. In multiple strategy 

instruction, students are taught how to adapt the 

strategies and use them flexibly, according to their 

situation (Pressley, 1991). The teacher models and 

assists in the learning and flexible use of the strategies 

by the student. Cooperative learning or peer tutoring 

may be used as a part of multiple-strategies instruction. 

4-77 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 8 

MNEMONIC INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND RATIONALE 

OF INSTRUCTION 

The reader is taught to use a 

keyword to substitute (serve as a 

proxy) for a person or some aspect 

of text (person, concept, sentence, 

passage). 

The keyword is associated with an 

interactive image of the referent of a 

sentence or paragraph. 

This method is useful when the 

reader is trying to learn information 

about totally unfamiliar concepts 

(e.g., people or countries). 

The method is assumed to increase 

the reader's memory through 

association of the keyword element 

and other information in the text. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT 

OR PRACTICED 

Teacher instructs students to 

form a keyword substitute 

for some aspect of prose 

(person, concept, place, 

situation, sentence), for 

example, "tailor" for 

"Taylor". Pictures are used 

to help students understand 

the text. The picture is 

organized around the 

keyword. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter tests 

- Recall 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-78 
Appendices 

One variant of multiple-strategy instruction is called 

“reciprocal teaching.” The teacher first models 

(demonstrates through personal use) and then explains 

what a strategy is and when to use it (Palinscar & 

Brown, 1984; Lysynchuk et al., 1990). At first, the 

teacher guides the reader in applying and practicing 

strategies while reading a passage. Modeling includes 

not only examples but the teacher “thinking aloud” to 

demonstrate the coordinated use of strategies. 

Gradually, the student begins to practice and implement 

each strategy independently. In explicit transactional 

approaches that use multiple strategies, the teacher will 

explain a strategy before modeling it in a passage 

(Rosenshine & Meister, 1994). 

The Panel found 38 studies on multiple-strategies 

instruction. Of these, 27 studies were on “reciprocal 

teaching.” The definitions, rationales, procedures, and 

assessments for “reciprocal teaching” are described in 

Table 9, on the following page. The 11 studies on other 

treatments of multiple strategies are summarized in 

Table 12. 

Evaluation of Reciprocal Teaching 

Meta-analysis

In “reciprocal teaching,” the teacher models by showing 

how she or he would try to understand the text, using 

two or more combinations of four strategies: question 

generation, summarization, clarification, and prediction 

of what might occur. Rosenshine and Meister (1994) 

conducted a meta-analysis on 16 reciprocal training 

studies. Rosenshine and Meister used the criteria of 

selection that was adopted by us: a study had to be an 

experimental study with controls and use random 

assignment or matching of conditions. The grade levels 

studied were 1 through 8, distributed as level 1, n = 1; 

level 2, n = 1; level 3, n = 4; level 4, n = 6; level 5, n = 3; 

level 6, n = 4; level 7, n = 4; and level 8, n = 1. The 

modal grade for reciprocal teaching was grade 4, but 

high numbers occur for grades 3 through 7 in these 

studies (4 on average). Reciprocal teaching using 

multiple strategies presumes basic reading (decoding) 

skills, even on those two or more grades below level. 

The kinds of strategies included varied from one to four 

components of summarization, question generation, 

clarifying, and predicting. Question generation was most 

frequent (nine studies), followed by summarizing (six 

studies). 

The effect sizes (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994, Table 5, 

page 194) for experimenter tests (10) studies averaged 

0.88; for standardized tests (9 studies), the average 

effect size was 0.32. These values were about the 

same for high- and low-quality studies (0.88 and 0.86, 

respectively, for experimenter tests; 0.31 and 0.36, 

respectively, for standardized tests). The low-quality 

studies showed the same effect (0.87) for experimenter 

tests but a small negative effect (-0.12) for standardized 

tests. Excluding the low-quality studies, the effect size 

for standardized tests was raised to 0.36 (seven 

studies). 

Effect size varied as a function of reader ability. Table 

11 summarizes these data. 

In Table 10, it can be seen that the magnitude of the 

effect size for experimenter tests was larger for belowaverage or poor readers. Despite greater efficacy of 

specific training, scores of standardized tests declined 

as did the ability of the reader. These data suggest that 

good readers benefit and generalize what they learn as 

strategies more than do poor or below-average readers. 

Rosenshine and Meister (1994) tested for the 

significance of effect sizes and examined their results 

as a function of grade level, excluding below-average 

readers. These data are summarized in Table 12. Their 

results show that reciprocal teaching of strategies is not 

significant for grade 3, is mixed for grades 4, 5, and 6, 

and is significant for grades 7 and 8. Thus, as measured 

by significant effect sizes, the older readers benefit 

most from reciprocal teaching. 

Reciprocal Teaching Studies Not 

Reviewed by Rosenshine & Meister, 1994 

The Panel located 11 studies on reciprocal teaching that 

were not covered in the meta-analysis of Rosenshine 

and Meister (1994). These studies covered grade levels 

from 1 to 6 (level 1, n = 1; level 2, n = 1; level 3, n = 3; 

level 4, n = 3; level 5, n = 3; and level 6, n = 1). These 

studies tended to use more strategies (seven had 

combinations of summarization, question generation, 

clarification, and prediction) and added, in one case 

each, either monitoring or collaborative learning. Four 

studies reported improvement on experimenter tests, 

and three reported significant improvement on 

standardized tests. These data are consistent with those 

of Rosenshine and Meister (1994). 

4-79 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 9

MULTIPLE STRATEGIES: RECIPROCAL TEACHING

TABLE 9 

MULTIPLE STRATEGIES: RECIPROCAL TEACHING 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

Multiple-strategies instruction

is designed to take place in 

the context of a dialog 

between the teacher and the

students--each of whom 

reads text passages. In some

cases, the teacher also 

explains a strategy. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

 The teacher guides the reader in 

applying and practicing strategies 

while reading a passage. 

The teacher models each strategy 

 in the context of reading a 

passage. The student then applies 

the strategy to his or her own 

reading of a passage. 

There are four main strategies 

(varies from two to four): 

1. Generation of questions during 

reading 

2. Summarization of main ideas of 

the passage 

3. Clarification of word meanings 

or confusing text 

4. Prediction of what might occur 

later in the text. 

Optional additions include 

question answering, making 

inferences or drawing conclusions, 

listening, monitoring, thinking 

aloud,and elaborating. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter tests 

- Learning and use of strategies 

is assessed by analyses of: 

· Recall 

· Generating 

· Answering questions 

· Summarizing (main idea) 

· Predicting (what will happen in 

new passage) 

Content area achievement 

Standardized tests 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-80 
Appendices 

TABLE 10 

EFFECT SIZE AS FUNCTION OF READER ABILITY 

TYPE OF STUDENT TYPE OF TEST 

(number of studies) 

Standard Experimenter 

All 0.32 (4) 0.85 (5) 

Good-Poor 0.19 (2) 0.88 (3) 

Below Average 0.08 (4) 1.15 (2) 

TABLE 11 

EFFECT SIZE SIGNIFICANCE AND GRADE LEVEL 

STUDENTS EFFECT OF GRADE LEVEL 

Significant Mixed Not Significant 

Good-poor/All 

3 X 

3 X 

4 X 

4 & 6 X 

4 & 7 X 

5 & 6 X 

6, 7, 8 X 

7 X 

4-81 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 12 

MULTIPLE STRATEGIES: OTHER TREATMENT COMBINATIONS 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

The instruction takes 

place primarily through 

the student practicing a 

given strategy, with 

feedback from the 

teacher. The teacher may 

initially model the 

strategy. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

There are several skills that are
 

practiced here.
 

Packages of skills vary in
 

number from 2 to 5:
 

Self study of the passage.
 

Oral reading
 

Rereading
 

Retelling
 

Review
 

Summarization of main ideas
 

Generation of questions
 

Testing hypotheses
 

Deriving word meaning from
 

morphemes 

Word recognition training 

Vocabulary instruction 

Drawing conclusions 

Filling in blanks in the passage 

(Cloze procedure) 

Monitoring of comprehension 

Story structure 

Collaborative learning with 

partner, including listening to 

partner reading. Debating or 

arguing with the author of the 

text or with the teacher or 

partner 

Classification of words, 

phrases, and sentences 

ASSESSMENT 

Same as reciprocal 

teaching 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-82 
Appendices 

Summary of Reciprocal Teaching of 

Multiple Strategies 

There is strong empirical evidence that the instruction 

of more than one strategy in a natural context leads to 

the acquisition and use of these reading strategies and 

transfers to standard comprehension tests. 

Evaluation 

Grades

The 12 studies involved readers from grades 2 through 

11. The grades were distributed: level 2 = 1, level 3 = 2, 

level 4 = 6, level 5 = 1, level 6 = 2, and levels 7 through 

11, 1 each. Thus, the modal grade is grade 4. Again, 

basic decoding skill is assumed in teaching reading 

strategies. 

Strategy Instruction

The strategies taught varied across these studies. Six 

out of the twelve taught summarizing or identifying main 

ideas. Three had question answering or generation. 

Monitoring was trained in two studies. Others used 

cooperative reading, recall, retelling, hypothesis testing, 

story structure, and psycholinguistic training (word, 

phrase, and sentence classification, morphological 

analysis). 

Experimenter Tests

Seven studies report specific learning of the strategies 

taught; two studies report mixed results; and two 

studies report negative findings. The mixed results and 

negative findings occurred over grades 4 through 6. 

Standardized Tests

No data on standardized tests were reported. 

Summary of Other Multiple Strategy 

Treatment Studies 

One or more strategies taught in the context of an 

interaction facilitates comprehension as evidenced by 

memory, summarizing, and identifying main ideas. 

Overall Summary of Instruction of Multiple 

Strategies 

Taken together, the evidence supports the use of 

combinations of reading strategies in natural learning 

situations. These findings build on the empirical 

validation of strategies alone and attest to their use in 

the classroom context. 

Prior Knowledge 

By prior knowledge, the Panel means knowledge that 

stems from previous experience. This knowledge is a 

key component of schema theories of reading 

comprehension (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). Schema 

theory holds that comprehension depends upon the 

integration of new knowledge with a network of prior 

knowledge. Harris and Hodges (1995) offer that within 

a schema theory, reading is an active process of 

meaning construction in which the reader connects old 

knowledge with the new information that is encountered 

in the text. 

To read with understanding, the reader has to have a 

considerable amount of knowledge. In learning about a 

content area subject, children acquire knowledge that 

they can use to understand a text on that content area. 

In effect, children need prior experience and acquired 

knowledge to be able to read (Athey, 1983). A reader 

must activate what he or she knows to use it during 

reading to comprehend a text. Without activation of 

what is known that is pertinent to the text, relevant 

knowledge may not be available during reading, and 

comprehension may fail; this is analogous to listening to 

someone speak an unknown foreign language. Teachers 

can develop relevant knowledge through instruction in 

content areas prior to reading. One method of reading 

about other people, in fiction or social studies, asks 

students to think of their own experiences and how their 

lives compare with the life situation of someone that is 

described in a text. This procedure activates relevant 

prior knowledge and recalls experience that aids 

understanding (e.g., a trip to the dentist). 

A body of work related to prior knowledge activation is 

called “elaboration interrogation.” This procedure 

encourages students to ask themselves why facts in a 

text make sense; prior knowledge is stimulated by this 

4-83 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 13 

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE ELICITATION 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

Students possess 

considerable 

knowledge of the 

world that they can 

use to comprehend 

what they are being 

taught and what they 

read. 

Prior knowledge 

affects comprehension 

by creating 

expectations about the 

content, thus directing 

attention to relevant 

parts, enabling the 

reader to infer and 

elaborate what is being 

read, to fill in missing 

or incomplete 

information in the text, 

and to use existing 

mental structures to 

construct memory 

representations that 

facilitate later use, 

recall, and 

reconstruction of text. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Teachers encourage children to compare 

their lives with situations in the text, either 

prior or during the reading. 

Teachers ask students to make 

predictions about content based on their 

prior knowledge, often in response to 

pre-reading questions about the text. 

Teachers have students practice 

answering inferential, postreading 

questions by drawing on text information 

and prior knowledge. 

Teachers ask students to search the text 

and to use what they know to answer 

inferential questions about the text. 

Teachers ask students to monitor 

adequacy of answers to questions on the 

text. 

ASSESSMENT 

Recall 

Short-answer questions (cued 

recall) 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-84 
 

Appendices 

procedure (Martin & Pressley, 1991). This suggests 

that question elaboration, generation (see below), and 

answering (see below) are related in that they all 

necessarily activate and use prior knowledge. 

The Panel found 14 studies on prior knowledge 

instruction. Table 13, on the previous page, summarizes 

the rationale, procedures, and assessment of research 

studies on prior knowledge instruction. 

Evaluation 

Grade Level

The activation and use of what the reader knows that is 

relevant to what is being read has been studied 

experimentally for students in grades 1 through 9. The 

distribution of these grade levels is level 1, n = 1; level 

2, n = 2; level 3, n = 1; level 4, n = 6; level 5, n = 2; level 

6, n = 2; and level 9, n = 1. 

Methods

Most of the studies activated knowledge prior to 

reading by asking the students to think about topics 

relevant to the passage to be read (five studies). The 

remaining studies varied in how prior knowledge was 

made available: teaching the relevant knowledge (two 

studies), pre-reading (one study), predicting based on 

one’s own experience (one study), making associations 

during reading (one study), and previewing the story or 

text (two studies). Two studies did not specify their 

methods in the abstracts. 

Experimenter Tests

Memory measures were the favored method of 

assessing comprehension. Recall was used in nine 

studies, question answering was used in three studies, 

and achievement in content area was used in two 

studies. All reported significant effects of prior 

knowledge on these assessments except for one grade 

4 study that previewed the text (Spires, 1992). 

Summary Evaluation of Prior Knowledge 

The activation of relevant world knowledge helps 

children understand and remember what they read. The 

activation of prior knowledge occurs naturally in 

contexts in which subject content is taught by the 

teacher, and readers then read text that relates to what 

has been learned. Prior knowledge activation occurs 

with several strategies, notably question elaboration, 

generation, and answering. 

Psycholinguistic Instruction 

Psycholinguistics is “the interdisciplinary field of 

psychology and linguistics in which language behavior is 

examined. Psycholinguistics includes such areas of 

inquiry as language acquisition, conversational analysis, 

and the sequencing of themes and topics in discourse” 

(Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 197). 

The Panel found only one study that trained readers on 

a psycholinguistic skill, for example, understanding the 

referents of pronouns. This kind of instruction helps 

young and developing readers recognize “words that 

stand for other words” in “anaphoric” relationships, that 

is, personal pronouns or repeated nouns such as when 

the word “it” refers to a preceding noun, noun phrase, 

or clause (Baumann, 1986). Baumann’s study on 

teaching 3rd graders anaphoric reference found that the 

experimental treatment group increased in accuracy in 

identifying referents. No transfer or standardized tests 

were used. 

Table 14, on the following page, summarizes the 

rationale, procedures, and assessment of research 

studies on psycholinguistic instruction. 

Evaluation 

Grades

The one study involved readers from grade 3. 

Summary Evaluation of 

Psycholinguistic Training 

Children may need some instruction in reading contexts 

to aid them in establishing who is being referred to by 

personal pronouns. Instruction apparently does work. 

The lack of studies in this area suggests that much 

more training on syntactic and semantic relationships 

could be developed and researched for its 

effectiveness. 

4-85 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 1 P 4 SYCHOLINGUISTIC STRATEGY 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

Readers need to learn that words 

that stand for or refer to other 

words, e.g., "she" stands for a 

female referent introduced earlier 

in the text. 

This strategy is used to 

communicate the use of a word or 

phrase that stands for a preceding 

word or phase, like a pronoun. 

Readers come to understand the 

semantic relationship between a 

pronoun and the word or phrase 

to which it refers. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Teachers model or show readers how to 

identify the antecedents of pronouns and 

to answer questions based on identified 

antecedents. 

Readers learn to identify noun substitutes, 

verb substitutes, and clause substitutes. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter Tests 

Students answer pronounspecific questions after 

reading expository or 

narrative texts. 

Students write down the 

antecedents for underlined 

anaphoric terms in 

expository text. 

Question Answering 

When queried by teachers, themselves, or others, young 

readers experience difficulty in answering questions 

well. Question-answering instruction is intended to aid 

students in learning to answer questions while reading 

and thus learn more from a text. Students can also learn 

procedures for answering questions or what to do when 

they cannot answer a question. If students can develop 

these strategies, their learning from text is facilitated 

when the answers are available in the text. 

There were 17 studies on question answering 

instruction. Table 15, on the following page, 

summarizes the rationale, procedures, and assessment 

of research studies on question-answering instruction. 

Evaluation 

Grade Level

Question answering begins with students in grade 3 and 

has been studied up to grade 8. The distribution of 

reported grade levels is level 3, n = 2; level 4, n = 3; 

level 5, n = 3; level 6, n = 1; and level 8, n = 1. The 

preponderance of studies, then, has been on grades 3 

through 5. 

Experimenter Tests

Improvement in performance by treatment vs. control 

groups is reported on question answering (nine studies), 

looking back in text (three studies), question generation 

(one study), and recall (one study). 

Standardized Tests

There are no reports on the use of standardized tests in 

abstracts of the question answering studies surveyed. 

Summary of Evaluation of Question 

Answering 

Instruction of question answering leads to an 

improvement in answering questions after reading 

passages and in strategies of finding answers. This 

improvement occurs in grades 3 through 8. The effects 

of this method, however, are small. 

Question Generation 

The goal of reading strategy instruction, in general, is to 

teach readers to become independent, active readers 

who use strategies that enhance their comprehension. 

One strategy that achieves this goal is question 

generation in which the reader learns to pose and 

answer questions about what is being read. Without 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-86 
Appendices 

TABLE 15 

QUESTION ANSWERING 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

Question-answering strategy 

instruction assists students learning 

from a text. A question focuses 

the student on particular content 

and can facilitate reasoning (e.g., 

answering why or how). 

In content questions, the 

information available in the text 

determines, in great part, the 

student's ability to answer the 

questions. Teaching students to 

look back in the text when they 

cannot answer a question 

facilitates their learning. 

Students can learn to discriminate 

questions that can be answered 

based on the text vs. those that 

are based on their own knowledge 

and require the generation of 

inferences or conclusions. 

Questions after the reading of a 

passage can lead to reprocessing 

of relevant text after the reader 

fails to answer the question. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Teachers ask students questions during or 

after reading passages of text. 

Teachers ask students to look back to 

find answers to questions that they 

cannot answer after one reading. 

Teachers ask students to analyze 

questions with respect to whether the 

question is tapping literal information 

covered in the text, information that can 

be inferred by combining information in 

the text, or information in the reader's 

prior knowledge base. 

Questions often come at the end of 

science and social studies or in 

workbooks to accompany texts. These 

may be used in question answering. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter Tests 

- Recall 

- Short answer questions 

- Look back in text to 

answer question 

training, young readers are not likely to question 

themselves. Nor are they likely to use questions 

spontaneously to make inferences. The assumption of 

question generation instruction is that readers will learn 

to engage text by making queries that lead to the 

construction of better memory representations. The 

goal is to teach students to make these self-questions 

while reading. If one asks why, how, when, where, 

which, and who kinds of questions, it is possible to 

integrate segments of text, to thereby improve reading 

comprehension and memory for what is read, and to 

gain a deeper understanding of the text. Question 

generation should also increase the reader’s awareness 

of whether the text is being understood. When the 

teacher is present, the reader’s creation of questions 

may signal success or failure in comprehension and 

prompt the teacher or the reader to attempt to 

compensate for comprehension failure. Finally, question 

generation has been studied in isolation or as a multiplestrategy instruction program such as reciprocal 

teaching. 

In the Panel’s search, it located a recent literature 

review on question generation by Rosenshine, Meister, 

and Chapman (1996). Rosenshine and his colleagues 

conducted a meta-analysis of 30 studies that instructed 

4-87 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

students how to generate questions during reading, 

either as a single strategy or in combination with other 

reading strategies. Of these, 11 studies used the 

“reciprocal teaching” method, and question generation 

was part of a set of two or more strategies that were 

taught. These studies were described in Table 10 

above. Nineteen additional studies reviewed by 

Rosenshine et al. (1996) investigated instruction of 

question generation alone or in combination with 

strategies not taught by reciprocal teaching methods. 

The Panel found 27 studies on question generation 

instruction. Table 16, on the following page, 

summarizes the rationale, procedures, and assessment 

of research studies on question generation instruction. 

Evaluation 

The main evaluation of question generation is based on 

the meta-analysis of Rosenshine, Meister, and Chapman 

(1996) who employed the same criteria as Rosenshine 

and Meister (1994) for selection of studies. 

Grade Level

The study of question generation instruction begins with 

grade 3 and has been carried out up to grade 9. The 

distribution of grade levels in this study of this kind of 

instruction is level 3, n = 3; level 4, n = 6; level 5, n = 4; 

level 6, n = 9; level 7, n = 4; level 8, n = 3; level 9, n = 2. 

The modal level is grade 6. 

Experimenter Tests

The respective effect sizes for multiple choice (n = 6), 

short-answer (n = 14), and summary (n = 3) measures 

were 0.95, 0.85, and 0.85. 

Standardized Tests

The median effect size for 13 studies that used 

standardized comprehension tests was 0.36. The 

median effect sizes for standardized vs. experimenter 

tests are reported in Table 17 (following Table 16), 

broken down by reciprocal teaching and other 

treatments. The magnitude of the median effect sizes in 

Table 17 is approximately the same as that found for 

reciprocal teaching of multiple strategies. There is an 

overlap of studies here so that the similarity is likely a 

result of common studies. It is of interest that although 

there is a positive effect size for standardized tests, only 

3 out of 13 are statistically significant. Experimenter 

tests fare better here because 16 out of 19 are 

statistically significant. Thus the effects of instruction of 

question generation are specific to learning the 

particular strategy and may not generalize to 

standardized tests. 

Summary Evaluation of 

Question Generation 

There is strong empirical and scientific evidence that 

instruction of question generation during reading 

benefits reading comprehension in terms of memory 

and answering questions based on text as well as 

integrating and identifying main ideas through 

summarization. There is mixed evidence that general 

reading comprehension improved on standardized 

comprehension tests. Question generation may be best 

used as a part of a multiple-strategy instruction 

program. 

Story Structure 

A story is “an imaginative tale shorter than a novel but 

with a plot, characters, and setting, as a short story.” A 

“story map” is “a time line showing the ordered 

sequence of events in a text” or “a semantic map 

showing the meaning of relationships between events or 

concepts in the text, regardless of their order.” (Harris 

& Hodges, 1995, pp. 243-244). Story structure refers to 

the finding in discourse analysis that the content of 

stories is systematically organized into episodes and that 

the plot of a story is a set of episodes. Knowledge of 

episodic content (setting, initiating events, internal 

reactions, goals, attempts, and outcomes) helps the 

reader understand the who, what, where, when, and 

why of stories as well as what happened and what was 

done. 

Story structure instruction is a method by which the 

teacher teaches the reader knowledge and procedures 

for identifying the content of the story and the way it is 

organized into a plot structure. In addition to learning 

the episodic content, the reader can learn to infer causal 

and other relationships between sentences that contain 

the content. This learning gives the reader knowledge 

and procedures for deeper understanding of stories and 

allows the reader to construct more coherent memory 

representations of what occurred in the story. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-88 
Appendices 

TABLE 16 

QUESTION GENERATION INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

The goal of question generation is 

to teach readers to become 

independent, active, selfquestioners. The assumption is that 

readers will learn more and 

construct better memory 

representation when self-questions 

are asked while reading. 

Integrative questions that capture 

large units of meaning should 

improve reading comprehension 

and memory of text by making 

readers more active while reading. 

Question generation is often a part 

of a multiple-strategy program 

such as reciprocal teaching. 

Question generation should 

increase students' awareness of 

whether they are comprehending 

text. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Teachers ask children to generate 

questions during the reading of a 

passage. The questions should integrate 

information across different parts of the 

passage. 

Teachers ask children to evaluate their 

questions about whether the questions 

covered important material, were 

integrative and could be answered based 

on what is in the text. 

Teachers provide feedback on the quality 

of the questions asked or assist students 

in answering the questions generated. 

Teachers teach the students to evaluate 

whether their questions covered 

important information, whether the 

questions were integrative, and whether 

they themselves could answer the 

questions. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter tests 

- Quality of questions 

generated 

- Question answering 

Standardized comprehension 

tests 

4-89 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 1 M7 EDIAN EFFECT SIZES FOR QUESTION GENERATIOn 

(DATA FROM ROSENSHINE, MEISTER, & CHAPMAN, 1996, APPENDIX D) 

RECIPROCAL 

TEACHING N = 11

STUDIES 

STANDARDIZED 

TESTS 

EXPERIMENTER 

TESTS 

Median Effect Size 0.34 (n = 6) 0.88 (n = 7) 

Number Significant 0 out of 6 7 of 7 

OTHER 

TREATMENTS 

Median Effect Size 0.35 (n = 7) 0.82 (n = 12) 

Number Significant 3 of 7 9 of 12 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-90 
Appendices 

TABLE 18 

STORY STRUCTURE INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND RATIONALE 

OF INSTRUCTION 

Instruction is aimed at teaching the 

student how stories and their plots 

are organized into episodes. 

Readers know a great deal about 

the content and structure of stories 

as a genre. However, training in

how stories and their plots are 

organized into episodes can aid a 

reader in understanding the who, 

what, where, when, and why of 

narratives. 

Stories often entail problems that 

are faced by people, and they 

provide a context in which students 

can learn about problemsolving by 

experiencing the lives of others. 

Asking and answering the questions 

of who, what, when, where, and 

why, as well as learning about 

problems and their solutions, are 

useful procedures that are transsituational and apply to stories as 

well as to real life. 

Knowing the structure of the story 

and its time, place, characters, 

problems, goals, solutions, and 

resolution facilitates comprehension 

and memory for stories. Stories 

constitute the bulk of the texts used 

in elementary school reading. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Teachers teach students to ask and 

answer five questions: 

1. Who is the main character? 

2. Where and when did the story occur? 

3. What did the main characters do? 

4. How did the story end? 

5. How did the main character feel? 

Students learn to identify the main 

characters of the story, where and when 

the story took place, what the main 

characters did, how the story ended, and 

how the main characters felt. 

Students learn to construct a story map 

recording the setting, problem, goal, 

action, and outcome over time. 

Students construct a story map while 

reading stories. Some mapping 

procedures require recording the setting, 

problem, goal, action, and outcome 

information. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter tests 

- Retell the story (recall) 

- Short-answer questions 

4-91 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

The Panel found 17 studies on story structure 

instruction. Table 18, which follows Table 17, 

summarizes the rationale, procedures, and assessment 

of research studies on story structure instruction. 

Evaluation 

Grade Level

Research on story structure instruction begins in grade 

3, n = 2, but increases in grade 4, n = 8 (four studies on 

poor readers). This trend continues into grade 5, n = 7 

(on poor readers), and grade 6, n = 2 (on poor readers). 

Experimenter Tests

The main kinds of tests used to evaluate experimental 

training on story structure are recall (n = 10 successes 

and 1 failure in grade 5 among normal readers), 

question answering on the stories (n = 8 successes, and 

1 failure in grade 5 among normal readers), and 

identifying the elements of a story structure (n = 5 

successes and 2 failures: 1 in grade 3 and 1 in grade 5, 

both with normal readers). All studies on poor readers 

report improvement on experimenter tests. 

Standardized Tests

Three studies report the use of standardized tests 

following training in story structure. There were two 

successes and one failure (grade 5, normal readers). 

Summary Evaluation of Story 

Structure Instruction 

Instruction in the content and organization of stories 

improves comprehension of stories as measured by the 

ability of the reader to answer questions and recall what 

was read. This improvement is more marked for less 

able readers. More able readers may already know 

what a story is about and therefore do not benefit as 

much from the training. However, this kind of 

instruction aids both kinds of readers. 

Summarization 

A summary is “a brief statement that contains the 

essential ideas of a longer passage or selection” (Harris 

& Hodges, 1995, p. 247). To be able to create a 

summary of what one has just read, one must discern 

the most central and important ideas in the text. One 

also must be able to generalize from examples or from 

things that are repeated. In addition, one has to ignore 

irrelevant details. 

The assumption in teaching students how to summarize 

what they read is that most students do not summarize 

well. The central aim of most summarization instruction 

is to teach the reader how to identify the main or 

central ideas of a paragraph or a series of paragraphs. 

Summarization training is effective. It can be 

transferred to situations requiring general reading 

comprehension, and it leads to improved written 

summaries. Summarization training can make students 

more aware of the way a text is structured and how 

ideas are related. If asked to summarize, students have 

to pay closer attention to the text while they read. They 

also learn to spend more time on reading and trying to 

understand what they read. In some instances, training 

increases the quality of students’ note taking and recall 

of major information (Rinehart, 1986). 

The Panel found 18 studies on summarization 

instruction. Table 19, on the following page, 

summarizes the rationale, procedures, and assessment 

of research studies on summarization instruction. 

Evaluation 

Grade Level

Summarization instruction studies are rare below grades 

5 and 6. Of those reporting information on grades 

studied, we found one level 3 and one level 4. There 

were four and nine studies on grades 5 and 6, 

respectively. There was one study at the high school 

level. Summarization often presupposes writing as well 

as reading skill. This may be one reason for its use for 

upper elementary school grades. 

Experimenter Tests

The majority of the studies reported improvement of the 

quality of summaries (n = 11). Other studies reported 

improved recall of what was summarized (n = 7) and 

improved question answering (n = 4). No negative 

findings were reported. 

Standardized Tests

Standardized tests were rarely used. Only two studies 

reported using them on 6th graders; one succeeded and 

the other failed in increasing comprehension. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-92 
Appendices 

TABLE 19 

SUMMARIZATION INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

The aim of summarization 

instruction is to teach the 

reader to identify the main or

central ideas of a paragraph 

or a series of paragraphs. 

To do so, the reader needs 

to use prior knowledge of 

the content of the text as 

well as knowledge of 

grammar. 

Furthermore, the reader has 

to make inferences that go 

across sentences and 

beyond the text. 

The reader must learn to 

generalize. Integrating text 

through main ideas leads to 

a more organized, succinct, 

and coherent memory 

representation of what was 

read. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Readers are taught to summarize 

paragraphs by rule application, mainly to 

 delete trivial and redundant information; 

to use superordinates; and to identify or 

generate a main idea. 

The reader is taught through example and 

feedback to apply any of five rules: 

1. Deletion of trivia 

2. Deletion of redundancy 

3. Superordination, which replaces a list 

of exemplars with a superordinate 

term 

4. Selection of a topic sentence to serve 

as a scaffold of the summary 

5. Invention of a topic sentence for a 

paragraph where one was not 

explicitly stated. 

Readers gain experience in summarizing 

single- or multiple-paragraph passages.

With multiple paragraphs, readers first 

summarize individual paragraphs and then 

construct a summary of summaries or a 

spatial organization of the paragraph 

summaries. 

ASSESSMENT 

Recall of expository or 

narrative text 

Question answering with 

open or multiple-choice 

answers 

4-93 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

Summary Evaluation of Summarization 

The instruction of summarization succeeds in that 

readers improve the quality of their summaries of text, 

mainly in identifying the main idea but also in leaving out 

detail, including ideas related to the main idea, 

generalizing, and removing redundancy. This result 

indicates that summarizing is a good method of 

integrating ideas and generalizing from the text 

information. Furthermore, instruction in summarization 

improves memory of what is read, both in free recall 

and in answering questions. This strategy of instruction 

is used as part of reciprocal teaching and other 

treatments that teach multiple strategies. It is an 

important component. 

Teacher Preparation for Text 

Comprehension Instruction 

Teachers have to learn how to teach reading 

comprehension strategies and procedures. Teachers 

can do this by becoming more aware of, and being 

prepared on, the procedures and processes of good 

comprehension of text. Teachers need to learn how to 

interact with students during the reading of a text to 

teach them reading comprehension strategies at the 

right time and right place. The goal of teacher 

preparation for text comprehension instruction is to 

provide teachers with opportunities to learn about the 

cognitive processes that occur in reading, how to 

instruct in comprehension strategies that can be utilized 

by the reader, how to teach strategies through 

demonstration and other techniques, how to explain 

them, how to allow the student to learn and use them in 

the context of reading a text, and how to use individual 

strategies in conjunction with several other reading 

comprehension strategies. 

Teacher preparation on strategy instruction is recent 

and rare. When teachers receive and implement 

training on strategy instruction, reading comprehension 

improves. The idea of the teacher as a modeler of 

thinking strategies and as a coach facilitating them is 

new. As a result, few teachers have received practical 

preparation in the teaching of cognitive strategy 

instruction (Anderson & Roit, 1993; Duffy, 1993). 

Four studies were found on teacher preparation 

instruction. Table 20, on the following page, summarizes 

the rationale, procedures, and assessment of these 

research studies. The next section of this report 

conveys a more detailed analysis of preparation of 

teachers in strategies, focusing on recent, successful 

programs that occur in natural reading contexts 

involving transactions among the reader, teacher, and 

text. 

Evaluation 

Grade Levels

Teachers were prepared to teach students multiple 

strategies for text comprehension from grades 2 

through 11. The distribution is fairly uniform over this 

range of grades. Of interest is the fact that all the 

studies, save one (Franklin, 1993), were carried out on 

“poor readers,” “disabled students,” or “low achievers.” 

Experimenter Tests

With respect to the teachers’ learning and faithfulness 

to the treatment, all six studies claim success. With 

respect to student benefits from the teachers who were 

prepared in instructing multiple reading strategies, two 

studies report improvement in the subject matter of the 

instruction. 

Standardized Tests

Two studies report success in improving performance 

on standardized comprehension tests. 

Summary Evaluation of Teacher 

Preparation to Teach Text Comprehension 

This is a very important area for study. To implement 

the teaching of reading strategies in naturalistic 

classroom environments, it is important to know how 

and whether teachers can be effectively prepared in 

instructional procedures. Furthermore, it is important to 

learn about time and other costs that are associated 

with such instruction. Finally, it is important to determine 

whether students as well as teachers learn and benefit 

from the teacher preparation. This small set of studies 

indicates that teachers can learn to implement 

comprehension strategy instruction in the classroom 

under natural teaching circumstances. It also suggests 

that students benefit from such instruction by prepared 

teachers. There is a need to carry out additional 

preparation studies of this kind with a wider range of 

readers. Normal readers, as well as others who are less 

skilled in reading, could benefit from implementation of 

the teaching of multiple reading comprehension 

strategies, not only in reading instruction but in content 

areas as well. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-94 
Appendices 

TABLE 20 

TEACHER PREPARATION ON COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

The aim of teacher 

preparation is to instruct 

teachers in teaching reading 

comprehension strategies in 

the classroom context and in

natural interaction with 

students. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Teachers undergo preparation in multiple 

strategies and explanation of strategies. 

Teachers are instructed in strategic 

 reading techniques and a collaborative 

transactional approach to reading 

informational texts. 

Teachers are prepared to make decisions 

and explain mental processing associated 

with reading skills as strategies. 

Self -evaluative workshops are often used

for learning and feedback. Teachers also 

learn from the use of transcripts of 

lessons, videos, and post-lesson 

interviews. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter tests Fidelity to 

treatment by teachers: 

- Do teachers learn and 

teach the strategies in 

which they were 

trained? 

- Videotape pre­ and

posttests 

- Reading sessions

Comprehension by students: 

- Do students learn and

practice the strategies 

taught? 

- Do students show gains in

reading comprehension? 

Awareness of lesson content 

Achievement in content 

learning 

Standardized reading tests 

4-95 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 21 

VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND RELATION TO COMPREHENSION 

DEFINITION AND 

RATIONALE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

The aim of vocabulary 

instruction is to use 

instruction and reciprocal 

teaching methods to teach 

strategies for discovering 

the meanings of unfamiliar 

words. 

Intensive vocabulary 

instruction is designed to 

promote word knowledge 

that will enhance text 

comprehension. 

PROCEDURES TAUGHT OR 

PRACTICED 

Teacher models being a "word detective," 

looking for contextual clues to find word 

meaning, a synonym, or an antonym by 

analyzing words and word parts and by 

looking at surrounding text description for 

clues to meaning. 

Teachers elaborate on word meanings and 

use them in diverse contexts, adding activities 

to extend use of learned words beyond the 

classroom. 

The learning tasks provide definitions, 

knowledge, fluent access to word meanings, 

context interpretation, and story 

comprehension. 

Students encounter words multiple times (16 

to 20), highlight and use vocabulary terms to 

generate inferences, complete sentence 

stems, generate contents or situations 

appropriate to target words, and fill in words 

that are missing in a Cloze procedure. 

ASSESSMENT 

Experimenter Tests 

- Word meanings 

- Cloze tests 

Standardized tests 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-96 
Appendices 

Vocabulary Instruction and Relation to 

Comprehension 

Vocabulary knowledge is correlated with reading 

comprehension (see the Comprehension I report). The 

rationale and procedures for teaching vocabulary are 

found in Beck, Perfetti, and McKeown (1982). 

The instruction of vocabulary and assessment of 

learning vocabulary with respect to comprehension can 

show whether this correlation is, in fact, causal. 

Although the first section of the subcommittee report 

shows that vocabulary can be acquired through 

instruction, few of those studies examined whether 

successful instruction of vocabulary leads to increased 

comprehension. Four studies were found on 

vocabulary-comprehension instruction. Table 21, which 

follows Table 20, summarizes the rationale, procedures, 

and assessment of research studies on vocabulary and 

its relation to comprehension instruction. 

Evaluation 

The Panel found two studies by McKeown (1983, 

1984) on teaching vocabulary that also assessed 

students on comprehension. These 4th grade students 

were tested on word meanings, Cloze procedures, and 

story comprehension. The author reports success in 

learning of the words and use of word meanings and in 

increased story comprehension. In addition, there is a 

study by Tomeson and Aarnouste (1998), who applied 

reciprocal teaching methods to teach vocabulary to 4th 

grade students. Students learned to derive word 

meanings from text, but transfer to more general 

reading comprehension as assessed by a Dutch 

standardized test was not successful. 

Summary Evaluation of Vocabulary 

Instruction and Relation to 

Comprehension 

More experimental studies on the relationship between 

learning vocabulary and reading comprehension are 

needed. There is a high correlation between vocabulary 

knowledge and comprehension. Is there a causal 

direction between learning vocabulary and improving 

reading comprehension? Furthermore, vocabulary 

learning is a part of normal content area learning. 

Instruction in vocabulary in content areas may lead to 

better reading and listening comprehension and to 

improvement in course achievement. This is a promising 

area of research because it bridges early reading skill 

development and later comprehension training. 

4-97 National Reading Panel 
Appendices 

Appendix B

This Appendix summarizes information on three 

questions: 

•	 What are the claims in the literature about the 

effectiveness of instruction on comprehension? 

•	 What grades have been studied? 

•	 What are some of the implications for instruction in 

the classroom? 

Table 22, on the following page, provides information 

on the 16 categories of instruction to answer these 

questions. For each category, there are sections that

describe the effects claimed by the researchers, the

grade levels that were studied, and ways in which the 

method might be taught in a classroom setting. 

4-99	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 22 

RELEVANCE OF INSTRUCTION NSTRUCTION 

TYPE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE 

LEVELS 

STUDIED 

HOW TAUGHT? 

Comprehension 

Monitoring 

Children can be taught to 

monitor their 

comprehension and 

become aware of when and 

where they are having 

difficulty during reading. 

They can learn procedures 

to assist them in 

overcoming the problem 

that they are having 

withunderstanding what 

they are reading. 

This training has specific 

and general transfer 

benefits. The main transfer 

is to improved detection of 

text inconsistencies and 

memory for the text and 

improved performance on 

standardized reading 

comprehension tests. 

2 to 6 Comprehension monitoring can be 

taught through teacher modeling of 

the process and practice by 

children in doing it during reading. 

Comprehension monitoring can be 

taught in natural reading contexts 

where children read aloud and 

have difficulty with word 

recognition or word and sentence 

meaning. 

Teachers can be trained on how to 

teach comprehension modeling 

either preservice or inservice. 

They can be taught how to think 

aloud and to communicate their 

own understanding processes to 

the students. 

The students can learn with 

feedback to look back or forward 

in the text and to use the text to 

find clues as to the meaning of 

words and sentences. 

Comprehension monitoring can be 

taught as a part of a larger 

program of reading strategies in 

interaction with the teacher in 

natural reading or content areas. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-100 
 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION NSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Appendices 

Cooperative Learning When students as peers 

tutor or instruct one another 

or interact over the use of 

reading strategies, the 

evidence is that they learn 

reading strategies. They 

engage in intellectual 

discussion, and they 

increase their reading 

comprehension. 

This procedure develops 

independent learning by 

children and frees the 

teacher for other activities 

and students. 

The students gain more 

control over their learning 

and social interaction with 

peers. 

The study of cooperative 

learning in natural reading 

contexts and as a part of a 

program of instruction that 

uses multiple strategies 

needs to be done. 

Teacher training studies on 

how to teach cooperative 

learning in natural reading 

contexts need to be done. 

3 to 6 Cooperative learning or peer 

tutoring can be developed in group 

reading situations where students 

work together to learn and use 

reading comprehension strategies. 

Cooperative learning can be a part 

of a natural reading program where 

peers as well as the teacher 

engage in a transaction over the 

meaning of a text in a content area 

or in reading instruction. 

Teachers can be trained on how to 

develop cooperative learning, 

either in experimental 

investigations, or in preservice or 

inservice development. 

4-101 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Curriculum The variation and 

complexity of curricula 

across these studies does 

not permit one to argue for 

the scientific support of a 

particular curriculum nor for 

the particular strategies 

added to the instruction 

Because the kinds of 

strategies added to a given 

curriculum works when 

studied in isolation or as a 

part of a set of multiple 

strategies, adding them to 

an existing reading 

curriculum or to content 

area curricula should 

enhance learning, 

comprehension, and course 

achievement. 

2 to 4 Teachers can be trained in 

instruction of a variety of 

strategies. They can learn to teach

these strategies in reading or 

content area instruction. 

Teacher preparation studies are 

needed to assess their fidelity to 

treatment and the effectiveness of 

the strategies as part of a 

curriculum. 

Fidelity of the students’ learning of 

the strategies needs to be assessed 

in natural reading or content area 

instruction 

The relationships of teacher 

preparation and student learning of 

strategies needs to be assessed in 

terms of general transfer to 

comprehension tests, but, more 

importantly, to improved content 

area achievement. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-102 
 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Appendices 

Graphic Organizer Teaching students to use 

external aids and writing to 

organize their ideas about 

what they are reading is a 

proven procedure that 

enhances comprehension 

for text. 

The use of systematic, 

visual or semantic graphs 

on the content of a passage 

benefits the student in terms 

of better memory for what 

was read. Furthermore,

this preparation, when done 

in Social Studies and 

Science content areas, 

facilitates memory and 

content area achievement. 

Teaching teachers to use 

graphic organizers has not 

been studied. 

The use of graphic 

organizers as a part of a 

reading instruction program 

has not been studied. 

2 to 8 Teachers could be trained to teach 

students how to graphically 

represent ideas and relations for 

either narrative or expository text 

while reading in either a natural 

reading or content area 

instructional context. 

Studies on teacher preparation and 

student learning, fidelity to 

treatment, and general 

comprehension effects of this 

procedure in natural contexts and 

as a part of a package of 

strategies needs to be studied. 

Teacher preparation on the use of 

this strategy could be done 

preservice or inservice. 

4-103 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Listening Instruction on learning to 

listen to others (teachers or 

peers) while reading may 

benefit readers’ 

comprehension in specific 

and in more general ways. 

The number of studies on 

listening is small, and 

listening’s effectiveness 

lacks a strong scientific 

base. 

Teaching teachers to teach 

students how to listen to 

the teacher and to peers 

who read orally needs to 

be studied further. 

It is likely that listening 

occurs informally as part of 

reading and content area 

instruction. 

1 to 6 Teachers can be trained to teach 

students listening skills when the 

teacher or peers read. The

teacher assesses comprehension 

through questioning. 

Fidelity to treatment of teachers 

and students needs to be assessed 

in studies of the effectiveness of 

instruction on listening during 

reading. 

Instruction on listening during 

reading could be added to 

instruction of a package of reading 

comprehension strategies in the 

teaching of reading or content area 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-104 
 

Appendices 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Mental Imagery Instructing readers to 

imagine what they are 

reading and coding what 

they imagine with a 

keyword cue facilitates 

readers’ memory what they 

have read. 

This method is useful for 

imagining the referents of 

individual sentences. 

This method seems to be 

limited to memory for 

particular sentences 

No studies on preparation 

of teachers or students on 

the use of imagery in 

reading or content areas 

have been done. 

2 to 8 The use of imagery is an easy 

strategy to teach. Teachers could

be trained to use it appropriately at 

sentences during the reading of 

text in natural reading or content 

areas. This method would actively

engage the reader to use mental 

processes that lead to good recall. 

Furthermore, it could be used 

during oral reading and listening 

because imagery is easier when 

listening than when reading. This

strategy could be added to a 

repertoire of strategies. 

4-105 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 22


RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)


TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? 

INSTRUCTION 

GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Mnemonic	 This method is similar to 

graphic organizers (Pressley 

et al., 1989). 

The use by students or 

teachers of keywords or 

concepts to organize main 

ideas and relationships or 

to generalize from instances 

can lead to better specific 

memory. 

The use of an external 

referent such as a picture 

has limited utility. 

8 

Its use in other 

grades has not 

been studied. 

It is similar to 

graphic organizers 

that have proven 

use in grades 

2 to 8. 

Teachers could be taught to use 

words as concepts or classes to 

help students organize ideas that 

are subordinate or related to main 

ideas. This teaching could be part 

of an instruction program in 

reading or in a content area. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-106 
 

Appendices 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Multiple Strategies There is very strong 

empirical, scientific 

evidence that the instruction 

of more than one strategies 

in a natural context leads to 

the acquisition and use of 

these reading strategies and 

transfers to standard 

comprehension tests. 

Preparation of teachers in 

the use of multiple 

strategies in interactive 

instruction has been 

successful (see Teacher 

Preparation below). 

3 to 8 Teachers can be trained in the use 

of multiple strategy instruction in 

natural reading or content areas. 

Current programs of transactional 

research are promising examples 

of this. 

Fidelity to treatment by both 

teachers and students is desired 

and should be studied. 

Studies need to be done on when, 

where, and how to implement 

strategy instruction in natural 

instructional contexts. 

Teachers could be trained on 

multiple reading strategy instruction 

in-service or pre-service. 

The instruction of multiple reading 

strategies should not be restricted 

to poor reader. 

4-107 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE 

LEVELS 

STUDIED 

HOW TAUGHT? 

edgelor KnowiPr The act ivation of relevant

wor ld knowledge helps

ch ildren understand and

remember what they read. 

The act ivation of prior

know ledge occurs naturally

i n contexts where subject

content is taught by the

teacher and readers then 

read text that re lates to

what has been learned.

It is not clear that this

procedure has to be 

exp licitly taught, especially

i n content areas.

2 to 6 Teacher teach content areas in a

var iety of ways which provide the

k ind of knowledge that readers

can later activate to understand the

current text. Prior knowledge

stud ies indicate that prior learning

or learning that precedes reading

enhances comprehens ion of what

i s read. In this sense, reading

about a sub ject after learning about

i t in other ways would be a part of

a program of instruction in a

content area. 

Research on how learning content

pr ior to reading about it and its

benef its needs to be studied.

Reports of the Subgroups 4-108 
 

Appendices 

TABLE 22


RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)


TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? 

INSTRUCTION 

GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Psycholinguistic	 Children may need some 

instruction in reading 

contexts to aid them in 

establishing who is being 

referred to by personal 

pronouns. Instruction 

apparently does work here. 

The lack of studies here 

suggests that much more 

training on syntactic and 

semantic relationships could 

be developed and 

researched for its 

effectiveness. 

4 

Its use in other 

grades has not 

been studied. 

Instruction on how 

to use knowledge 

of syntax, 

semantics, text 

properties, and 

text genre has not 

been done. 

Teachers might benefit from 

preparation in linguistic and 

discourse analyses and how to 

teach children how to deal with 

complexity of sentences and 

genres. This has been successfully 

done with stories as a genre (see 

Story Structure below). Children 

need more experience in early 

exposure to expository (nonnarrative texts) so that they can 

learn properties and strategies of 

coping with this kind of text. This 

is best done by earlier introduction 

to texts on Science and Social 

Studies. 

Teachers could teach children 

about understanding complexities 

of sentences and different genres 

by their adoption earlier in the 

reading and content area curricula. 

The teaching of understanding of 

these kinds of texts would involve 

the use of modeling of as well as 

sue of procedures for teaching 

other reading comprehension 

strategies. 

4-109	 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Question Generation There is strong empirical 

and scientific evidence that 

instruction of question 

generation during reading 

benefits reading 

comprehension in terms of 

memory and answering 

questions based upon text 

as well as integrating and 

identifying main ideas 

through summarization. 

There is mixed evidence 

that general reading 

comprehension is improved 

on standardized 

comprehension tests. 

Question Generation may 

be best used as a part of a 

multiple strategy instruction 

program. 

Question Generation 

enables the student to be 

actively involved in reading 

and to be motivated by his 

own queries rather than 

those of the teacher in 

question answering. 

3 to 9 Question generation should be part 

of a program of instruction of 

reading comprehension strategies 

in a natural reading or content area 

context. 

Teachers can be taught to ask 

readers to generate questions and 

to provide feedback in these 

contexts. Students can learn to

generate and find answers to their 

own questions. 

Fidelity to treatment by teachers 

and students needs to be assessed. 

The relation of successful learning 

needs to be related to content area 

achievement as well as 

standardized tests. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-110 
 

Appendices 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Question Answering Instruction of Question 

Answering leads to an 

improvement in answering 

questions after reading 

passages and in strategies 

of finding answers. 

3 to 8 Question asking by teachers and 

question answering by students is a 

part of natural reading and content 

area instruction. It should be

explicitly taught to teachers with 

the addition that they give 

feedback on answers and 

elaborate the feedback in the 

context of the text or content area 

being taught. 

Question asking and feedback on 

the content of the answer should 

be made a part of programs that 

give instruction of multiple reading 

comprehension strategies. 

Teacher and student preparation 

on question answering, feedback, 

and ways to find information that 

answer questions should be 

studied in natural instructional 

contexts on reading and content 

areas. 

Teachers could be trained inservice 

or preservice. 

4-111 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Story Structure The instruction of the 

content and organization of 

stories improves 

comprehension as 

measured by the ability of 

the reader to answer 

questions and recall what 

was read. 

This improvement is more 

marked for less able 

readers. More able

readers may already know 

what a story is about and 

therefore do not benefit as 

much from the preparation. 

However, this kind of 

instruction aids both kinds 

of readers. 

3 to 6 Teachers can be prepared to teach 

story structure through the use of 

questions and graphic organizers 

(story maps). They should not

teach story grammar categories 

per se but rather should focus on 

the characters, the settings, what 

happened, how characters felt, 

what they thought, what they 

wanted to do, what they did, and 

how things turned out. 

When the reading material is 

narrative, question answering and 

generation strategies can be used 

by teachers to draw out the 

content and organization of stories 

crucial to the student building a 

representation of the episodic 

structure and causal relationships. 

The use of questions to learn story 

structure can be a part of a 

program of instruction of 

comprehension strategies in natural 

reading or content areas. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-112 
 

Appendices 

TABLE 22

RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)

TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

INSTRUCTION LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Summarization The instruction of 

summarization succeeds in 

that readers improve on the 

quality of their summaries 

of text, mainly identifying 

the main idea but also in 

leaving out detail, including 

ideas related to the main 

idea, generalizing, and 

removing redundancy. 

Summarizing is a good 

method of integrating ideas 

and generalizing from the 

text information. 

Instruction of summarization 

improves memory for what 

is read, both in terms of 

free recall and answering 

questions. 

This strategy instruction has 

been used as a part of 

reciprocal teaching and 

other treatments that teach 

multiple strategies. It is an 

important component. 

3 to 6 Rules and procedures for the 

summarization of single and 

multiple passages can be taught to 

teachers either inservice or 

preservice. 

It is an important strategy for 

integration and generalization of 

information found in a text. 

It is an integral part of multiple 

strategy instruction and has been 

widely implemented and studied. 

4-113 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction 

TABLE 22


RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)


TYPE OF 

INSTRUCTION 

HOW EFFECTIVE? GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Teacher Preparation This is a very important 

area for study. In order to 

implement the teaching of 

reading strategies in 

naturalistic classroom 

environments, it is important 

to know how and whether 

teachers can be effectively 

prepared in the instructional 

procedures. 

Further, it is important to
 

learn about the time and
 

other costs that are
 

associated with such
 

instruction.
 

Finally, it is important to
 

determine whether the
 

students as well as the
 

teachers learn and benefit
 

from the teacher
 

preparation.
 

The small set of studies on 

teacher preparation indicate 

that teachers can learn to 

implement multiple 

comprehension strategy 

instruction in the classroom 

under natural teaching 

circumstances. 

The research also suggests 

that students benefit from 

such instruction by 

prepared teachers. 

2 to 11 

Mostly on poor 

readers. There is a 

need for studies on 

normal and above 

average readers. 

There is a need to carry out further 

preparation studies of this kind and 

on a wider range of readers in 

natural reading and content area 

instruction. 

These preparation studies should 

focus on the implementation of the 

teaching of several kinds of reading 

comprehension strategies that have 

been proven singly or multiply in 

scientific studies. This 

implementation should be done in 

natural occurring contexts, 

especially in content areas. 

Normal readers as well as others 

who are less skilled in reading 

could benefit from implementation 

of the teaching of multiple reading 

comprehension strategies, not only 

in reading instruction, but in 

content areas as well. 

Fidelity to treatment by teachers 

and students needs to be assessed. 

The relation of successful learning 

and teaching by teachers and of 

successful learning and use of 

strategies to content area 

achievement needs to be assessed 

rather than transfer to general 

reading comprehension tests. 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-114 
 

Appendices 

TABLE 22


RELEVANCEOF INSTRUCTION (CONTINUED)


TYPE OF HOW EFFECTIVE? 

INSTRUCTION 

GRADE HOW TAUGHT? 

LEVELS 

STUDIED 

Vocabulary-	

Comprehension	 

Three studies on instruction 

report increased word 

meaning and improvements 

on experimenter tests of 

story comprehension or 

standardized 

comprehension tests. 

4 

(see initial section 

of report on 

Vocabulary 

Instruction for a 

wider range of 

grades) 

Teachers can be prepared to teach 

word meanings and strategies to 

create them while reading. 

Students can learn vocabulary 

through instruction of word 

meanings in the context of reading 

instruction or content area 

instruction. 

Basic and classroom research on 

vocabulary instruction, its 

effectiveness and its relationship to 

reading comprehension is needed. 

4-115	 National Reading Panel 

Report

COMPREHENSION III 

Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Introduction 

The purpose of this subreport is to review what is 

currently the most promising research direction in the 

area: the preparation of teachers to deliver 

comprehension instruction. If further research in this 

direction is pursued, it is likely to lead to progress in our 

understanding of reading comprehension instruction, and 

it will also contribute to the general area of teacher 

preparation. 

Background 

Reading comprehension strategy instruction has been a 

major research topic for more than 20 years. The idea 

behind this approach to instruction is that reading 

comprehension can be improved by teaching students to 

use specific cognitive strategies or to reason 

strategically when they encounter barriers to 

comprehension as they read. The earliest work in this 

area used a “direct instruction” model, in which 

teachers taught a specific strategy or set of strategies 

to students. The goal of such training was, as it always 

is, the achievement of competent and self-regulated 

reading. 

At first, investigators focused on teaching students one 

strategy at a time. A wide variety of strategies was 

studied, including imagery, question-generating, 

prediction, and a host of others. In this approach, 

teachers usually modeled the cognitive strategies in 

question, often by “thinking aloud” as they read to 

demonstrate what proficient readers do. The approach 

also involved guided practice in which students were led 

to the point where they were able to perform 

independently, via a gradual reduction of scaffolding. 

This type of instruction was effective in helping 

students acquire the strategy, and usually there was 

some evidence that the use of the strategy improved 

performance on reading comprehension tasks. In later 

studies, several strategies were taught in combination, 

and these studies showed similar effects. 

Recommendations to use particular combinations of 

strategies in actual teaching situations became common. 

There are many additional questions that might be 

asked of the existing literature on single- and multiplestrategy instruction, and many loose ends that could be 

tied up. For example, few of the existing studies 

address issues of long-term maintenance of strategy 

use. Effects of strategy instruction on real reading tasks 

(e.g., reading connected text) are not well delineated, 

and there is little evidence on the issues that one 

typically pursues after the initial experimental forays 

into a topic, for example, the optimal age for training, 

how long training should last, and so on. 

However, the pursuit of these sorts of detail questions 

within the context of the work already done might not 

be the most productive focus for future research 

because implementation of the direct instruction 

approach to cognitive strategy instruction in the context 

of the actual classroom has proved problematic. For 

one thing, it is often difficult to communicate what is 

meant by “teaching strategies and not skills.” Several 

papers have been written whose purpose is to explicate 

exactly how teachers are taught to become teachers of 

comprehension strategies, and it appears that no small 

part of the challenge of training teachers comes from 

the difficulty of describing what is required of them. In 

addition, acquiring and practicing individual strategies in 

isolation and then attempting to provide transfer 

opportunities during the reading of connected text 

makes for rigid and awkward instruction. 

Proficient reading involves much more than utilizing 

individual strategies; it involves a constant, ongoing 

adaptation of many cognitive processes. To help 

develop these processes in their students, teachers must 

be skillful in their instruction. Indeed, successful 

teachers of reading comprehension must respond 

flexibly and opportunistically to students’ needs for 

instructive feedback as they read. To be able to do this, 

teachers themselves must have a firm grasp not only of 

the strategies that they are teaching the children but 

also of instructional strategies that they can employ to 

achieve their goal. Many teachers find this type of 

teaching a challenge, most likely because they have not 

been prepared to do such teaching. Thus, although the 

4-119 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

literature on cognitive strategy instruction for reading 

comprehension has yielded valuable information, it has 

not provided a satisfactory model for effective 

instruction as it occurs in the classroom. 

The area within comprehension strategy instruction that 

currently seems to have the most potential for moving 

the field along is teacher preparation. In this report, the 

NRP discusses four studies in which teachers are 

trained to teach strategies and in which the focus is the 

effectiveness of that training on students’ reading. Four 

studies is not a large number; but it is not surprising that 

only a few relevant studies have been done. Interest in 

the topic is rather new, and preparing teachers to 

deliver effective strategy instruction is a lengthy 

process. 

Methodology 

Database 

The NRP searched the ERIC and PsycINFO 

databases to locate relevant studies conducted since 

1980. The search terms used were “comprehension,” 

“strategy,” and “instruction.” There were 453 articles. 

In addition, the Panel searched using the terms “direct 

explanation” and “teacher explanation”; this added 182 

nonoverlapping items. Recent research reviews were 

also examined: Lysynchuk, Pressley, d’Ailly, Smith, and 

Cake (1989), Pressley (1998), Rosenshine and Meister 

(1994), and Rosenshine, Meister, and Chapman (1996); 

these reviews did not identify any relevant studies that 

the searches had not revealed. 

Analysis 

To be included, a study had to be 

•	 Focused on the preparation of teachers for 

conducting reading comprehension strategy 

instruction. 

•	 Published in a scientific journal. 

•	 Empirical. 

•	 Experimental using random assignment or quasiexperimental with initial matching on the basis of 

reading comprehension scores. 

•	 Comprehensive in reporting the complete set of 

results of the study. (Ancillary articles that focused 

on specific aspects of the same database were not 

included but are listed in the References.) 

Four studies met these criteria. A detailed outline of 

each of the selected studies, organized to permit 

comparison across studies, is presented in Appendix A. 

Our Panel subcommittee reviewed the research in 

reading comprehension instruction broadly and also 

selected certain specific topics for a deeper focus, e.g., 

vocabulary and teacher preparation for teaching reading 

comprehension strategies. It should be noted that there 

are other relevant aspects of comprehension instruction, 

for example, instruction in listening comprehension and 

in writing, that were not addressed. In addition, the 

Panel subcommittee did not focus on special populations 

such as children whose first language is not English and 

children with learning disabilities. It did not review the 

research evidence concerning special populations and 

thus cannot say that its conclusions are relevant to 

them. 

Consistency With the Methodology of the 

National Reading Panel 

The methods of the NRP were followed in the conduct 

of the literature searches and the examination and 

coding of the articles obtained. A formal meta-analysis 

was not possible because of the small number of studies 

identified. However, comprehensive summaries 

according to NRP guidelines for each of the four 

studies appears in Appendix B. 

Results 

The results of the selected studies suggest that, in fact, 

good teacher preparation can result in the delivery of 

instruction that leads to improvements in students’ 

reading comprehension. However, the variations among 

the four studies to be discussed here raise questions 

about what the best approach to teaching teachers to do 

strategy instruction might be. 

There have been two major approaches to 

comprehension strategy instruction: Direct Explanation 

(DE) and Transactional Strategy Instruction (TSI). Two 

studies that represent each approach are described. 

Direct Explanation 

The Direct Explanation approach was designed to 

improve on the standard direct instruction approach to 

strategy instruction used in most of the early studies, in 

which students are simply taught to use one or several 

strategies as described above. Arguing that direct 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-120 
Report 

instruction was insufficient because it did not attempt to 

provide students with an understanding of the reasoning 

and mental processes involved in reading strategically, 

Duffy, Roehler, and colleagues (1986) developed the 

DE approach. In this approach, teachers do not teach 

individual strategies but focus instead on helping 

students to (1) view reading as a problem-solving task 

that necessitates the use of strategic thinking and 

(2) learn to think strategically about solving reading 

comprehension problems. The focus in DE is on 

developing teachers’ ability to explain the reasoning and 

mental processes involved in successful reading 

comprehension in an explicit manner, hence the use of 

the term “direct explanation.” The implementation of 

DE requires specific and intensive teacher training on 

how to teach the traditional reading comprehension 

skills found in basal readers as strategies, for example, 

to teach students the skill of how to find the main idea 

by casting it as a problem-solving task and reasoning 

about it strategically. 

Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., Meloth, M. S., 

Vavrus, L. G., Book, C., Putnam, J., & 

Wesselman, R. (1986). The relationship 

between explicit verbal explanations during 

reading skill instruction and student awareness 

and achievement: A study of reading teacher 

effects. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(3), 

237-252. 

The first study done by Duffy and Roehler’s research 

team investigated whether training teachers to be 

explicit in their teaching of reading strategies would be 

effective in increasing the explicitness of their verbal 

explanations and whether this explicitness would be 

related to students’ meta-cognitive awareness of 

strategies and to their achievement. Twenty-two 

teachers were randomly assigned to either the 

treatment or the control condition. Treatment teachers 

were trained to use an explanation model that was 

designed to help them explain reading strategies 

explicitly to their 5th grade students in low-level reading 

groups. After an initial training session, the treatment 

teachers received 10 hours of additional training spaced 

throughout the school year. During these training 

sessions, the explanation model was described, and 

teachers designed lessons according to the model. Their 

teaching was observed and discussed on four 

occasions. Control teachers participated in a workshop 

on classroom management at the start of the study and 

received no further training. The results of this study 

indicated that students of teachers who received 

training in the use of the explanation model had 

significantly greater awareness of (1) what strategies 

were taught, (2) why they are important, and (3) how 

they are used than did students of the comparison 

teachers. 

The Duffy et al. (1986) study thus demonstrated the 

effectiveness of training teachers, and it showed that 

explicit explanations by teachers can lead to greater 

general awareness among students of reading 

strategies. However, the question of the extent to which 

students were able to apply these strategies and ways 

of thinking to their actual reading practice, that is, 

whether the use of such methods leads to significant 

improvements in reading comprehension performance, 

was not answered positively. The treatment and the 

comparison classrooms did not differ on the posttest 

administration of the comprehension subtest of the 

Gates-MacGinitie Test. 

Duffy and colleagues (1986) did find, however, 

that students of the treatment teachers spent 

significantly more time answering the items on 

the comprehension test than did the other 

students. This suggested to them that perhaps 

these students were being more thoughtful and 

strategic in their reading. 

There is little point in adapting new teaching methods if 

they are not shown to be effective in improving actual 

performance. Thus, the 1986 study by Duffy and 

colleagues cannot be considered conclusive about the 

value of training teachers to provide explicit 

explanations about how to read strategically. However, 

the results were promising enough to persuade the 

same research team to undertake another study, similar 

to this one in many respects, but incorporating a more 

elaborate program of teacher preparation. 

Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., Sivan, E., 

Rackliffe, G., Book, C., Meloth, M. S., Vavrus, 

L. G., Wesselman, R., Putnam, J., & Bassiri, 

D. (1987). Effects of explaining the reasoning 

associated with using reading strategies. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 23(3), 347-368. 

4-121 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

In a 1987 study (Duffy et al.), as in the Duffy and 

colleagues 1986 study, there was random assignment of 

teachers to condition. Treatment teachers were shown 

how to provide explicit explanations, in this case to 3rd 

grade low-level reading students. In addition, the 

teachers were trained to analyze the skills prescribed in 

their basal reading texts and to recast these skills as 

problem-solving strategies. In essence, the emphasis in 

this study was on the effects of training teachers to 

provide students with explicit descriptive information 

about the types of reasoning and mental processes that 

are used strategically by skilled readers, as opposed to 

simple prescriptions of how to perform the basal text 

skills. Included in the 12 hours of training were one-onone coaching, collaborative sharing among the teachers, 

observation of lessons and feedback, and videotaped 

model lessons. Comparison teachers were trained in 

classroom management and used management 

principles throughout the study. 

The effectiveness of this approach was measured in 

terms of both student awareness and student 

achievement. Student awareness of strategic reasoning 

was assessed in interviews conducted both immediately 

following lessons and at the end of the yearlong 

treatment. As in the Duffy and colleagues (1986) study, 

the results indicated that, compared with students of 

untrained teachers, the students of trained teachers had 

higher levels of awareness of specific reading 

strategies, as well as a greater awareness of the need 

to be strategic when reading. 

The fact that students have high awareness of the 

reasoning associated with strategic reading does not 

necessarily mean that they are proficient in using such 

strategies and better in reading comprehension. Duffy 

et al. (1987) designed an achievement measure to 

assess both students’ ability to use the basal skills they 

had been taught and the degree to which their 

responses reflected the reasoning associated with using 

skills as strategies. Results indicated that there was no 

difference between students of treatment and control 

teachers in the ability to use the skills. However, the 

students of treatment teachers were found to have a 

greater ability to reason strategically when reading. 

Results on a task involving paragraph reading also 

indicated that students of treatment teachers 

(1) reported that they used such reasoning when 

actually reading connected text, and (2) described the 

reasoning employed when using the strategies. In 

contrast, students of control teachers were unable 

to do so. 

The 1987 study also used standardized measures to 

assess students’ reading performance. The 

comprehension and word skills subtests of the Stanford 

Achievement Test (SAT) were used. Overall, students 

of the treatment teachers outperformed the others on 

the posttest. This difference was significant for the 

word skills subtest but was not significant for the 

comprehension subtest. A second standardized test, the 

Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), 

was administered as a delayed posttest, to assess 

whether the overall advantage of students of treatment 

teachers persisted over time. It was found that even 5 

months after the instruction ended, students of the 

trained teachers had significantly higher reading scores 

than students of the control teachers. 

The results of these two investigations of the DE 

approach to comprehension strategy instruction suggest 

that although this approach is clearly useful for 

increasing student awareness of the need to think 

strategically while reading, the effects on actual reading 

comprehension ability are less clearcut. As noted 

above, both of the Duffy and colleagues studies 

produced only mixed results on the standardized 

measures of reading performance. It should be noted, 

however, that the 1987 study reported that many of 

their lessons were oriented toward acquisition of wordlevel processes and not to what are usually considered 

comprehension processes. 

Transactional Strategy Instruction 

The TSI approach includes the same key elements as 

the DE approach, but it takes a somewhat different 

view of the role of the teacher in strategy instruction. 

Whereas emphasis in DE is on teachers’ ability to 

provide explicit explanations, the TSI approach focuses 

not only on that but also on the ability of teachers to 

facilitate discussions in which students (1) collaborate to 

form joint interpretations of text and (2) explicitly 

discuss the mental processes and cognitive strategies 

that are involved in comprehension. In other words, 

although TSI teachers do provide their students with 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-122 
 

 

Report 

explicit explanations of strategic mental processes used 

in reading, the emphasis is on the interactive exchange 

among learners in the classroom, hence use of the term 

“transactional.” 

In both DE and TSI, teachers explain specific strategies 

to students and model the reasoning associated with 

their use. Both approaches include the use of 

systematic practice of new skills, as well as scaffolded 

support, in which teachers gradually withdraw the 

amount of assistance they offer to students. Perhaps 

the most salient distinction to be made between DE and 

TSI is the manner in which the different emphases of 

the two approaches (explanation vs. discussion) result 

in differences in the level of collaboration among 

students that takes place in each approach. In the DE 

approach, strategy instruction is primarily conducted by 

the teacher. In contrast, the TSI approach is more 

collaborative: Although explicit teacher explanation is an 

important part of this approach, TSI is designed for 

learning to occur primarily through the interactive 

transactions among the students during classroom 

discussion. 

Anderson, V. (1992). A teacher development 

project in transactional strategy instruction for 

teachers of severely reading-disabled 

adolescents. Teaching and Teacher Education, 

8(4) 391-403. 

Anderson (1992) worked with experienced teachers of 

severely reading-disabled adolescent students. The 

students ranged from grades 6 through 11, but threequarters of them had incoming reading levels of grade 3 

or below. The teachers were randomly assigned to a 

treatment or control condition. The nine treatment 

teachers received three 3-hour sessions of training in 

the use of the TSI approach, held at intervals during the 

period during which the actual reading intervention with 

the students was going on. Special features of 

Anderson’s teacher preparation included (1) the 

involvement of the teachers as coresearchers who 

were part of the development of the project and (2) the 

availability of a previously trained peer coach for each 

teacher throughout the project. 

In their training, the teachers were given a list of 

changes, or “shifts,” that need to be made in most 

classrooms for more active reading to be fostered. This 

list of 20 teacher shifts and 12 student shifts first 

described ways in which teachers and students typically 

behave during remedial reading instruction and then 

described contrasting behaviors that characterize or 

promote active reading. The teachers were also given a 

set of principles for fostering active reading through 

reading instruction with specific teaching techniques for 

each principle. Each treatment teacher was also 

assigned a previously trained teacher for peer support. 

There were seven comparison teachers, who received 

no training. 

In the intervention, both teacher groups taught reading 

comprehension for 3 months, using expository texts. 

The instruction in treatment classrooms emphasized 

both direct explanation and collaborative discussion. To 

evaluate the effects of the TSI approach, the phonics, 

structural analysis, and reading comprehension subtests 

of the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test were 

administered. There was no difference from pretest to 

posttest in the performance of students of the trained 

and untrained teachers on the phonics and structural 

analysis subtests. However, significantly more students 

of the trained teachers (80%) made gains on the 

reading comprehension subtest than did students of the 

other teachers (50%), suggesting that preparation given 

the teachers was effective in improving reading 

comprehension performance. The amount of gain was 

not reported. 

Brown, R., Pressley, M., Van Meter, P., & 

Schuder, T. (1996). A quasi-experimental 

validation of transactional strategies instruction 

with low-achieving second-grade readers. 

Journal of Educational Psychology, 88(1), 

18-37. 

Over the past decade, Pressley and associates have 

developed a transactional strategy instruction program 

called Students Achieving Independent Learning 

(SAIL). In SAIL, reading processes are taught as 

strategies through direct explanation, teacher modeling, 

coaching, and scaffolded practice. An important feature 

of the program is its emphasis on collaborative 

discussion among teacher and students, including 

extended interpretive discussions of text, with these 

discussions emphasizing student application of 

strategies. A goal of the SAIL program is for students 

to develop more personalized and integrative 

understanding of text. 

4-123 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

A yearlong study by Brown, Pressley, Van Meter, and 

Schuder (1996) provides evidence of the effectiveness 

of the TSI approach as exemplified by the SAIL 

program. In this study, SAIL was contrasted with a 

more traditional approach to reading instruction. There 

was no specific teacher preparation within the context 

of this study; the five SAIL teachers had all been 

previously trained and had at least 3 years of 

experience as SAIL teachers. The five comparison 

teachers had even more years of teaching experience 

than the SAIL teachers had, but they had no SAIL 

training. The students in this study were in 2nd grade; 

all were reading below grade level at the beginning of 

the study. 

The SAIL teachers and comparison teachers were 

matched on a variety of measures to form five pairs. In 

each pair of classrooms, data were collected on six 

low-achieving students from each classroom who were 

matched on the basis of their reading comprehension 

scores. Thus, Brown and colleagues (1996) did the 

careful matching required when doing a quasiexperiment. 

Students’ strategy awareness was assessed through 

interviews. Students of SAIL teachers reported more 

awareness of comprehension and word-level strategies 

than did students of comparison teachers 

(operationalized as the number of strategies they 

claimed to use during reading). In an evaluation of story 

recall, the SAIL students did better on literal recall of 

story content and also were more interpretive in their 

recalls. On a think-aloud task, SAIL students used more 

strategies on their own than did the other students. 

Student reading achievement was also assessed, using 

the comprehension and word skills subtests of the 

Stanford Achievement Test. Over the course of the 

study, students of the SAIL teachers showed greater 

improvement than the students of the other teachers, 

and at posttest, they significantly outperformed the 

others on both subtests. 

Discussion 

Every one of these studies reported significant 

differences, and although none of them reported effect 

sizes, they provided enough information so that effect 

sizes could be calculated for most of the effects. The 

effect sizes were substantial, suggesting that these 

initial attempts to provide effective instruction for 

teachers in reading comprehension strategy training are 

promising and worth following up. 

It is encouraging to see that random assignment is 

indeed feasible in these real-life classroom situations. 

This statement is not intended as a criticism of Brown 

and colleagues’ quasi-experiment, which was done 

carefully and which, in fact, posed a question that could 

not be tested in a true experiment: What is the effect of 

a particular model of instruction (TSI) delivered by 

teachers experienced and committed to it, working in 

the context of schools also committed to that approach? 

This is an important question. But most of the relevant 

research questions do not demand a quasi-experimental 

design, and therefore a much better choice would be a 

true experiment. Sometimes researchers argue that 

school administrators refuse to allow random 

assignment because it disrupts their schools. Perhaps 

researchers should make serious and sincere efforts to 

find schools that will cooperate, because they do exist; 

and researchers should also help the field by making an 

effort to educate school administrators about random 

assignment and other important design standards. 

These comments should not be taken as implying that it 

is easy to do classroom-based naturalistic studies of the 

type discussed here. It is difficult, and the difficulty 

should not be minimized. Such research cannot be 

undertaken without substantial funding and adequate 

institutional support. It also requires collaboration among 

researchers; school personnel, including both teachers 

and administrators; and parents, which does not come 

about quickly—it requires time and effort. And doing 

this type of research takes commitment and energy. 

The research team must remain motivated and 

effective during a lengthy developmental phase and 

then during the study itself. Moreover, a high-quality 

study of this type has probably been preceded by 

descriptive and correlational work. The emphasis on the 

importance of experimental studies should not be 

interpreted as negating the valuable contributions of 

these other research paradigms in preparing to do 

intervention research. 

Of course, any evaluation of these instructional 

approaches is limited by the fact that these studies 

cannot easily be compared. They differed in terms of 

specific purpose, teacher preparation method, 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-124 
Report 

intervention, type of student (age, reading level, etc.), 

control group, and other characteristics. Nevertheless, 

taken together, the studies do indicate that instructional 

methods that generate high levels of student 

involvement and engagement during reading can have 

positive effects on reading comprehension. The 

classroom procedures in each of the studies required 

substantial cognitive activity on the part of the students. 

Also, these studies demonstrate that providing teachers 

with instruction that helps them use such methods leads 

to students’ awareness of strategies and use of 

strategies, which can in turn lead to improved reading 

comprehension. 

These findings beg the question as to what it is, in fact, 

that makes for effective strategy instruction. Is it the 

teacher preparation? (If so, how extensive does it have 

to be? Would the teachers maintain their instructional 

effectiveness without the supports inherent in an 

ongoing study?) Is it the use of direct explanation and/or 

collaborative discussion when teaching students? Is it 

the particular strategies that are taught, or would a 

broader repertoire of instructional activities also be 

effective? Is it a combination of some or all of these 

possibilities or of other factors not mentioned here? 

Clearly, more research is warranted on this topic. In 

light of the findings to date, one can expect that further 

work in this area will yield valuable knowledge 

concerning optimal conditions for improvement in 

reading comprehension. 

Thus, the results of the research to date represent 

significant progress in our understanding of the nature 

of reading comprehension and of how to teach it. There 

is much more to learn, of course. What we must 

remember is that reading comprehension is extremely 

complex and that teaching reading comprehension is 

also extremely complex. The work of the researchers 

discussed here makes this clear. They have not 

recommended an “instructional package” that can be 

prescribed for all students. They have not identified a 

specific set of instructional procedures that teachers 

can follow routinely. Indeed, they have found that 

reading comprehension instruction cannot be routinized. 

What they have shown, and this is an important new 

direction in which to take our research efforts, is that 

intensive instruction of teachers can prepare them to 

teach reading comprehension strategically and that such 

teaching can lead students to greater awareness of 

what it means to be a strategic reader and to the goal of 

improved comprehension. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

General guidelines for teachers that derive from the 

research evidence on comprehension instruction with 

normal children include the suggestions that teachers 

help students by explaining fully what it is they are 

teaching: what to do, why, how, and when; by modeling 

their own thinking processes; by encouraging students 

to ask questions and discuss possible answers among 

themselves; and by keeping students engaged in their 

reading via providing tasks that demand active 

involvement. 

The current dearth of comprehension instruction 

research at the primary grade level should not lead to 

the conclusion that such instruction should be neglected 

during the important period when children are mastering 

phonics and word recognition and developing reading 

fluency. 

In evaluating the effectiveness of strategy instruction in 

the classroom, the primary focus must be not on the 

students’ performance of the strategies themselves. 

The appropriate assessment is of the students’ reading 

achievement and, in addition, other outcome measures 

such as how interested students are in reading and how 

satisfied teachers are with their instructional methods. 

Implementation of effective comprehension instruction 

is not a simple matter; substantial teacher preparation is 

usually required for teachers to become successful at 

teaching comprehension. 

There is a need for greater emphasis in teacher 

education on the teaching of reading comprehension. 

Such instruction should begin at the preservice level, 

and it should be extensive, especially with respect to 

teaching teachers how to teach comprehension 

strategies. 

4-125 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Conclusions From the Research on 

Comprehension Instruction 

1.	 The most active topic in the research on 

comprehension instruction over the last few years 

has been comprehension strategies instruction with 

normal children. 

2.	 Teaching strategies for reading comprehension in 

normal children leads to increased awareness and 

use of the strategies, improved performance on 

commonly used comprehension measures, and, 

sometimes, higher scores on standardized tests of 

reading. 

3.	 For further progress to be made, research is needed 

that focuses on ways that strategies can be taught 

within the natural setting of the classroom and for 

both normal children and those with reading 

difficulties. Work of this type is enhanced when 

cognitive researchers collaborate with researchers 

knowledgeable about teacher education. 

Conclusions From the Research on Teacher 

Preparation and Comprehension Strategies 

1.	 Teachers can be taught to teach comprehension 

strategies effectively; after such instruction, their 

proficiency is greater, and this leads to improved 

performance on the part of their students on 

awareness and use of the strategies, to improved 

performance on commonly used comprehension 

measures, and, sometimes, higher scores on 

standardized tests of reading. 

2.	 Teaching comprehension strategies effectively in 

the natural setting of the classroom involves a level 

of proficiency and flexibility that often requires 

substantial and intensive teacher preparation. 

Directions for Further Research 

Research evidence suggests that further work in the 

area of comprehension instruction, on the topic of 

strategy instruction as well as on other topics, will lead 

to even more progress. Following is a list of issues that 

deserve further consideration. 

1.	 Our understanding of the complex construct of 

reading comprehension has been expanded and 

refined in our recent research, but the construct is 

still not completely understood. Studies incorporate 

a large variety of heterogeneous measures derived 

from tasks ranging from those requiring simple 

recognition and recall, through making inferences, 

to using text information in solving problems and 

performing other complex tasks. There is no “map” 

of the construct that investigates relationships 

among the various methods of defining and 

measuring comprehension and that determines 

which measures are optimal for evaluating 

performance in research studies and in assessing 

student achievement in the school context. 

2.	 Many investigators do not describe fully all 

important aspects of their studies—the reader, the 

text and other materials, the task, and the teacher 

(see Methodology in Chapter 1 of this volume). An 

excellent discussion of methodological and reporting 

standards to ensure high-quality studies is available 

in Lysynchuk, Pressley, d’Ailly, Smith, and Cake 

(1989). 

3.	 A variety of methodologies, including descriptive 

and correlational procedures, will contribute to our 

knowledge, but intervention research requires 

experimental studies, using wherever possible a true 

experimental design, that is, random assignment. 

Quasi-experiments are acceptable when the 

specific purpose of the study demands such a 

design but not when done simply for convenience or 

ease of implementation. 

4.	 The relationship of comprehension to word-level 

processes and fluency has not been well 

investigated. 

5.	 It will be important to know the effects of 

interventions aimed at increasing motivation. 

6.	 Research should extend to students at the 

secondary level as well as to children with reading 

difficulties. Study skills instruction traditionally given 

to normally achieving and above-average students 

should be compared to the newer cognitive strategy 

instruction. 

7.	 There is little research at the K to 2nd grade level 

on teaching reading comprehension. One important 

topic at this level is the relationship between 

listening comprehension and reading 

comprehension. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-126 
Report 

8.	 The research base is scanty with respect to the 

development of effective methods of vocabulary 

instruction, especially methods that incorporate 

direct instruction, how these might vary across age 

and reading levels and abilities, and how vocabulary 

training can be integrated optimally with other types 

of comprehension instruction. 

9.	 Research is needed on how writing is related to 

reading comprehension. 

10. It will be important to develop further the use of 

videotapes, technology in general, and other 

techniques for teacher preparation. 

11.	 There is little evidence from cost-benefit analyses 

to determine the amount of gain in student 

achievement (and other outcome measures) relative 

to the cost of implementing a reading 

comprehension instructional program. 

12.	 With respect to comprehension strategy instruction 

and teacher preparation: 

Comprehension Strategy Instruction: 

Maintenance and Transfer 

1.	 Do teaching comprehension strategies have lasting 

effects on students? 

2.	 Do the effects generalize to other reading 

situations, such as content area instruction? 

3.	 Can comprehension instruction be done 

successfully within the context of content area 

instruction? 

Teacher Preparation 

1.	 How much teacher preparation is required for 

successful performance? 

2.	 How should teacher preparation be conducted at 

the preservice and at the inservice levels? 

3.	 Can teachers maintain their proficiency after their 

own preparation to teach comprehension has been 

completed? 

4.	 Does the fact that teachers are involved in an 

ongoing research study make a difference in their 

performance? 

Other Important Concerns 

1. Teacher characteristics

How does a teacher’s age, amount of teaching 

experience, type of preservice education, or other 

characteristics affect success in comprehension 

instruction? Which components of successful teacher 

preparation programs are the effective ones? What 

characteristics of the teacher preparation itself (its 

focus, its intensity, its timing) affect the success of a 

teacher preparation program? 

2. Reader characteristics

How do a student’s age, reading level, learning ability, 

proficiency in English, or other characteristics affect 

success in comprehension instruction? 

3. Text characteristics

Does the difficulty level of the texts used in instruction 

make a difference? 

Can one expect transfer from one text genre to another 

(e.g., from narrative to expository text)? 

4. Task characteristics

What characteristics of the instruction delivered to the 

students are the effective ones? The direct explanation? 

The collaborative discussion? The particular strategies 

and tasks taught to the students? The amount of 

instruction? The active involvement on the part of the 

students? Other factors? 

4-127	 National Reading Panel 
 

 

Report 

References 

Studies Included in Report 

Anderson, V. (1992). A teacher development 

project in transactional strategy instruction for teachers 

of severely reading-disabled adolescents. Teaching and 

Teacher Education, 8(4) 391-403. 

Brown, R., Pressley, M., Van Meter, P., & Schuder, 

T. (1996). A quasi-experimental validation of 

transactional strategies instruction with low-achieving 

second-grade readers. Journal of Educational 

Psychology, 88(1), 18-37. 

Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., Meloth, M. S., Vavrus, 

L. G., Book, C., Putnam, J., & Wesselman, R. (1986). 

The relationship between explicit verbal explanations 

during reading skill instruction and student awareness 

and achievement: A study of reading teacher effects. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 21(3), 237-252. 

Duffy, G., Roehler, L. R., Sivan, E., Rackliffe, G., 

Book, C., Meloth, M. S., Vavrus, L. G., Wesselman, R., 

Putnam, J., & Bassiri, D. (1987). Effects of explaining 

the reasoning associated with using reading strategies. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 23(3), 347-368. 

Other Relevant Papers 

Book, C. et al. (1985). A study of the relationship 

between teacher explanation and student metacognitive 

awareness during reading instruction. Communication 

Education, 34(1), 29-36. 

Casazza, M. E. (1993). Using a model of direct 

instruction to teach summary writing in a college 

reading class. Journal of Reading, 37(3), 202-208. 

Collins, C. (1991). Reading instruction that 

increases thinking abilities. Journal of Reading, 34(7), 

510-516. 

Collins Block, C. (1993). Strategy instruction in a 

literature-based reading program. Elementary School 

Journal, 94(2), 139-150. 

Collins Block, C. (1999). Comprehension: Crafting 

understanding. In L. Gambrell, L. Morrow, S. Neuman, 

& M. Pressley (Eds.), Best practices in literacy 

instruction (pp. 98-118). New York: Guilford 

Publications. 

Dole, J., Duffy, G., Roehler, L., Pearson, P. D. 

(1991). Moving from the old to the new: Research on 

reading comprehension instruction. Review of 

Educational Research, 61(2), 239-264. 

Duffy, G. (Ed.). (1990). Reading in the Middle 

School, 2nd Ed. Newark, DE: International Reading 

Association. 

Duffy, G., Roehler, L., & Mason, J. (Eds.). (1984). 

Comprehension instruction: Perspectives and 

suggestions. New York: Longman. 

Duffy, G., Roehler, L., Meloth, M., & Vavrus, L. 

(1986). Conceptualizing instructional explanation. 

Teaching and Teacher Education, 2(3), 197-214. 

Duffy, G., Roehler, L., Meloth, M., Polin, R., 

Rackliffe, G., Tracy, A., & Vavrus, L. (1987). 

Developing and evaluating measures associated with 

strategic reading. Journal of Reading Behavior, 19(3), 

223-246. 

Duffy, G., Roehler, L., & Rackliffe, G. (1986). How 

teachers’ instructional talk influences students’ 

understanding of lesson content. Elementary School 

Journal, 87(1), 3-16. 

Duffy, G. (1991). What counts in teacher 

education? Dilemmas in educating empowered 

teachers. In J. Zutell & S. McCormick (Eds.). Learning 

factors/teacher factors: Literacy research and 

instruction. Fortieth Yearbook of the National Reading 

Conference (pp. 1-18). Chicago: National Reading 

Conference. 

Duffy, G. (1993). Rethinking strategy instruction: 

Four teachers’ development and their low achievers’ 

understandings. Elementary School Journal, 93(3), 231­

247. 

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Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

 

Duffy, G. (1997). Powerful models or powerful 

teachers? An argument for teacher-as-entrepreneur. In 

S. Stahl & D. Hayes (Eds.), Instructional models in 

reading (pp. 351-363). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence 

Erlbaum Associates. 

Ellis, E. S. (1993). Integrative strategy instruction: 

A potential model for teaching content area subjects to 

adolescents with learning disabilities. Journal of 

Learning Disabilities, 26 (6), 358-383, 398. 

Fairhurst, M. A. (1981). Satisfactory explanations 

in the primary school. Journal of Philosophy of 

Education, 15(2), 205-214. 

Frager, A., & Hahn, A. (1988). Turning 

contemporary reading research into instructional 

practice. Reading Horizons, 28(4) 263-271. 

Hahn, A. (1987). Developing a rationale for 

diagnosing and remediating strategic-text behaviors. 

Reading Psychology, 8(2), 83-92. 

Heller, M. F. (1986). How do you know what you 

know? Metacognitive modeling in the content areas. 

Journal of Reading, 29(5) 415-422. 

Herrmann, B. A. (1988). Two approaches for 

helping poor readers become more strategic. Reading 

Teacher, 42(1), 24-28. 

Herrmann, B. A. (1989). Characteristics of explicit 

and less explicit explanations of mathematical problem 

solving strategies. Reading Research and Instruction, 

28(3), 1-17. 

Lysynchuk, L., Pressley, M., d’Ailly, H., Smith, M., 

& Cake, H. (1989). A methodological analysis of 

experimental studies of comprehension strategy 

instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 24(4), 458­

470. 

Palincsar, A.S., David, Y. M., Winn, J. A., & 

Stevens, D. D. (1991). Examining the context of 

strategy instruction. RASE: Remedial and Special 

Education, 12(3), 43-53. 

Pressley, M. (1998). Reading instruction that works: 

The case for balanced teaching. New York: The 

Guilford Press. 

Pressley, M., El-Dinary, P. B., Gaskins, I., Schuder, 

T., Bergman, J., Almasi, J., & Brown, R. (1992). 

Beyond direct explanation: Transactional instruction of 

reading comprehension strategies. Elementary School 

Journal, 92(5), 513-555. 

Pressley, M., Johnson, C., Symons, S., McGoldrick, 

J., & Kurita, J. (1989). Strategies that improve 

children’s memory and comprehension of text. 

Elementary School Journal, 90(1), 3-32. 

Pressley, M., & Wharton-Mcdonald, R. (1997). 

Skilled comprehension and its development through 

instruction. School Psychology Review, 26(3), 448-466. 

Pressley, M., Wharton-McDonald, R., Rankin, J., 

Mistretta, J., Yokoi, L., & Ettenberger, S. (1996) The 

nature of outstanding primary grades literacy 

instruction. In E. McIntyre & M. Pressley (Eds.), 

Balanced instruction: Strategies and skills in whole 

language (pp. 251-276). Norwood, MA: ChristopherGordon. 

Pressley, M., Yokoi, L., Rankin, J., WhartonMcDonald, R., & Menke, D. (1997). A survey of the 

instructional practices of grade-5 teachers nominated as 

effective in promoting literacy. Scientific Studies of 

Reading, 1(2), 145-160. 

Roehler, L., & Duffy, G. (1991). Teachers’ 

instructional actions. In R. Barr, M. Kamil, P. 

Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of 

reading research, Vol. 2 (pp. 861-883). White Plains, 

NY: Longman. 

Roehler, L., Duffy, G., & Warren, S. (1988). 

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Reports of the Subgroups 4-130 
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Rosenshine, B., & Meister, C. (1994). Reciprocal 

teaching: a review of the research. Review of 

Educational Research, 64(4), 479-530. 

Rosenshine, B., & Meister, C. (1997). Cognitive 

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(Eds.), Instructional models in reading. (pp. 85-107). 

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 

Rosenshine, B., Meister, C., & Chapman, S. (1996). 

Teaching students to generate questions: A review of 

the intervention studies. Review of Educational 

Research, 66(2), 181-221. 

Schuder, T. (1993). The genesis of transactional 

strategies instruction in a reading program for at-risk 

students. Elementary School Journal, 94(2), 183-200. 

4-131 National Reading Panel 
4-133 National Reading Panel 

Appendix A: Outlines of the Studies

Teacher 

Participants 

Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996) 

Number 22Total = 

Treatment group 11=

Control group 11=

20Total = 

Treatment group 10=

Control group 10=

16Total = 

Treatment group 9=

7=grouplContro 

10Total = 

Treatment group 5=

Control group 5=

Age Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. 

onaliEducat 

background 

Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. 

Years of 

experience 

Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. The SAIL teachers had 

of general teaching exhad taught in the SAIL and 6 years. 

The comparison group years of teac ih ng exp

Random 

gnment toiass 

conditions? 

Yes. Teachers were observed and 

given baseline scores on the riclassroom management skills (high, medium, low). Researchers then randomly assigned teachers with n eachimanagement level to e ther thei

treatment or contro group.l

Yes. Yes. No. SAIL teachers had 

before the beginning o

The authors state that 

become competent tra

ls ainstructorsi ong-te

lfelt we cou d not rando

iprov de professional d

teachers to become e

in a realistiSAIL c time 

Student Participants 

Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996) 

States represented 

Not reported, M dwest USAi iOne M dwestern state Not reported One mid-Atlantic state 

Number of different schools 

Not reported. Treatment group: 9 

Control group: 8 

All schools were in the same 

ct.istrid 

Not reported. Number not reported; 

same district. 

Number of different 

assroomslc 

Total: 22 Treatment group: 11 

Control group: 11 

: 20lTota 

Treatment group: 10 

Control group: 10 

Total: 16 Treatment group: 9 

Control group: 7 

Total: 10 Treatment group: 5 

Control group: 5 
Reports of the Subgroups 4-134 Teacher Participants Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996)­ Number 22Total = Treatment group 11= Control group 11= 20Total = Treatment group 10= Control group 10= 16Total = Treatment group 9=7=grouplContro 10Total = Treatment group 5= Control group 5= Age Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. onaliEducat background Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. Years of experience Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. The SAIL teachers had 

of general teaching exhad taught in the SAIL and 6 years. The comparison group 

years of teac ih ng exp

Random 

gnment toiass 

conditions? 

Yes. Teachers were observed and 

given baseline scores on the riclassroom management skills (high, medium, low). Researchers then randomly assigned teachers with n eachimanagement level to e ther thei

treatment or contro group.l

Yes. Yes. No. SAIL teachers had 

before the beginning o

The authors state that 

become competent tra

ls ainstructorsi ong-te

lfelt we cou d not rando

iprov de professional d

teachers to become e

in a realistiSAIL c time 

Student Participants 

Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996) 

States represented 

Not reported, M dwest USAi iOne M dwestern state Not reported One mid-Atlantic state 

Number of different schools 

Not reported. Treatment group: 9 

Control group: 8 

All schools were in the same 

ct.istrid 

Not reported. Number not reported; 

same district. 

Number of different 

assroomslc 

Total: 22 Treatment group: 11 

Control group: 11 

: 20lTota 

Treatment group: 10 

Control group: 10 

Total: 16 Treatment group: 9 

Control group: 7 

Total: 10 Treatment group: 5 

Control group: 5 
4-135 National Reading Panel 

Number of par it cipants

Total number: not reported. 

Number per group: ranged from 

4 to 22. Average group size = 11.76.

Total: 148 Treatment group: 71 

Control group: 77 Number per group: Ranged from 

3 to 16 students per lc ass.

Overall average: 7.4 per classroom. 

Total: 83-Number per group: Ranged from 2 

to 10 and was "approximat le y equal" across

groups. 

Total: 60 

Treatment group: 30 

Control group: 30 Number per group: 6 

Age Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. 

Grade 5th grade. 3rd grade. Students ranged from 6th through 11th 

grade. 

2nd grade. 

evellReading Low-level read ng groups.i lLow-leve reading groups. Severely read ng disabled.i Reading below 2nd gr

Setting Large urban schoo strict.idl Elementary school classrooms in 

an urban school district in the 

iM dwest.

Not reported. Unclear. 

Exceptional 

earningl 

characteristics 

lAl students scored more than 1

year below grade nievell

reading achievement. 

"The individua ls in the low groupsrepresented the typical range of 

ireading d fficulties associated with

n urbaning groupsievel readllowcenters. Mainstreamed spec ali

education students, mmigrantichildren with severe anguagel

lprob ems, and students with

ibehavioral d sorders were all

included." 

"All but a very few had been diagnosed as 

ilearning d sabled," and more than 75% of

them had incoming reading levels of grade

ow.l3 or be 

None reported. 

Selec it on

rest ir ctions

None reported. None reported. Not reported. O ln y six students in o

eligibility requirements

de ic ded to use six ma

lc assroom as the basi

lA l English

speaking? 

Yes. Yes, although the authors note that 

the sample included "immigrant

children with severe languagepro lb ems."

Yes. Yes. 

Ethnic 

background 

Not reported Not reported. Not reported. Not reported. 
Reports of the Subgroups 4-136 SES Not reported. Not reported. Not reported Not reported. Duration of study Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996) Total duration of study One academic year. One academ c year.i Three months. One academic year. Number of onsisess Not reported. Not reported. Approximately 20. Not reported. Minutes per onisess Not reported. Not reported. 30 minutes. Not reported. Brief description of instructional approach Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996) iD rect explanation (DE) with a focus on the use of an iexplanat on model for es.ing strategiteach The DE approach includes 

direct explanation of strategy usage, model ng,isystematic practice, and 

ng.iscaffold 

iDE w th a focus on exp ning theial

reasoning associated w th skilliand strategy usage. 

Approach contains all the 

le ements of DE but a resiso requl

teachers to analyze the skills 

prescribed in basal texts and to recast these ski s asll

ivlemsolprob ng strategies.

TSI with a focus on progressive shifts of teacher attention toward fostering active 

reading. 

The TSI approach contains a ll the elements

lncisolof DE and a udes extended

discussions that emphasize joint 

iconstruct on of text interpretations and

student strategy usage. 

TSI with a focus on eva 

iof an exist ng TSI prog

The TSI approach cont

DE and also lnci udes eemphasize joint construinterpretations and stud

Specific elements of instructional 

approach 

Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996) 

Teacher analysis 

of skills in basal 

textbook; ­

recasting these skills as strategies?­

Yes Yes No No 

iD rect explanation

of strategy usage (What is the strategy? When 

t be used?ican 

t done?)iHow is 

Yes Yes Yes Yes 
4-137 National Reading Panel 

ing?lMode Yes Yes Yes Yes 

ciSystemat 

ce?ipract 

Yes Yes Yes Yes 

Scaffolding? Yes Yes Yes Yes Extended 

ons thatidiscuss 

emphasize jo nti

on of texticonstruct 

interpretations and student strategy usage? 

No No Yes Yes 

ce ofiStudent cho 

reading mater s?lai

No No Yes. (Teachers and students co aboratedll

on choice of texts.) 

No 

Complete description of instructional approach and curricular emphasis 

Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996) 

n this studyiumlThe curricu 

comprised the sk lsliprescribed in HoughtoniMiffl n and Ginn basal

textbooks for use with ow­l

lleve reading groups in the

ipost-pr mary grades, such

ias dentifying main deas,i

drawing conclus ons, usingiglossaries, and decoding. For the purposes of th sistudy, skills are not v ewedias rules to be memorized as procedural algorithms. Instead, they are taught as strategies or f exible plansl

for reasoning about how to 

ockages tolremove b 

meaning. Rather than being 

slly, skillcaied automatiappl 

are applied thoughtful y,l

iconsc ously, and adaptive y.l

iTh s research is based on the

assertion that "because poor 

readers lack understand ng of theistrategic nature of read ng,iinstruction needs to place greater 

iemphas s on the development of

poor readers ity to reasonliab'strategically." 

According to the authors, "it may 

be necessary when working with poor readers for teachers to 

explain explicit ly, in consistent

ways over extended instructiona l

periods, the mental processing associated w ith [a given] strategy,

when it can be used, and how to 

ln a fitiapply exible manner."

In particular, the authors are interested in the relationship between the expl tness ofici

teacher strategy exp anations onlthe one hand and student strategy 

awareness and reading ability on 

the other. 

The teacher development mode niedistudlthis research is based on the principles of TSI. According to the author, TSI is a method of 

ing readiteach ng that emphasizes

i"transact ons or negotiations that occur

among teacher and students, and students and students while working together to 

ideterm ne text meaning."

The view of teacher education presented in 

ithis study nvolves a progress ft of theive shi

s attention.'teacher 

The first stage shifts attent ion from overt

performance of tasks to the underlying comprehension processes. The next stage 

shifts from teacher questioning, model ng,i

inialand exp ng to students carrying out

these processes. The final stage shifts from students carrying'

iout act ve processes under teacher

guidance to their assumption of that 

liresponsib ity themselves.

"The purpose of SAIL 

i ndependent, se 

f-regul

from text." The SAIL program use

ing readiteach ng com

ng students.iperform 

According to the autho

jTSI is the oint constru

i nterpretations by grou

istrateg es to texts. The 

i nternalization and con

ic processistrateg ng w

encounter demand ng 

i 

promoted by teaching 

to construct text mean 

'readers use of comp
Reports of the Subgroups 4-138 The particular curricular goal for this study was for readers, when they encounter meaning blockages, to (1) know what skills can be used as strategies for removing the blockage, (2) select a ispecif c strategy, and (3) use that strategy to remove ockage.lthe b Treatment teachers, therefore, were trained to skills aslrecast basa strategies and to teach ow-levellstudents in reading groups to use them when encounter ng meaningi blockages. lConsequent y, the instructional approach used in this study focused on teaching students the reasoning that expert readers are presumed to employ when us ngi strategically those ski sll itradit onally taught in association with basal textbooks. ifiSpec cally, teachers were taught to recast the sk ills prescribed ni lbasa textbooks as problem- ivlso ng strategies. They were taught to do th is by analyzing the cognitive and metacogn tivei components of the sk ls and byli ilmode ng the cognitive and ved inlve acts invoimetacognit performing the ski s.ll The curricular emphasis in the 

treatment classrooms, therefore, was on the reasoning associated 

with strategic skil l usage, not on

the performance of isolated sk llitasks. 

SAIL teachers are taug

TSI through direct expl

icoach ng, and scaffolde

In addition, SAIL teacheextended discussions student application of scomprehension. In the SAIL reading prostrategies for adjusting 

ispecif c purpose and to 

iSpec fically, students a

upcoming events, alter unfolds, generate ques

ing, visualiwhile read ze 

summarize per iodicallymost important informat

iylce appithey pract ng 

idur ng reading instructio

Overreliance on any ondiscouraged. In genera

igett ng the overall mea

important than understa

Materials Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al. (1996) 

lBasa reading textbooks;

difficulty not reported. 

Second grade basal read ngi

textbooks. 

iof 135 slA tota ngle-page, expository texts

was prepared, and it was left to the teachers and students to decide which of the texts they w ished to read.ÑTexts were

drawn and ed lmariited (pri y shortened) from

ia var ety of "real text" sources (e.g., Cr cketi

iMagaz ne, Open Court Publishing).

lty leveilReadabi s ranged from grades 2 to

ith the majori8, w ty of texts at grades 4 and

5. 

lrely ciIt is not ent ear w

during the course of the 

texts used in the study 

li lustrated stories from t

numbers of words and 

follows: 341 words; 2.4 512 words; 2.2 

129 words; 3.9 
4-139 National Reading Panel 

What were treatmentteachers taught?

Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brow

Treatment teachers were

taught to emphas ze thei

iprocesslmenta ng one does

us the skiwhen slling

the basaibediprescr ln

textbook. The teachers were

to taitra lned k to students

about the reason ng onei

does when encounter ng ai

lb ockage to mean ng, howi

sk ibellithe ng taught can be

ilapp ed to remove a

blcuipart lar ockage, and the

lmenta one fo owsllsteps

us the skiwhen .lling

Treatment teachers were to dl

to present sk not wlli nithis

the context of workbook

but wiexerc n theithise

context of the use of those

actuaisllisk ngireadln

ons.ituatis

ass theistiTo pin ng,iannlr

teachers were taught to

theiorgan lonainstructirize

a fiklta essonlve-stepinto

on,introductiformat:

guilmode deding,

practinteracti ce, andion,

To heicatilapp p teacherslon.

the pluse an, theylesson

were taught how to model

menta ngiprocesslthe

readers do by "ta ng outikl

loud" about the r own use ofi

sk dllithe attenti, on toirectsa ilthe ent features of the

llisk , refocus student

duriattent ons,interactingion

provirev practiew, ce,ide

heland p students app y thel

illisk n connected text.

Treatment teachers were taught to mod fy thei

andlcuicurr onsiptiprescrllisklonainstructiar

the basalof text so that the emphas s was oni

menta usivedlnvoingiprocesslthe skin slling

strateg es.ias

llcaifiSpec y, treatment teachers were taught to

the basaiadapt n theioninstructitextlr

ng ways:iowllfo

Because basal textbooks often present

skiprescr asllibed lsois ated memory-based

tasks, treatment teachers were taught to

recast the prescr ski as probllibed em-ls

strategivlso by anaing the cogniyzles veiting

and metacogn iti ve components of the sk .lli

Because the teach suggesti n theionsing

teacherlbasa gu'text emphasis zeide

and driexercllisklprocedura , treatmentllises

teachers were taught to supp ement thesel

wisuggest modeions ilth ng of the cogn veiti

and metacogn actsiti performivedlnvoive ngin

sk s.llithe

Teachers were taught "to exp expial niy,lticiln

icons stent ways over extended lonainstructi

iper ods, the menta associprocessl ateding

[a giw ith ven] strategy, when it can be used,

and how to app a fitiyl e manner."lbiexln

Teachers were taught "to present the ri

ianatlexp ons to students as descr ve ofipti

what good readers do, rather than as

iptiprescr ons to be procedura appll aiedily lln

ons."ituatis

Treatment teachers were not prov wi thided

for teachiscr skipts thislling in s way. Instead,

they used the informati on from the research

sessinterventi to deveion thelons r owniop

ons for eachianatlexp esson.l

A set of 20 teacher shifts and 12 student sh fts wasi

presented to the treatment teachers. The sh ftsi

represent changes that need to be made n orderi

to foster more act readi ng.ive

of shilsiTh fist descrifts waysirst whibes chin

teachers and students typ behavellcai remediy lain

sessiread ing ons, and then provides a contrast ngi

of behavil ist ors that characterize or promote act vei

ng.iread

The set of student shifts that was presented to

the folnciteachers as desiowlluded goaing s:lred

readingipaticiPart toin newlng informatiearn on;-

to read ditry or unfamlcuiffing materilit ;laiar

on coifocus wiaboratllng th the grouping readi ngin

ons;isess

andilrevea errorsigatinvesting reading ng;in

irectid ng e ff ort toward exp inial ng how to arr ve ati

correct answers;

iattempt ng to take on the role of the teacher;

questiask ons;ing

ng to text;ireact

modeidiprov lng s for others;-g eivi aboratedlng

responses;

onifocus iearnlng ng from the read ng; andi

chaiseek thiengesllng ng.inkin

Teachers were a gl iso ven a set of pr es forlpinci

actifoster reading ive ng through read on,instructingi

speciw ifith c teacher techniques for each pr e.lpinci

attentlcuiPart was giar ven to:ion

procedures for mak thi expinking by thicilng nginkit

la oud, and for turning over respons for thilibi s toity

co probiaboratllstudents, as weivlem-solve asllng,

appiaccess and evaiylng, studentsiuatlng 'ng

and aistiex probiternatlng strategivlem-solve esing

questi"upgrad ioning" ng by both teachers and

students to be less content-spec c, and moreifi

focused on the use of strateg turni ngies,

ioniquest ng and the ent readi sessire on over toing

students, and increasi ng student ta k andl

idecreas ng teacher ta durl readik ding ons.iscussing

The 

t

not 

study

exte

more 

prog
Reports of the Subgroups 4-140 How did treatment teacher training occur? Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) B

lAl teachers attended an iin tial orientation meeting in November. Subsequent to laithe init meeting, the treatment teachers rece vedi 10 hours of train ng on howi to incorporate explicit rinto theionsianatlexp ongoing reading skil l instruction. This tra ngini emphasized: how to recast prescribed libasal text sk ls as strategies useful when removing blockages to meanings, how to make explicit statements about the reading skill being taught, when it wou d bel used, and how to apply t,i

and how to organ ze theseistatements for presentation 

to students. There were five training 

sessions, beginning n lateiNovember and continuing at about 1-month intervals 

through March. Al thel

itraining sess ons except one

were timed to occur 

approximately 1 week before each scheduled round of classroom observations. Each training sess oni

followed a 4-stage 

sequence. First, the 

teachers were provided w thi

iinformat on about strategy

Treatment teachers were to ld that the purpose

jof the pro ect was to study teacher

explanation. 

iThey rece ved six 2-hour training sess nionsi

the course of one academ c year.i

iThese sess ons emphasized:-how to make

decisions about recasting prescribed basal 

text skills as strategies; 

lde on expihow to dec icit statements about

the strategy be ing taught, when t would bei

used, and how to do the mental processing 

ved;linvo 

how to organ ize these statements nto ailesson format that progressed from an introduction, to modeling, to interact onibetween teacher and students, to closure. 

iThe tra ning interventions also included oneon-one coaching, collaborative sharing 

between the teachers, spec c feedbackifi

iregard ng observed lessons, and videotapes

essons.lof model 

The training of the treatment teachers invo ved threel

isess ons of 3 hours each, held at one month

liintervals wh e the teachers were conducting

reading sessions with the r students.i

iniIn these tra ng sessions, treatment teachers were

instructed in principles and techniques for fostering active reading. The training module inc uded thel

lfollowing e ements and techn ques:i

Research involvement:-The treatment teachers participated in d iscussions about the studyprocedures. "Every effort was made to make 

lteachers fee they were a part of the development

iand evolut on of the project."

fts:ing shiTeach 

iAs descr bed above, a set of 20 teacher shifts and

12 student shifts, represent ing changes that need tobe made in order for more active reading to be 

fostered, were presented to the treatment teachers 

and used throughout the ir training for se f-evaluation.l

iV deotape and se ons:iuatlf eval

iAt each tra ning session, the teachers were shown

videotaped clips of their own teach ing and asked to

evaluate them in terms of the shifts. During se f-levaluation, treatment teachers a lso discussed andselected the sh ifts on which they felt they needed

lthe most he p and guidance from the experimenter

and/or peer teachers. 

lpinciPr es and techniques for fostering active

ng:iread 

iAs descr bed above, treatment teachers were

given a set of principles for fostering act ngive readi

instructingithrough read on, with spec fic teacheri

itechn ques for each pr e.lpinci

Peer support: 

Treatment teachers rece ived peer support and

Thtra

stex

3 th
4-141 National Reading Panel 

instruction, and links were made to teachers 'background experiences ni

ireading nstruction, to basal

textbook experiences, and to expected student 

responses. Second, the researchers modeled strategy instruct on andiassisted teachers as they developed the r owniinstructional plans. Third, 

teachers read the transcripts 

of their own prev ousilessons and student interviews, and the 

researchers guided them nianalyzing and critiquing the 

y, thelpts. Finalitranscr 

researchers prov dedi

feedbacklth oraiteachers w 

following each observation 

about the appropriateness of 

ithe r explanations. This

feedback was cons stentiwith the informat dedion provito teachers during training 

ons.iintervent 

icoach ng from previously trained teachers who

attended the training sess ions and were availableas needed for teachers. 

What was the intervention for the control group? 

Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) B

The control group rece vedi

a presentation on effective classroom management. In addition, they were observed teaching classes on four occas ngiowllons foi

ithe basel ne observation.

Treated-control teachers were told that the 

purpose of the study was to val date at thei

l3rd grade evel the results of a previous

(unrelated) study involving c assroomlmanagement for 1st-graders. 

iThey rece ved three 2-hour training sess onsi

on using the management principles employed in the 1st grade study. 

In the classroom, they fol r usualiowed thel

linstructiona routines regarding basal textbook

skill instruction, while add ing the management

incipr ples of the 1st grade study.

The control teachers were told that they wou dl

receive the same training as the treatment teachers after the research data were collected. 

T

rh

"

t

pIn h

n

e

t
Reports of the Subgroups 4-142 What training or information was given to both groups of teachers? Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) B

The teachers were unaware that the two groups received different information. Neither the treatment nor the contro groupl was made aware of the others existence.' Both groups of teachers received denticali iinformat on about how to implement an Uninterrupted Sustained Si ent Readingl (USSR) program and how to prepare students to take a standardized reading test. Not reported. No

Outcome measures Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) B

Student reading achievement: Gates-MacGinit e Readingi Test: The comprehens on subtest,i

Level D (des igned for use

with grades 4-6) was used. 

(PRE and POST) 

Stanford Achievement Test (SAT): 

The comprehension and word skills subtests were used. 

(PRE and POST). Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP): 

The MEAP was adm ini stered five months afterthe treatment ended. 

(DELAYED POST). 

ng Test:ic ReadiagnostiStanford D 

The phonics, structura l analysis, and reading

comprehension-subtests were used (PRE and POST). 

St(San

w

(P

StStancuabm

as

th

st

th

(P
4-143 National Reading Panel 

Student strategy 

awareness: 

Lesson interviews: 

Immediately fol ngiowleach of the four 

essonslobserved 

subsequent to the 

lbase ine observation,

students were i nterviewed todetermine whether 

they were 

y aware oflconscious 

what strategy the teacher taught during 

essonlthe 

veiaratl(dec 

knowledge), when to 

t (situationaliuse 

knowledge), and how 

t (proceduralito use 

knowledge). (DURING). 

Lesson interv ews:i

ly folateiImmed lowing a reading lesson, students

were interviewed to determine whether they were 

consciously aware of what strategy the teacher taught 

lduring the esson (declarative knowledge), when to

lonal knowituatiuse it (s edge), and how to use ti

l(procedura knowledge).

(DURING). 

nterviews:iConcept 

At the end of the year, students were interviewed to

imeasure the r awareness of the general need to be

strategic when read ng.i(POST). 

Not measured. Strategy awareness in

In October and Novemcomponents were be 

n

i 

students) and in March 

iinterv ew was administ

ingicipatipart n the stud

'students reported awa

measured by the num

they claimed to use d

designed to measure 

where, when, and why 

(DURING). Students were asked ended questions, adaby Duffy et al. (1987): 

What do good readers What makes someone What things do you do 

story? 

What do you think abo

a story? 

What do you do when 

do not know? 

What do you do when 

does not make sense

Student strategy 

usage: 

Not measured. lementalSupp Achievement Measure (SAM):

iTh s measure was designed by the expermenters toi

ideterm ne whether students could perform the

specific skill tasks they had been taught (Part I), and 

whether their rat ionale for choosing an answer

lref ected the reasoning assoc s aslth using skiliated wi

strategies (Part II). (POST). 

Modified Graded Ora iReadl ng Paragraph (GORP):

is testiTh nvolved students reading passages ora ly,l

and examined se lf-reports of their self-corrections and

ithe r responses to 2 embedded words meet ngi

semantic cueing criteria. (POST). 

Not measured. lThink-a oud measure:

Students were stoppe

fficult storyireading a d 

researcher, and asked and their strategy usag(POST). 
Reports of the Subgroups 4-144 Teacher veness:ieffect Classroom observat on:i All teachers in both groups were observed on four separate occasions subsequent to the baseline observat on. On thei basis of these observations, teachers were rated on the explicitness of their explanations, using a rating scale developed by the researchers. Two aspects of explanation were rated: the information conveyed, and how the teacher conveyed t.i iThe f rst aspect focused on the content of what the teacher sa di to students, and was divided ntoi 5 sub-categor es:i what was said about the sk lli being taught, when it would be used, the features to attend to, 

the sequence to follow, and the 

es used.lexamp 

The second aspect focused on 

the pedagogical means by wh chi

ithe nformation was conveyed,

and included 6 sub-categories, 

focusing on the teachers use of: 

ng,imodel 

ng,ightilhigh 

feedback, 

review, practice, and application. 

Teacher explicitness measure: To measure the explicitness of treatment and treated-control teachers ' explanations, the

researchers developed an instrument to rate 

transcripts of audiotaped lessons. 

(DURING). 

iThe rating nstrument was organized into three

parts: 

iPart I of the nstrument focused on the

information presented. Teachers were rated on 

what they students sa id to students about (a)

the task to be learned, (b) ness, (c)lts usefuithe selection of the strategy to be used, and 

(d) how to do the mental processing associated with the strategy). Part II focused on the means used to present information. Teachers were rated on the r (a)iintroduction to the lesson, (b) modeling, (c)

ing assishinimid stance during interact on, (d)i

ile citing of student responses, and (e)

closure.ÑPart III focused on the cohesion both 

within the lesson and across lessons.Ñ 

Videotaped c lassroom observation:Teachers were videotaped g ving ai

lreading esson for approx mately 30i

minutes. (PRE and POST). 

lng scaiA rat e was developed using

the teacher and student shifts as a 

base. 

Teachers were rated on the fo ngiowll

ons:i14 dimens 

ing readiTreat ng problems openly,

ifocus ng on how to solve problems,

providing mode s of thinking,l

iteach ng question-asking,

asking thought-provok ons,ing questi

iowlal ng student control,

ifocus ng on group col on,iaboratl

iinform ng students of earning,l

ifocus ng on text and learning about

reading, 

setting reading goa ls before read ng,iproblem solv ing during reading,

ng to checkisummariz 

comprehension, 

ireflect ng on reading goals after text,

and 

istress ng new learn ng from text.i

Teacher effectiveness was also 

assessed by rating students on the 

following 8 dimensions: 

ing readiTreat ng problems openly,

ifocus ng on how to solve problems,

expressing thinking, 

ons,iasking quest 

giving elaborated answers, 

taking teacher role, 

ifocus ng on group col on,iaboratl

i nvolvement in sessions.

lC assroom 

SAIL and noobserved teand were conumber of seach lesson(DURING).
4-145 National Reading Panel 

Results Duffy et al. (1986) Duffy et al. (1987) Anderson (1992) Brown et al

Student reading achievement: 

ng Test:initie ReadiGates-MacG 

There was no s gnificanti

id fference between students ni

the treatment and control 

classrooms on the 

icomprehens on subtest at

posttest (ES = 0.24).

Students in treatment and contro lclassrooms spent equa amountslanswering comprehension test items on the pretest, but on the posttest, treatment students spent 

isign ficantly more time answering

questions (ES +0.42).=

Stanford Achievement Test (SAT):-Students of 

treatment teachers scored significantly h gheri

than students of contro l teachers on word skil sl

=(ES +1.63), but not on comprehension (ES =

+0.25). 

igan EducatichiM onal Assessment Program

(MEAP): Students of treatment teachers scored 

isign ficantly higher than students of control

teachers (ES +1.33).=

ng Test:ic ReadiagnostiStanford D 

lcantignifiA s y higher number of

students of treatment teachers (about 

80%) made gains on the read ngi

comprehension subtest than students 

lof contro teachers (about 50%).

There was no sign ificant difference inthe number of students of treatment teachers and the number of students 

lof contro teachers who made ga nsi

ion the phon cs and the structural

analysis subtests. 

Stanford AcStudents of significantly control teaccomprehenand the wor

+1.67); they 

greater impmeasures ostudy.ÑStory Students of 

teachers re

iinformat on 

2: ES = +1

imore nterp

ithe stor es 

2: ES = +1

control teac

Student strategy awareness: 

Strategy awareness interv ew:iStudents of treatment teachers 

iscored sign ficantly higher than

students of contro teachers onlstrategy awareness rat =ngs (ESi

+1.39). 

Lesson interv ews:iLesson interv iew responses of students of

treatment teachers were rated s ylcantignifi

higher than the responses of students of control teachers. These findings were due to 

ificantly hisign gher ratings given to students of

treatment teachers on situat ional knowledge

=(ES +2.22) and procedural knowledge (ES =

+1.50). No difference in response ratings was found between groups for dec arativel

+0.84).=edge (ESlknow 

iConcept nterviews:-Concept interv ewi

responses of students of the treatment 

teachers were rated significantly h gher thanithe responses of students of the control teachers (ES = +1.15), thus suggesting that thetreatment students were more aware of the 

strategic nature of read ng.i

Not measured. Strategies i

Toward the 

students of 

teachers re

comprehen

word-level s

ng the i

idur 

students of 
Reports of the Subgroups 4-146 Student strategy usage Not measured. SAM Test: Students of treatment teachers did not differ lcantignifis y from students of contro niteachersl their performance on Part I (ES -0.21).= However, students of treatment teachers were sign cantlyifi isuper or to students of contro rin theiteachersl performance on Part II (ES = +1.67). iMod fied GORP Test: -Students of treatment teachers scored s lcantignifi y higher on both the word meaning subtest (ES = +1.51) and the word irecognit on subtest (ES = +5.00). "According to these GORP resu lts, low-group students who rece ons aboutianatlt expicived expli the reasoning associated with us ls asling ski strategies (a) reported that they used such ireason ng when actually reading connected text, and (b) described the reason oyed whenlng empi ius ng the strategies." Not measured iTh nk-aloud meas

Students of treatm

iapplied sign ficant

lthe think-a oud tas

control teachers (E

Teacher 

effectiveness 

tnessicilTeacher exp 

measure: 

Across all 

ons afteriobservat 

the baseline 

on,iobservat 

treatment teachers were rated as 

significantly more 

rit in theiciexpl 

explanations than control teachers (ES 

+2.11).= 

Teacher explicitness measure: The treatment teachers were found to be more 

explicit in exp laining the reasoning assoc thiated wi

ius ng reading skills as strategies than the treatedcontrol teachers (ES +1.67).=

iV deotaped teaching sess ons:i

The treatment teachers showed 

is gnificant improvements across

ons:i14 dimenslla 

ing readiTreat ng problems openly

+3.80),=(ES 

ifocus ng on how to solve

problems (ES = +2.80),-providing

+3.25),=ng (ESinkimodels of th 

iteach ng question-asking (ES =

+2.00), asking thought-provoking 

=ons (ESiquest +3.14),-allowing

student control (ES +2.08),=

ifocus ng on group col oniaboratl

=(ES +2.56),-informing students

lof earning (ES = +2.35),

ifocus ng on text and learn ngi

about 

Classroom observ

The treatment (SA

have taught sign fi

i

icomprehens on st

more word-level scontrol teachers. 
4-147 National Reading Panel 

reading (ES +2.52),=

ing readisett ng goals before

reading (ES +3.99),=

lprob em solving dur ng (ESing readi

+5.73),= 

summarizing to check 

+1.90),=on (ESicomprehens 

reflecting on reading goa s after textl

=(ES +2.21), and

stressing new learning from text (ES

+2.45).= 

Students of treatment teachers showed significant improvement on

mensions:iall 8 d 

Treating reading prob ems openlyl

+3.24),=(ES 

focusing on how to solve problems 

+3.20),=(ES 

expressing th +2.85),=ng (ESinki

iask ng questions (ES +2.81),=

ivig ng elaborated answers (ES =

+1.48), 

itak ng teacher ro +2.74),=e (ESl

focusing on group collaboration (ES 

= +2.46), and

linvo vement in sessions (ES =

+2.14). Treatment teachers showed a far 

greater percentage of prob eml

incingisolv dents at posttest than at

pretest. No statist sitestlcaipresented. 

There was a sign ificant increase ni

lstudent ta k and a decrease in

iteacher talk n the treatment

condition. The re levant data are notpresented. "It is clear... that the experimental 

teachers and the r studentsi

changed substantial ly from pre- to

posttest, while contro l teachers andstudents rema ined about the same."
 

 

Appendices 

Appendix B :
 

Comprehensive Summaries Based on NRP Guidelines
 

Duffy et al. (1986)

1. Reference

Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., Meloth, M. S., Vavrus, L. 

G., Book, C., Putnam, J, & Wesselman, R. (1986). The 

relationship between explicit verbal explanations during 

reading skill instruction and student awareness and 

achievement: A study of reading teacher effects. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 21(3), 237-252. 

2. Research Question

The goal of this study was to determine whether, given 

skills prescribed in a mandated basal reading series, 

classroom teachers of low-group students who provide 

more explicit explanations of how to use these reading 

skills strategically would be more effective than 

teachers who were less explicit in explaining how to use 

skills. 

The authors hypothesized that explicit teacher 

explanation would result in improved student awareness 

about what was taught, which in turn would result in 

increased reading achievement on a standardized 

measure. 

The study sought to answer the following questions: 

•	 Are teachers trained to be more explicit during lowgroup reading skill instruction more explicit than 

teachers who receive no training? 

•	 Are low-group students of teachers who receive 

training in how to provide explicit explanation more 

aware of what skill was taught and of how to use it 

strategically than low-group students of teachers 

who receive no training? 

•	 Do the low-group students of trained teachers 

score significantly higher on the comprehension 

subtest of a standardized reading achievement test 

than low-group students of untrained teachers? 

3. Sample of student participants

States or countries represented: Not reported, 

Midwest, USA 

Number of different schools: Not reported. 

Number of different classrooms:
 

Total: 22
 

Treatment group: 11
 

Control group: 11
 

Number of participants (total, per group): 

Total number: Not reported. 

Number per group: Ranged from 4 to 22. 

Average group size = 11.76. 

Age: Not reported 

Grade: 5th.
 

Reading levels of participants: Low reading groups.
 

Setting: Large urban school district.
 

Pretests administered prior to treatment:
 

Form 2 of the Gates-MacGinitie was 

administered in early October to low-group 

students in all 22 classrooms. 

Special characteristics: 

SES: Not reported. 

Ethnicity: Not reported. 

Exceptional learning characteristics: 

Learning disabled: Not reported. 

Reading disabled: Not reported. 

Hearing impaired: Not reported. 

English language learners (LEP): 

Not reported. 

Selection restrictions used to limit the sample of 

participants: None reported. 

Contextual information (concurrent reading 

instruction that participants received in their 

classrooms during the study): Not reported. 

Description of curriculum/instructional approach: 

Direct explanation (DE) with a focus on the use of an 

explanation model for teaching strategies. The DE 

approach includes direct explanation of strategy usage, 

modeling, systematic practice, and scaffolding. 

4-149	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-150 

The curriculum in this study comprised the skills 

prescribed in the Houghton-Mifflin and Ginn basal 

textbooks for use with low reading groups in the 

postprimary grades, such as identifying main ideas, 

drawing conclusions, using glossaries, and decoding. For 

the purposes of this study, skills are not viewed as rules 

to be memorized as procedural algorithms. Instead, they 

are taught as strategies, or flexible plans for reasoning 

about how to remove blockages to meaning. Rather 

than being applied automatically, skills are applied 

thoughtfully, consciously, and adaptively. 

The recasting of traditional reading skills as strategies is 

based on cognitive science research and on the 

application of such research to reading comprehension. 

The particular curricular goal for this study was for 

readers, when they encounter meaning blockages, to (a) 

know what skills can be used as strategies for removing 

the blockage, (b) select a specific strategy, and (c) use 

that strategy to remove the blockage. 

Treatment teachers, therefore, were trained to recast 

basal skills as strategies and to teach students in low 

reading groups to use them when encountering meaning 

blockages. 

How was the sample obtained?

The teachers volunteered in response to a survey of all 

5th grade teachers of low reading groups in the district. 

The students were assigned to reading groups by 

teachers as part of the participating school district’s 

policy of using the Joplin Plan to group 5th grade 

students homogeneously for reading. Student 

assignments to reading groups were made on the basis 

of Stanford Achievement Test scores from the previous 

year and the recommendations of previous teachers. All 

the low-group students in this study scored more than 1 

year below grade level in reading achievement. 

Attrition: Not reported. 

4. Setting of the Study

Elementary school classroom with low-group reading 

students. 

5. Design of the Study

Random assignment of participants (teachers) to 

treatments (randomized experiment), after a pretest of 

classroom management skills and stratification on this 

dimension. 

6. Independent Variables

a. Treatment variables

Describe all treatments and control conditions. 

All teachers attended an initial orientation meeting in 

November. Subsequent to the initial meeting, the 

treatment teachers received 10 hours of training on how 

to incorporate explicit explanations into their ongoing 

reading skill instruction. This training emphasized: 

•	 How to recast prescribed basal text skills as 

strategies useful when removing blockages to 

meanings 

•	 How to make explicit statements about the reading 

skill being taught, when it would be used and how to 

apply it 

•	 How to organize these statements for presentation 

to students. 

Specifically, treatment teachers were taught to 

emphasize the mental processing one does when using 

the skills prescribed in the basal textbook. The teachers 

were trained to talk to students about 

•	 The reasoning one does when encountering a 

blockage to meaning 

•	 How the skill being taught can be applied to remove 

a particular blockage 

•	 The mental steps one follows when using the skill. 

That is, teachers were told to present skills not within 

the context of workbook exercises but within the 

context of the use of those skills in actual reading 

situations. 

To assist in their planning, teachers were taught to 

organize their instructional talk into a five-step lesson 

format: introduction, modeling, guided interaction, 

practice, and application. To help teachers use the 

lesson plan, they were taught how to 

•	 Model the mental processing readers do by “talking 

out loud” about their own use of the skill 
Appendices 

•	 Direct attention to the salient features of the skill 

and how to refocus student attention during 

interactions 

•	 Review 

•	 Provide practice 

•	 help students apply the skill in connected text. 

The five training sessions were conducted immediately 

after school, beginning in late November and continuing 

at about 1-month intervals through March. All the 

training sessions except one were timed to occur 

approximately 1 week before each scheduled round of 

classroom observations. 

Each training session followed a four-stage sequence. 

First, the teachers were provided with information about 

strategy instruction, and links were made to teachers’ 

background experiences in reading instruction, to basal 

textbook experiences, and to expected student 

responses. Second, the researchers modeled strategy 

instruction and assisted teachers as they developed their 

own instructional plans. Third, teachers read the 

transcripts of their own previous lessons and student 

interviews, and the researchers guided them in 

analyzing and critiquing the transcripts. Finally, the 

researchers provided teachers with oral feedback 

following each observation about the appropriateness of 

their explanations. This feedback was consistent with 

the information provided to teachers during training 

interventions. 

The control group received a presentation on effective 

classroom management. In addition, these teachers 

were observed teaching classes on four occasions 

following the baseline observation. 

Was instruction explicit or implicit? Explicit. 

Difficulty and nature of texts used: Basal texts, 

difficulty not reported. 

Was trainers’ fidelity in delivering treatment 

checked? Yes, via classroom observation. 

Properties of trainers (teachers) 

Number of teachers who administered 

treatments: 

Experimental = 11 

Control = 11 

Total = 22 

Teacher/student ratio: Not reported 

Type of trainer (teacher): Classroom teacher 

Length of training given to trainers (teachers): See 

above. 

Source of training: The researchers. 

Assignment of trainers (teachers) to group: 

Teachers were observed and given baseline 

scores on their classroom management skills 

(high, medium, low). This resulted in teachers 

being assigned to the following management 

levels: 

“High” = 8 

“Average” = 4 

“Low” = 2 

Researchers then randomly assigned teachers within 

each management level to either the treatment or 

control group. 

Management ratings were made again at four 

observation points during the year to validate the initial 

management ratings. 

Teachers were also observed at the beginning of the 

study to obtain a baseline measure of their skill 

instruction to establish that all 22 teachers were 

relatively equal in the explicitness of their explanations. 

Baseline data were unavailable for two teachers (1 

treatment and 1 control). 

Cost factors: Not reported. 

b. Moderator variables

List and describe other nontreatment independent 

variables included in the analyses of effects: None 

reported. 

7. Dependent (Outcome) Variables

List processes that were taught during training and 

measured during and at the end of training: See #6 

above. 

Student strategy awareness: 

Student awareness data for both treatment and control 

classrooms were obtained in interviews with five 

randomly selected low-group students from each 

classroom immediately following each of the four 

4-151	 National Reading Panel 
 

Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-152 

observed lessons subsequent to the baseline 

observation. The same five students were interviewed 

each time, except in the case of one classroom that had 

only four low-group students, where all four were 

interviewed each time. If a designated student was 

absent or moved away during the study, another student 

from the low-reading group was randomly selected to 

complete the complement of five interviewees. 

Three questions were asked of each student, followed 

by prepared probes if responses to the initial questions 

were incomplete or vague. 

•	 What were you learning in the lesson I just saw? 

•	 When would you use what was taught in the 

lesson? 

•	 How do you do what you were taught to do? 

The criteria for determining student awareness were 

contained in a rating scale developed by the research 

team. Ratings ranged from 0 to 4 on each of the 

following three criteria: 

1. 	 Awareness of what had been taught 

2.	 Awareness of the context or situation in which the 

strategy should be used or applied 

3.	 Awareness of how the strategy is employed. 

Teacher explicitness: 

All teachers in both groups were observed on four 

separate occasions subsequent to the baseline 

observation. On the basis of these observations, 

teachers were rated on the explicitness of their 

explanations, using a rating scale developed by the 

researchers. Two aspects of explanation were rated: 

the information conveyed and how the teacher 

conveyed it. 

The first aspect focused on the content of what the 

teacher said to students and was divided into five 

subcategories: 

1.	 What was said about the skill being taught 

2.	 When it would be used 

3.	 The features to attend to 

4.	 The sequence to follow 

5.	 The examples used. 

The second aspect focused on the pedagogical means 

by which the information was conveyed and included 

six subcategories, focusing on the teachers’ use of: 

•	 Modeling 

•	 Highlighting 

•	 Feedback 

•	 Review 

•	 Practice 

•	 Application. 

Teachers received ratings for degrees of explicitness on 

each of the 11 subcategories on a scale of 0 to 2 (with 0 

indicating absence, and 2, exemplary presence of the 

criterion). 

Student Achievement 

The achievement measure was the comprehension 

subtest of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (2nd ed., 

MacGinitie, 1978), Level D (designed for use with 

grades 4 to 6). This test consists of short paragraphs 

followed by a series of two to four multiple-choice 

questions about the content of each paragraph (43 total 

items). Form 2 was given as the pretest and Form 1 as 

the posttest. 

8. Nonequivalence of groups

Any reason to believe that treatment and control 

groups might not have been equivalent prior to 

treatments? 

No. “Although baseline data were not available for 

student awareness ratings, the stratified random 

assignment of teachers to treatment and control groups, 

coupled with the similarity of baseline explanation 

ratings (4.1 for each group) and the similarity of pretest 

comprehension scores, suggests that there was no initial 

awareness [or achievement] difference between 

groups.” 

Were steps taken in statistical analyses to adjust for 

any lack of equivalence? 

Not reported. 
 

 

Appendices 

9. Result (for each measure)

a. Name of Measure: Student strategy awareness 

interview 

Students of treatment teachers scored significantly 

higher than students of control teachers on strategy 

awareness ratings. 

Value of effect size: +1.39 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: ANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: Ns = 11 and 11 

b. Name of Measure: Teacher explicitness 

Across all observations after the baseline 

observation, treatment teachers were rated as 

significantly more explicit in their explanations than 

control teachers. 

Value of effect size: +2.11. 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: ANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: Ns = 11 and 11 

c. 	 Name of Measure: Student Achievement 

There was no significant difference between students in 

the treatment and control classrooms on the 

comprehension subtest at either pretest or posttest. 

Value of effect size: 0.24. 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: ANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: Ns = 11 and 11 

Students in treatment and control classrooms spent 

equal amounts of time answering comprehension test 

items on the pretest, but on the posttest, treatment 

students spent significantly more time answering 

questions. 

Value of effect size: +0.42 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test. 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: Ns = 11 and 11 

Duffy et al. (1987)

1. Reference

Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., Sivan, E., Rackliffe, 

G., Book, C., Meloth, M.S., Vavrus, L. G., Wesselman, 

R., Putname, J. & Bassiri, D. (1987). Effects of 

explaining the reasoning associated with using reading 

strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 23(3), 347-368. 

2. Research Question

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects 

of explaining the reasoning associated with using 

reading strategies. Three specific research questions 

were posed. 

•	 Can teachers learn to be more explicit in explaining 

the reasoning associated with using basal text skills 

as strategies? 

•	 Can explicit teacher explanations increase lowgroup students’ awareness of both lesson content 

and the need to be strategic while reading? 

•	 Can explicit teacher explanations increase lowgroup students’ conscious use of skills as strategies 

and lead, ultimately, to greater reading 

achievement? 

3. Sample of student participants

States or countries represented: The Midwest (no 

state given), USA 

Number of different schools: Treatment Group = 8; 

Control Group = 9 

Number of different classrooms = 20 

Number of student participants: 

Total: 148 

Treatment group: 71 

Control group: 77 

Number per group: Ranged from 3 to 16 students per 

class. 

Overall average: 7.4 per classroom. 

Age: Not listed 

4-153	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-154 

Grade: 3rd
 

Reading levels of participants: “Low”
 

Setting: Urban, suburban
 

Pretests administered prior to treatment:
 

Stanford Achievement Test (SAT), reading section, 

administered at end of 2nd grade. 

Special characteristics, if relevant: 

SES: Not reported. 

Ethnicity: Not reported. 

Exceptional Learning Characteristics: 

These students “represented the typical 

range of reading difficulties associated 

with low reading groups in urban 

centers.” Groups included 

mainstreamed special education 

students, immigrant children with 

severe language problems, and students 

with behavioral disorders. 

Selection restrictions used to limit the sample of 

participants: Not reported. 

Contextual information (concurrent reading 

instruction that participants received in their 

classrooms during the study): Not reported. 

Description of curriculum/instructional approach: 

Direct explanation (DE) with a focus on explaining the 

reasoning associated with skill and strategy usage. 

Duffy et al.’s approach contains all the elements of DE 

but also requires teachers to analyze the skills 

prescribed in basal texts, and to recast these skills as 

problem-solving strategies. 

This research is based upon the assertion that “because 

poor readers lack understanding of the strategic nature 

of reading, instruction needs to place greater emphasis 

on the development of poor readers’ ability to reason 

strategically.” 

According to the authors, “it may be necessary when 

working with poor readers for teachers to explain 

explicitly, in consistent ways over extended instructional 

periods, the mental processing associated with [a given] 

strategy, when it can be used, and how to apply it in a 

flexible manner.” 

In particular, the authors are interested in the 

relationship between the explicitness of teacher strategy 

explanations on the one hand and student strategy 

awareness and reading ability on the other. 

Consequently, the instructional approach used in this 

study focused on teaching students the reasoning that 

expert readers are presumed to employ when using 

strategically those skills traditionally taught in 

association with basal textbooks. 

Specifically, teachers were taught to recast the skills 

prescribed in basal textbooks as problem-solving 

strategies. They were taught to do this by analyzing the 

cognitive and metacognitive components of the skills, 

and by modeling the cognitive and metacognitive acts 

involved in performing the skills. 

The curricular emphasis in the treatment classrooms, 

therefore, was on the reasoning associated with 

strategic skill usage, not on the performance of isolated 

skill tasks. 

How sample was obtained: Selected from the 

population of those available. 

Attrition: One urban teacher was replaced by a 

suburban teacher in mid-September. 

4. Setting of the Study

Classrooms for low-level reading groups. 

5. Design of the Study

Random assignment of participants (teachers) to 

treatments (randomized experiment). Each teacher’s 

pre-existing reading groups remained intact. Pretest 

measures revealed no significant differences between 

the participating groups of students. 

6. Independent Variables

a. Treatment variables

Describe all treatments and control conditions. 

Treatment teachers were taught to modify the 

curricular and instructional skill prescriptions of the 

basal text so that the emphasis was on the mental 

processing involved in using skills as strategies. 

Specifically, treatment teachers were taught to adapt 

their basal text instruction in the following ways: 
 

Appendices 

•	 Because basal textbooks often present prescribed 

skills as isolated memory-based tasks, treatment 

teachers were taught to recast the prescribed skills 

as problem-solving strategies by analyzing the 

cognitive and metacognitive components of the skill. 

•	 Because the teaching suggestions in the basal text 

teacher’s guide emphasize procedural skill 

exercises and drill, treatment teachers were taught 

to supplement these suggestions with modeling of 

the cognitive and metacognitive acts involved in 

performing the skills. 

•	 Teachers were taught “to explain explicitly, in 

consistent ways over extended instructional periods, 

the mental processing associated with [a given] 

strategy, when it can be used, and how to apply it in 

a flexible manner.” 

•	 Teachers were taught “to present their explanations 

to students as descriptive of what good readers do, 

rather than as prescriptions to be procedurally 

applied in all situations.” 

Treatment teachers were not provided with scripts for 

teaching skills in this way. Instead, they used the 

information from the research intervention sessions to 

develop their own explanations for each lesson. 

Treatment teachers were told that the purpose of the 

project was to study teacher explanation. They received 

six 2-hour training sessions in the course of one 

academic year. These sessions emphasized how to 

•	 Make decisions about recasting prescribed basal 

text skills as strategies. 

•	 Decide on explicit statements about the strategy 

being taught, when it would be used, and how to do 

the mental processing involved. 

•	 Organize these statements into a lesson format that 

progressed from an introduction, to modeling, to 

interaction between teacher and students, to 

closure. 

The training interventions also included one-on-one 

coaching, collaborative sharing between the teachers, 

specific feedback regarding observed lessons, and 

videotapes of model lessons. 

Treated-control teachers were told that the purpose of 

the study was to validate at the 3rd grade level the 

results of a previous (unrelated) study involving 

classroom management for 1st graders. They received 

three 2-hour training sessions on using the management 

principles employed in the 1st grade study. In the 

classroom, they followed their usual instructional 

routines regarding basal textbook skill instruction, while 

adding the management principles of the 1st grade 

study. 

Neither the treatment nor the control group was made 

aware of the other’s existence. 

Both groups of teachers received identical information 

about how to implement an uninterrupted sustained 

silent reading (USSR) program and how to prepare 

students to take a standardized reading test. 

Was instruction explicit or implicit? Explicit. 

Difficulty and nature of texts used: Basal reading 

textbooks for the 2nd grade. 

Was trainers’(teachers’) fidelity in delivering 

treatment checked? Yes, by observations and 

checklists. 

Properties of teachers/trainers: 

Number of teachers who administered treatments: 

Treatment group = 10 

Control group = 10 

Total = 20 

Teacher/student ratio: Depended on class; ranged 

from 1:3 to 1:16. 

Type of trainer: Classroom teacher. 

Any special qualification of trainers (teachers)? No. 

Length of training given to trainers (teachers): 12 

hours (six 2-hour sessions over the course of the school 

year). 

Source of training: The researchers. 

Assignment of trainers to groups: Teachers were 

already assigned to students at beginning of study. 

4-155	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-156 

Cost factors: Not reported. 

b. Moderator variables:

List and describe other nontreatment independent 

variables included in the analyses of effects: None 

reported. 

7. Dependent (Outcome) Variables

Student reading achievement: 

Stanford Achievement Test (SAT): 

The comprehension and word skills subtests were used. 

(PRE and POST). 

Michigan Educational Assessment Program 

(MEAP): 

The MEAP was administered 5 months after the
 

treatment ended.
 

(DELAYED POST).
 

Student strategy awareness: 

Lesson interviews: 

Immediately following a reading lesson, students were 

interviewed to determine whether they were 

consciously aware of what strategy the teacher taught 

during the lesson (declarative knowledge), when to use 

it (situational knowledge), and how to use it (procedural 

knowledge). 

(DURING). 

Concept interviews: 

At the end of the year, students were interviewed to 

measure their awareness of the general need to be 

strategic when reading. 

(POST). 

Student strategy usage:
 

Supplemental Achievement Measure (SAM):
 

This measure was designed by the experimenters to 

determine whether students could perform the specific 

skill tasks they had been taught (Part I) and whether 

their rationale for choosing an answer reflected the 

reasoning associated with using skills as strategies (Part 

II). 

(POST). 

Modified Graded Oral Reading Paragraph 

(GORP): 

This test involved students reading passages orally and 

examined self-reports of their self-corrections and their 

responses to two embedded words meeting semantic 

cueing criteria. 

(POST). 

Teacher effectiveness: 

Teacher explicitness measure: 

To measure the explicitness of treatment and treatedcontrol teachers’ explanations, the researchers 

developed an instrument to rate transcripts of 

audiotaped lessons. 

(DURING). 

The rating instrument was organized into three parts: 

•	 Part I of the instrument focused on the information 

presented. Teachers were rated on what they said 

to students about (1) the task to be learned, (2) its 

usefulness, (3) the selection of the strategy to be 

used, and (4) how to do the mental processing 

associated with the strategy. 

•	 Part II focused on the means used to present 

information. Teachers were rated on their (1) 

introduction to the lesson, (2) modeling, (3) 

diminishing assistance during interaction, (4) 

eliciting of student responses, and (5) closure. 

•	 Part III focused on the cohesion both within the 

lesson and across lessons. 

8. Nonequivalence of groups

Any reason to believe that treatment and control 

groups might not have been equivalent before 

treatments? No. 

Were steps taken in statistical analyses to adjust for 

any lack of equivalence? Yes. 
Appendices 

9. Result (for each measure):

Student reading achievement: 

a. Name of measure: SAT: Word Skills 

Students of treatment teachers scored significantly 

higher than students of control teachers on word skills. 

Value of effect size: +1.63 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

MANCOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

b. Name of measure: SAT: Comprehension 

Students of treatment teachers did not score 

significantly higher than students of control teachers on 

comprehension. 

Value of effect size: +0.25 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

MANCOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

c. Name of measure: MEAP 

Students of treatment teachers scored significantly 

higher than students of control teachers. 

Value of effect size: +1.33 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

ANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

Student strategy awareness: 

d. Name of measure: Lesson interviews 

Lesson interview responses of students of treatment 

teachers were rated significantly higher than the 

responses of students of control teachers. These 

findings were due to significantly higher ratings given to 

students of treatment teachers on situational knowledge 

and procedural knowledge. 

Value of effect size: 

Declarative knowledge: +0.84
 

Situational knowledge: +2.22
 

Procedural knowledge: +1.50
 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

ANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

e. Name of measure: Concept interviews 

Concept interview responses of students of the 

treatment teachers were rated significantly higher than 

the responses of students of the control teachers, thus 

suggesting that the treatment students were more 

aware of the strategic nature of reading. 

Value of effect size: +1.15 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

MANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

f. Student strategy usage: 

Name of measure: SAM: Part II 

(performance of skill tasks) 

Students of treatment teachers did not differ 

significantly from students of control teachers in their 

performance on Part I. 

Value of effect size: -0.21 

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Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-158 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

MANOVA 

g. Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

Name of measure: SAM: Part II 

(reasoning associated with use of skills as 

strategies) 

Students of treatment teachers were significantly 

superior to students of control teachers in their 

performance on Part II. 

Value of effect size: +1.67 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

MANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

h. Name of measure: 

GORP: Word meaning ratings 

Students of treatment teachers scored significantly 

higher on the word meaning subtest. 

Value of effect size: +1.51 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

MANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

i. Name of measure: 

GORP: Word recognition ratings 

Students of treatment teachers scored significantly 

higher on the word recognition subtest. 

Value of effect size: +5.00 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

MANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

“According to these GORP results, low-group students 

who received explicit explanations about the reasoning 

associated with using skills as strategies (1) reported 

that they used such reasoning when actually reading 

connected text and (2) described the reasoning 

employed when using the strategies.” 

Teacher effectiveness: 

j. Name of measure: Teacher explicitness measure 

The treatment teachers were found to be more explicit 

in explaining the reasoning associated with using 

reading skills as strategies than the treated-control 

teachers. 

Value of effect size: +1.67 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: 

ANOVA 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 10 and 10 

Anderson (1992)

1. Reference

Anderson, V. (1992). A teacher development 

project in transactional strategy instruction for teachers 

of severely reading-disabled adolescents. Teaching and 

Teacher Education, 8(4) 391-403. 

2. Research Question

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness 

of a teacher development model designed to provide 

teachers with collaborative transactional strategies for 

helping severely reading-delayed adolescents take a 

more active approach to understanding informational 

texts. 
Appendices 

The research question addressed by this study is: Does 

the use of the TSI approach to reading instruction result 

in positive changes in severely reading-delayed 

adolescent students’ reading performance? 

3. Sample of Student Participants

States or countries represented: Not reported. 

Number of different schools: Not reported. 

Number of participants (total, per group): 

Total: 83 

Per group: Ranged from 2 to 10 and was 

“approximately equal” across groups. 

Age: Not reported. 

Grade: Ranged from 6 to 11. 

Reading levels of participants: 

Severely reading disabled: “All but a very few had been 

diagnosed as learning disabled.” More than 75% of the 

adolescent students in the study had incoming reading 

levels of grade 3 or below. 

Setting: Not reported.
 

Pretests administered before to treatment:
 

At the beginning of the study, teachers in both an 

experimental and a control group were videotaped 

giving a reading lesson for approximately 30 minutes, 

using one of two expository passages developed for the 

study that were matched for difficulty but had different 

content. 

In addition, students were given three subtests of the 

Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test (phonics, structural 

analysis, and reading comprehension). 

The purpose of these steps was to establish pretest 

baseline measures of teaching style and student ability. 

Special characteristics, if relevant:
 

SES: Not reported.
 

Ethnicity: Not reported.
 

Exceptional learning characteristics?
 

Learning disabled: yes
 

Reading disabled: yes
 

Selection restrictions used to limit the sample of 

participants: Not reported. 

Contextual information (concurrent reading 

instruction that participants received in their 

classrooms during the study): Not reported. 

Description of curriculum/instructional approach: 

TSI with a focus on progressive shifts of teacher 

attention toward fostering active reading. The TSI 

approach contains all the elements of DE and also 

includes extended discussions that emphasize joint 

construction of text interpretations and student strategy 

usage. 

According to the author, TSI is a method of teaching 

reading that emphasizes “transactions or negotiations 

that occur among teacher and students, and students 

and students while working together to determine text 

meaning.” 

The view of teacher education presented in this study 

involves a progressive shift of the teacher’s attention. 

•	 The first stage is to shift the attention from overt 

performance of tasks to the underlying 

comprehension processes. 

•	 The next stage shifts from teacher questioning, 

modeling, and explaining to students carrying out 

these processes. 

•	 The final stage shifts from students’ carrying out 

active processes under teacher guidance to their 

assuming that responsibility themselves. 

How was sample obtained? 

Teachers were invited to volunteer via a letter from the 

participating board of education. 

Attrition: 

Experimental: 1 teacher 

Control: 3 teachers 

(originally, there were 10 teachers in each 

group) 

4. Setting of the Study

Small-group reading session, in which teachers work 

directly with students on the reading and understanding 

of informational text. 

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5. Design of the Study

Random assignment of participants (teachers) to 

treatments (randomized experiment). 

6. Independent Variables

a. Treatment variables:

Describe all treatments and control conditions: 

A set of 20 teacher shifts and 12 student shifts was 

presented to the treatment teachers. The shifts 

represent changes that need to be made for more active 

reading to be fostered. This list of shifts first describes 

ways in which teachers and students typically behave in 

remedial reading sessions; it then provides a contrasting 

list of behaviors that characterize or promote active 

reading. The set of student shifts that was presented to 

teachers included the following as desired goals: 

•	 Participating in reading to learn new information 

•	 Trying to read difficult or unfamiliar material 

•	 Focusing on collaborating with the group in reading 

sessions 

•	 Revealing and investigating errors in reading 

•	 Directing effort toward explaining how to arrive at 

right answers 

•	 Attempting to take on the role of the teacher
 

•	 Asking questions
 

•	 Reacting to text
 

•	 Providing models for others
 

•	 Giving elaborated responses
 

•	 Focusing on learning from the reading
 

•	 Seeking challenges in thinking.
 

Teachers were also given a set of principles for
 

fostering active reading through reading instruction, with
 

specific teacher techniques for each principle.
 

Particular attention was given to:
 

•	 Procedures for making thinking explicit by thinking 

aloud and for turning over responsibility for this to 

students 

•	 Collaborative problem-solving, as well as accessing, 

applying, and evaluating students’ existing and 

alternative problem-solving strategies 

•	 “Upgrading” questioning by both teachers and 

students to be less content-specific and more 

focused on the use of strategies 

•	 Turning questioning and the entire reading session 

over to students and increasing student talk and 

decreasing teacher talk during reading discussions. 

The training of the treatment teachers involved three 

sessions of 3 hours each, held at 1-month intervals 

while the teachers were conducting reading sessions 

with their students. In these training sessions, treatment 

teachers were instructed in principles and techniques 

for fostering active reading. The training module 

included the following elements and techniques: 

Research involvement: 

The treatment teachers participated in discussions about 

the study procedures. “Every effort was made to make 

teachers feel they were a part of the development and 

evolution of the project.” 

Teaching shifts: 

As described above, a set of 20 teacher shifts and 12 

student shifts, representing changes that need to be 

made in order for more active reading to be fostered, 

was presented to the treatment teachers and used 

throughout their training for self-evaluation. 

Videotape and self-evaluations: 

At each training session, the teachers were shown 

videotaped clips of their own teaching and asked to 

evaluate them in terms of the shifts. During selfevaluation, treatment teachers also discussed and 

selected the shifts on which they felt they needed the 

most help and guidance from the experimenter and/or 

peer teachers. 

Principles and techniques for fostering active 

reading: 

As described above, treatment teachers were given a 

set of principles for fostering active reading through 

reading instruction, with specific teacher techniques for 

each principle. 

Peer support: 
Appendices 

Treatment teachers received peer support and coaching 

from previously trained teachers who attended the 

training sessions and were available as needed for 

teachers. 

The control teachers were told that they would receive 

the same training as the treatment teachers after the 

research data were collected. 

Was instruction explicit or implicit? Explicit. 

Difficulty and nature of texts used: 

A total of 135 single-page, expository texts was 

prepared, and it was left to the teachers and students to 

decide which of the texts they wished to read during the 

approximately 20 reading sessions in which they would 

engage. 

Texts were drawn and edited (primarily shortened) 

from a variety of “real text” sources, e.g., Cricket 

Magazine. 

Readability levels ranged from grades 2 to 8, with the 

majority of texts at grades 4 and 5. 

(Because the intervention included a particular 

emphasis on identifying reading problems and sharing 

problem-solving strategies, all texts were somewhat 

challenging so that problems would arise during 

reading.) 

Was trainers’ (teachers’) fidelity in delivering 

treatment checked? 

Yes: experimental teachers were videotaped 3 times 

during the study (pretest, intervention, and posttest). 

Properties of trainers (teachers): 

Number of trainers (teachers) who administered
 

treatments:
 

Experimental: 9
 

Control: 7
 

Total: 16
 

Teacher/student ratio: Not reported.
 

Type of trainer (teacher): Classroom teacher.
 

Any special qualification of trainers?
 

All of the teachers were experienced special education 

teachers. 

Length of training given to teachers: 

Experimental teachers participated in three afternoon 

sessions of 3 hours each, held at 1-month intervals 

while the teachers were conducting reading sessions 

with their students. 

Source of training: The researchers 

Assignment of trainers to groups: Random 

Cost factors: Not reported. 

b. Moderator variables:

List and describe other nontreatment independent 

variables included in the analyses of effects: None 

reported. 

7. Dependent (Outcome) Variables

Student reading achievement: 

Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test: 

The phonics, structural analysis, and reading 

comprehension 

subtests were used. 

(PRE and POST). 

Teacher effectiveness: 

Videotaped classroom observation: 

Teachers were videotaped giving a reading lesson for 

approximately 30 minutes. (PRE and POST). A rating 

scale was developed using the teacher and student 

shifts as a base. Teachers were rated on the following 

14 dimensions: 

1. Treating reading problems openly 

2. Focusing on how to solve problems 

3. Providing models of thinking 

4. Teaching question-asking 

5. Asking thought-provoking questions 

6. Allowing student control 

7. Focusing on group collaboration 

8. Informing students of learning 

9. Focusing on text and learning about reading 

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Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-162 

10. Setting reading goals before reading 

11. Problem-solving during reading 

12. Summarizing to check comprehension 

13. Reflecting on reading goals after text 

14. Stressing new learning from text. 

Teacher effectiveness was also assessed by rating 

students on the following eight dimensions: 

1. Treating reading problems openly 

2. Focusing on how to solve problems 

3. Expressing thinking 

4. Asking questions 

5. Giving elaborated answers 

6. Taking teacher role 

7. Focusing on group collaboration 

8. Involvement in sessions. 

8. Nonequivalence of groups

Any reason to believe that treatment and control 

groups might not have been equivalent before 

treatments? Not reported. 

Were steps taken in statistical analyses to adjust for 

any lack of equivalence? Not reported. 

9. Result (for each measure)

Student reading achievement: 

a. Name of measure: Stanford Diagnostic 

Reading Test 

A significantly higher number of students of treatment 

teachers (about 80%) made gains on the reading 

comprehension subtest than did students of control 

teachers (about 50%).

 There was no significant difference in the number of 

students of treatment teachers and the number of 

students of control teachers who made gains on the 

phonics and the structural analysis subtests. 

Teacher effectiveness: 

b. Name of measure: Videotaped teaching 

sessions: Dimensions of teacher shifts. 

The treatment teachers showed large significant 

improvements across all dimensions. 

Value of effect size: 

1. Treat reading problems openly: +3.8 

2. Focus on how to solve problems: +2.80 

3. Provide models of thinking: +3.25 

4. Teach question-asking: +2.00 

5. Ask thought-provoking questions: +3.14 

6. Allow student control: +2.08 

7. Focus on group collaboration: +2.56 

8. Inform students: +2.35 

9. Focus on text and learning about reading: +2.52 

10. Set reading goals before reading: +3.99 

11. Problemsolve during reading: +5.73 

12. Summarize to check comprehension: +1.90 

13. Reflect on reading goals after reading: +2.21 

14. Stress new learning from text: +2.45 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-tests 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: Ns = 9 and 7 

c. Name of measure: Videotaped teaching 

sessions: Dimensions of student shifts. 

The students of treatment teachers showed large 

significant improvements across all dimensions. 

Value of effect size: 

1. S: Focus on how to solve problems: +3.24 

2. S: Treat reading problems openly: +3.2 

3. S: Express thinking: +2.85 

4. S: Ask questions: +2.01 

5. S: Give elaborated answers: +1.48 

6. S: Take teacher role +2.74 

7. S: Focus on group collaboration: +2.46 
Appendices 

8. S: Involvement in session: +2.14 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-tests 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: Ns = 9 and 7 

Name of measure: Videotaped teaching sessions: 

Teaching incidents involving problem-solving and 

collaboration 

Treatment teachers showed a far greater percentage of 

teaching incidents that involved problem-solving and 

collaboration at posttest than at pretest. No statistical 

test is presented. 

Name of measure: Videotaped teaching sessions: 

Student and teacher talk 

There was a significant increase (t-test) in student talk 

and a decrease in teacher talk in the treatment 

condition. The relevant data are not presented. 

Brown, Pressley, et al. (1996)

1. Reference

Brown, R., Pressley, M., Van Meter, P., & Schuder, J. 

(1996). A quasi-experimental validation of transactional 

strategies instruction with low-achieving second-grade 

readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88(1), 18­

37. 

2. Research Question

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the 

effectiveness of the Students Achieving Independent 

Learning (SAIL) program. Three hypotheses were 

examined: 

Participating in SAIL would enhance reading 

comprehension as measured by a standardized test. 

After a year of SAIL instruction, there would be clear 

indications of students learning and using strategies. 

Students would develop deeper, more personalized, and 

interpretive understandings of text after a year of 

SAIL. 

3. Sample of Student Participants

States or countries represented: Mid-Atlantic state 

(unnamed), United States 

Number of different schools: Not reported; all schools 

in the same district. 

Number of different classrooms: 10. 

Number of participants (total, per group): 

SAIL group = 30 

Control group = 30 

Total = 60 

Number per group = 6 

The SAIL and non-SAIL reading groups were matched 

on the basis of school demographic information and the 

students’ fall standardized test performances (see 

below). 

Age: Not reported. 

Grade: Second. 

Reading levels of participants: Reading below second 

grade level. 

Setting: Not reported.
 

Pretests administered before treatment:
 

Comprehension subtest of the SAT. (Primary 1, Form J; 

Grade level 1.5 to 2.5); administered in late November 

or early December. 

Special characteristics: 

SES: Not reported. 

Ethnicity: Not reported. 

Exceptional learning characteristics: None, other 

than reading below grade level. 

Selection restrictions used to limit the sample of 

participants: 

Only six students in one SAIL class met eligibility 

requirements so the researchers decided to use six 

matched pairs in each classroom as the basis of 

comparison. 

Contextual information (concurrent reading 

instruction that participants received in their 

classrooms during the study): Not reported. 

Description of curriculum/instructional approach: 

4-163 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups	 4-164 

The SAIL program uses a TSI approach to teaching 

reading comprehension to low-performing students. The 

TSI approach contains all the elements of DE and also 

includes extended discussions that emphasize joint 

construction of text interpretations and student strategy 

usage. 

“The purpose of SAIL is the development of 

independent, self-regulated meaning-making from text.” 

Students are taught to adjust their reading to their 

specific purpose and to text characteristics. 

According to the authors, “the short-term goal of TSI is 

the joint construction of reasonable interpretations by 

group members as they apply strategies to texts. The 

long-term goal is the internalization and consistently 

adaptive use of strategic processing whenever students 

encounter demanding text. Both goals are promoted by 

teaching reading group members to construct text 

meaning by emulating expert readers’ use of 

comprehension strategies.” 

SAIL teachers are taught to achieve the goals of TSI 

through: 

•	 Direct explanations 

•	 Modeling 

•	 Coaching 

•	 Scaffolded practice. 

In addition, SAIL teachers are taught to facilitate 

extended discussions of text, which emphasize student 

application of strategies to text comprehension. 

In the SAIL reading program, students are taught 

strategies for adjusting their reading to their specific 

purpose and to text characteristics. Specifically, 

students are instructed to: 

•	 Predict upcoming events 

•	 Alter expectations as text unfolds 

•	 Generate questions and interpretations while 

reading 

•	 Visualize represented ideas 

•	 Summarize periodically 

•	 Attend selectively to the most important information 

•	 Think aloud as they practice applying 

comprehension strategies during reading instruction. 

Overreliance on any one strategy is discouraged. In 

general, students are taught that getting the overall 

meaning of text is more important than understanding 

every word. 

When SAIL instruction occurs in reading groups, it 

differs in a number of ways from more conventional 

reading group instruction: 

Prereading discussion of vocabulary is eliminated in 

favor of discussion of vocabulary in the context of 

reading. 

The almost universal classroom practice of asking 

comprehension-check questions as students read in 

group (e.g., Mehan, 1979) is rarely observed in 

transactional strategies instruction groups (Gaskins et 

al., 1993). Instead, a teacher gauges literal 

comprehension as students think aloud after reading a 

text segment. 

There are extended interpretive discussions of text, with 

these discussions emphasizing student application of 

strategies to text. 

Although reading group is an important SAIL 

component, the teaching of strategies extends across 

the school day, during whole-class instruction, and as 

teachers interact individually with their students. 

Reading instruction is also an across-the-curriculum 

activity. 

How was sample obtained? 

The five SAIL teachers exhausted the pool of 2nd 

grade teachers in the district with extensive experience 

(i.e., 3 or more years) teaching in the SAIL program. 

The comparison teachers were recommended by 

principals and district reading specialists. 

Attrition 

Between the first and second semesters, one SAIL 

student and two comparison students in one pair of 

classrooms left their classrooms. Backup students were 

substituted, with no significant difference occurring 

between the newly constituted groups on the fall 

reading comprehension subtest. 
Appendices 

4. Setting of the Study

Elementary school classrooms. 

5. Design of the Study

Quasi-experimental, in that teachers and students were 

not randomly assigned to conditions. 

The authors state that “preparing teachers to become 

competent transactional strategies instructors is a long 

process; therefore, the Panel felt that it could not 

randomly assign teachers, provide professional 

development, and wait for teachers to become 

experienced in teaching SAIL in a realistic time frame.” 

However, as noted above, each of the SAIL groups 

was matched with a comparison group that was “close 

in reading achievement level at the beginning of the 

study” (based on standardized test performance) and 

from a school that was “demographically similar to the 

school the school representing the SAIL group.” 

6. Independent Variables

a. Treatment variables

Describe all treatments and control conditions: 

The treatment (SAIL) teachers were not trained 

specifically for this study; however, they all had 

extensive experience (i.e., 3 or more years) teaching in 

the SAIL program. 

The control teachers received no special training; 

however, they were all “highly regarded for their 

teaching abilities by district personnel.” In addition, the 

control group had, on average, a greater number of 

years of teaching experience than the treatment 

teachers. 

Was instruction explicit or implicit? Explicit. 

Difficulty and nature of texts used: 

It is not entirely clear what texts were used during the 

course of the school year. The three texts used in the 

study for group comparisons were illustrated stories 

from trade books, with numbers of words and 

readability levels as follows: 

•	 341 words; 2.4 

•	 512 words; 2.2 

•	 129 words; 3.9 (used for a different measure than 

the previous two). 

Was trainers’ (teachers’) fidelity in delivering 

treatment checked? 

The article states that there were “informal 

observations of the comparison teachers over the year, 

[which] confirmed that they were more eclectic in their 

approach to reading instruction than the SAIL 

teachers . . .” However, it does not indicate whether 

the SAIL teachers were also observed. 

Properties of trainers (teachers):
 

Number of trainers (teachers):
 

SAIL group = 5
 

Control group = 5
 

Total = 10
 

Teacher/student ratio:
 

It is unclear how many students were in each teacher’s 

class; however, the reading groups within each class 

that were compared had six students each, for a ratio of 

1:6. 

Type of teacher: Classroom teacher.
 

Any special qualification of trainers (teachers)?
 

All the SAIL teachers had between 3 and 6 years of 

experience teaching in the SAIL program; therefore, 

one may assume that they delivered the treatment 

effectively. 

The SAIL teachers had an average of 10.4 years of 

teaching experience compared to an average of 23.4 

years for the comparison teachers. 

The authors acknowledge that given this difference, 

“there is no way to separate out the effects that years 

of experience may have had on the way teachers 

taught their students.” 

However, they state that readers should “bear in mind 

that the comparison teachers were highly regarded for 

their teaching abilities by district personnel; therefore, if 

anything, their greater number of years of experience 

could be construed as an advantage.” 

Length of training given to trainers: Not reported.
 

Source of training: Not reported.
 

Assignment of trainers (teachers) to groups:
 

4-165	 National Reading Panel 
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Reports of the Subgroups 4-166 

“The five SAIL teachers exhausted the pool of 2nd 

grade teachers in the district with extensive experience 

teaching in the SAIL program.” 

Cost factors: Not reported. 

Moderator variables:

List and describe other nontreatment independent 

variables included in the analyses of effects: None 

reported. 

7. Dependent (Outcome) Variables:

Student reading achievement: 

SAT: 

The comprehension and word skills subtests were used. 

(PRE and POST). 

Story recall: 

Students were asked cued and picture-cued retelling 

questions about two stories. This measure was designed 

to assess both recall skills and the degree to which 

students were interpretive in their retelling of the story. 

(POST). 

Student strategy awareness: 

Strategy awareness interview:

In October and November (i.e., when SAIL 

components were being introduced to SAIL students) 

and in March and April, a strategies interview was 

administered to all students participating in the 

study. This interview tapped students’ reported 

awareness of strategies, as measured by the number 

and types of strategies they claimed to use during 

reading. It was also designed to measure students’ 

awareness of where, when, and why to use 

strategies. 

(DURING). 

Students were asked the following five open-ended 

questions, adapted from the ones used by Duffy et 

al. (1987): 

What do good readers do? What makes someone a 

good reader? 

What things do you do before you start to read a 

story? 

What do you think about before you start to read a 

story? 

What do you do when you come to a word you do 

not know? 

What do you do when you read something that does 

not make sense? 

Student strategy usage: 

Think-aloud measure:

Students were stopped at four points while reading a 

difficult story individually with a researcher and asked 

to describe their thinking and their strategy usage. 

(POST). 

Teacher effectiveness: 

Classroom observation: 

SAIL and non-SAIL teachers were observed teaching 

two story lessons and were compared in terms of the 

number of strategies they taught in each lesson. 

(DURING). 

8. Nonequivalence of groups

Any reason to believe that treatment and control 

groups might not have been equivalent before 

treatments? 

Although it is possible, because the groups were not 

randomly assigned, it is unlikely because of the careful 

matching done in the fall on both mean performance 

and variability on standardized reading comprehension 

tests. 

Were steps taken in statistical analyses to adjust for 

any lack of equivalence? 

Not reported. 

9. Result (for each measure):

Student reading achievement: 

a. Name of measure: SAT: Comprehension

Students of treatment teachers scored significantly 

higher than students of control teachers on the 

comprehension subtest of the SAT. 
 

Appendices 

Value of effect size: + 1.70 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5 

b. Name of measure: SAT: Word skills

Students of treatment teachers scored significantly 

higher than students of control teachers on the word 

skills subtest of the SAT. 

Value of effect size: +1.67 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5 

c. Name of measure: Story recall: Literal

information

Students of the treatment (SAIL) teachers recalled 

more literal information than students of control 

teachers. 

Value of effect size: 

Story 1: +0.69 

Story 2: +1.37 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5 

d. Name of measure: Story recall: Interpretation

Students of the treatment (SAIL) teachers were 

significantly more interpretative in their retelling of the 

stories than were students of control teachers. 

Value of effect size:
 

Story 1: +1.01
 

Story 2: +1.07
 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5 

Student strategy awareness: 

e. Name of measure: Strategy awareness interview:

Comprehension strategies

Toward the end of the treatment, the students of the 

treatment (SAIL) teachers reported more awareness 

of comprehension strategies during the interview 

than did the students of control group teachers. 

Value of effect size: +4.03 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5 

f. Name of measure: Strategy awareness interview:

Word-level strategies

Toward the end of the treatment, the students of the 

treatment (SAIL) teachers reported more awareness 

of word-level strategies during the interview than 

did the students of control group teachers. 

Value of effect size: +1.38 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5 

Student strategy usage: 

g. Name of measure: Think-aloud measure

Students of treatment (SAIL) teachers applied 

significantly more strategies during the think-aloud task 

than did the students of control teachers. 

Value of effect size: +2.98 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

4-167 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 4, Part III: Teacher Preparation and Comprehension Strategies Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 4-168 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5 

Teacher effectiveness: 

h. Name of measure: Classroom observation:

Comprehension strategies

The treatment (SAIL) teachers were found to have 

taught significantly more comprehension strategies than 

control teachers. 

Value of effect size: +5.48 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5 

i. Name of measure: Classroom observation: Wordlevel strategies

The treatment (SAIL) teachers were found to have 

taught significantly more word-level strategies than 

control teachers. 

Value of effect size: +1.38 

Type of summary statistics from which effect size 

was derived: t-test 

Number of classrooms providing the effect size 

information: 

Ns = 5 and 5. 

Report

TEACHER EDUCATION AND READING INSTRUCTION 

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

The analysis of reading and reading instruction involves 

four interacting factors: students, tasks, materials, and 

teachers. It has often been the case that research has 

not focused on teachers; it has emphasized students, 

materials, and tasks. Recent developments, such as 

class-size reduction and the development of standards 

for content areas, have highlighted the need for 

qualified teachers. In addition, teacher education and 

professional development emerged as one of the most 

frequently mentioned areas of concern during the 

regional meetings. Speakers at meetings of the National 

Reading Panel (NRP) also emphasized the need for 

consideration of these topics. Given these concerns, a 

subgroup was established to survey the research in this 

area. The following is a summary of that work. 

Background 

Teacher education and professional development 

represent two aspects of the ways in which teachers 

acquire knowledge. In teacher education programs, 

prospective teachers are taught in structured programs 

before being certified as teachers. The experiences 

these preservice teachers have include coursework in 

theory and methods as well as supervised teaching. 

Once teachers are in the field, having assumed teaching 

positions, the emphasis shifts from teacher education to 

professional development. This latter context is often 

referred to as inservice education. Because there are 

dramatic differences in the amount of time spent, the 

structure of the program, and the continuity of the 

education, the NRP has chosen to analyze the two 

contexts separately. 

The analysis was guided by three primary questions: 

•	 How are teachers taught to teach reading? 

•	 What do studies show about the effectiveness of 

teacher education? 

•	 How can research be applied to improve teacher 

development? 

Two secondary questions were posed before the 

analysis: 

•	 What findings can be used immediately? 

•	 What important gaps remain in our knowledge? 

Methodology 

How was the analysis of the research 

literature conducted?

The NRP conducted extensive and systematic searches 

for research on preservice and inservice teacher 

education and professional development. According to 

the methodology developed by the NRP, only studies 

that were experimental tests of teacher education or 

professional development and that had appeared in 

professional journals were included. Each study that 

met the initial criteria was coded with variables that 

allowed for further analysis. 

Results and Discussion 

What do the results of the analysis of 

studies on teacher education and 

reading show? 

Despite the fact that there is a much larger body of 

work on teacher education, only a very small number of 

studies were found to meet the initial criteria. There 

were differences between the types of problems 

studied in preservice and inservice research. Preservice 

research emphasized the learning of methods and use 

of materials. Inservice research was much more 

eclectic, seemingly related to specific curricular needs 

rather than the general instructional needs at the 

preservice level. 

A second important issue is whether teacher education 

is effective. For teacher education to be effective, it 

must change both teacher and student behavior. That is, 

teachers must adopt new ways of teaching, and 

students must show appropriate improvement as a 

result. However, it is only for inservice research that 

student achievement was measured. For preservice 

5-1	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-2 

work, only teacher outcomes were measured. This is 

not entirely inappropriate because this research does 

show that teachers adopt the strategies and techniques 

they are taught. 

Of the inservice research studies, one-half measured 

student outcomes as well as teacher outcomes. In all 

but a few cases the results showed that the intervention 

in professional development produced significantly 

higher student achievement. 

Because of the small number of studies that constituted 

the final sample, the Panel could not answer the 

question of how research can be used to improve 

teacher education in specific ways. Rather, it is clear 

that there is a need for programmatic research to 

answer this question. 

Additional evidence on this issue is available in the 

report from the Comprehension subgroup. The 

conclusion with respect to the preparation of teachers 

for comprehension instruction is that it requires 

extended training with ongoing support. That only a few 

studies were found dealing with teacher education and 

professional development in comprehension supports 

the conclusion of this analysis that a great deal of 

research is needed on this issue. 

Almost all the research demonstrated positive effects 

on students, teachers, or both. However, the range of 

variables was so great for the small number of studies 

available that the NRP could not reach a general 

conclusion about the specific content of teacher 

education programs. 

Conclusions 

What conclusions can be drawn from this 

analysis of teacher education and 

studies? 

Based on the analysis, the NRP concludes that 

appropriate teacher education does produce higher 

achievement in students. Much more must be known 

about the conditions under which this conclusion holds. 

Some issues that need to be resolved include 

determining the optimal combination of preservice and 

inservice experience, effects of preservice experience 

on inservice performance, appropriate length of 

interventions for both preservice and inservice 

education, and best ways to assess the effectiveness of 

teacher education and professional development. 

Directions for Further Research 

There was little research on how teachers can be 

supported over the long term to ensure sustained 

implementation of new methods and student 

achievement. This is an important issue that needs 

resolution, given the resource-intensive nature of 

teacher education and professional development. 

The Panel found no research in the sample that 

addresses the question of the relationship between the 

development of standards and teacher education or 

professional development. Given the great interest in 

developing standards, this is an important gap in our 

knowledge. 
Report

TEACHER EDUCATION AND READING INSTRUCTION 

Report 

5-3 National Reading Panel 

Introduction 

The analysis of reading and reading instruction involves 

four interacting factors: students, tasks, materials, and 

teachers. It has often been the case that research has 

not focused on teachers, emphasizing students, 

materials and tasks. Recent developments such as 

class-size reduction and the development of standards 

for reading and content areas have highlighted the need 

for, and difficulty in obtaining, qualified teachers. 

Although accreditation processes for schools and 

colleges of education (National Council for 

Accreditation of Teacher Education, for example) and 

certification of programs (Association for Childhood 

Education International and International Reading 

Association) exercise some control over the quality of 

teacher preparation, there is a need for the standards 

utilized by these governing bodies to be validated by and 

predicated on empirical research. (Versions of 

standards presently used for accreditation related to 

reading literacy are found in Appendix C.) 

Teacher education and professional development 

emerged as being among the most frequently mentioned 

areas of concern during the regional meetings. 

Speakers at meetings of the National Reading Panel 

(NRP) also emphasized the need for consideration of 

these topics. Given these concerns, the NRP agreed to 

include a survey of the research in this area in its 

report. 

Gordon (1985) believed that teacher education originally 

(19th century origins) and to date was and is largely 

designed as vocational training, based on an 

apprenticeship model of education lending its programs 

to behavioristic learning, imitation, and repeated 

practice. In addition, it has been almost an article of 

faith among many teacher educators that there is a 

body of knowledge that can (and should) be learned as 

a major component of learning to be a teacher. (See, for 

example, Shulman, 1986). In addition, Shulman (1986) 

called for teacher education to be “research-based.” 

Whereas most proposals for improving teacher 

education have presumed to draw on the research 

literature, those proposals have not unequivocally called 

for the research-based evaluation of teacher education 

itself. 

There is a growing body of research that shows 

correlations between aspects of formal teacher 

preparation and quality of teaching or student outcomes. 

In a recent study, Darling-Hammond (2000) showed 

that teacher quality characteristics such as certification 

status and degree in the field to be taught are 

significantly and positively correlated with student 

outcomes. Darling-Hammond (2000) also reports that 

“NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress] 

analyses found that teachers who had had more 

professional training were more likely to use teaching 

practices that are associated with higher reading 

achievement on the NAEP tests.” 

However, there are important caveats associated with 

this work. It is correlational and, although suggestive, 

does not deal with the detail necessary to provide 

specific recommendations for teaching. There is no 

way to determine what variables account for the 

general relationship. Research that demonstrates causal 

relationships might provide more consistent guidance. 

Moreover, the work does not give much guidance about 

what the content of teacher education or professional 

development programs should be. 

Other types of reading intervention have also 

emphasized teacher education in a variety of ways. 

Notable among these is Reading Recovery©. Jongsma 

(1990) suggests that teachers go through a type of 

“retraining” because Reading Recovery© introduces 

new ways of looking at literacy learning. By implication, 

all new ways of looking at reading would require some 

professional development. Clay (1991) points out the 

importance of the initial “training” and subsequent 

needs for inservice development. 

A note on usage is appropriate here. The NRP has 

chosen to use the phrase teacher education rather than 

teacher training to reflect what the Panel believes is the 

professionalization of teachers and teaching. Although it 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

is possible to “train” teachers to use particular methods 

to teach, it seems more appropriate to educate teachers 

in a professional context that will give them control over 

a wide range of decisionmaking tools. 

The Panel also distinguishes between teacher education 

(largely preservice or prior to certification) and 

professional development (largely inservice or 

postcertification). The Panel has done this for two 

reasons. First, it is conceptually important to distinguish 

between programs in which participants are essentially 

full-time students and part-time teachers and those in 

which participants are full-time teachers and part-time 

students. The second reason is that the research fell 

into these distinct categories. Different concerns and 

different research variables and outcomes were 

involved in the two different research literatures. 

Despite the division, the Panel does believe they are 

clearly related. 

Taken together, the many theoretical formulations, 

empirical findings, and practical concerns suggest how 

important teacher education is in the teaching of 

reading. It was deemed appropriate to conduct an 

analysis of the research on teacher education to 

determine what can be supported by research. 

The analysis was guided by the three primary questions: 

1.	 How are teachers taught to teach reading? 

2.	 What do studies show about the effectiveness of 

teacher education? 

3.	 How can research be applied to improve teacher 

development? 

Two secondary questions were also posed prior to the 

analysis: 

1.	 What findings can be used immediately? 

2.	 What important gaps remain in our knowledge? 

Methodology 

There is a widespread belief that there is little research 

on teacher education, despite the great interest in the 

issue. 

Cruickshank and Metcalf express this sentiment: 

Literature on the conduct, objectives, and the 

effectiveness of training in teacher education is 

sparse . . . . Given the historic brouhaha over 

training in teacher preparation, it would be expected 

that a considerable available related literature would 

exist. Such is not the case (Cruickshank & Metcalf, 

1990, p. 491). 

Database 

To examine the research related to teacher education 

and professional development, electronic searches were 

performed on the ERIC, PsycINFO, OCLC World 

Catalog, and OCLC Article First databases. The search 

terms used and numbers of articles returned are 

included in Appendix A. 

The initial selection process identified more than 300 

papers; many of these were nonexperimental and were 

therefore not included. The resultant set of studies was 

then divided into two categories: research on preservice 

and research on inservice or professional development. 

The criteria used were that preservice research was 

primarily concerned with the training of prospective 

teachers before certification or full-time work in 

classrooms, whereas inservice work was concerned 

with teachers who were already teaching in school 

environments. 

To supplement the electronic searches, the 

bibliographies of the articles identified in the electronic 

searches and a recent review of teacher education 

research in reading (Anders, Hoffmann, & Duffy, 2000) 

were examined for additional citations that did not 

appear in the electronic searches themselves. 

Appropriate citations that had not been identified in the 

electronic searches were added to the pool of research 

studies to be examined. There were four studies 

reviewed in the comprehension subgroup report on 

preparing teachers to teach reading comprehension. 

Those four studies were included in the teacher 

education analysis as well. 

A total of 32 studies met the final criteria: 11 preservice 

and 21 inservice. Because of the way in which the 

results of some of the underlying research was 

reported, there were more articles than studies. That is, 

Reports of the Subgroups	 5-4 
Report 

5-5 National Reading Panel 

there were two instances where two published papers 

reported on different aspects of the same research 

project. An additional eight studies focused on inservice 

on teaching for special education or learning disability 

students. These have not been coded but are noted here 

as a subgroup of the inservice studies. 

Analysis 

It was determined that to conduct meta-analyses on 

these data would be inappropriate because there is not 

a critical mass of studies researching the same 

variables or theoretical positions. Moreover, although all 

the studies do address the general problems of 

improving teacher education, the underlying rationales 

for the studies represent an eclectic mix of theories and 

conceptualizations. 

Consistency With the Methodology of the 

National Reading Panel 

The methods of the NRP were followed in the conduct 

of the literature searches and the examination and 

coding of the articles obtained. Because a metaanalysis was deemed inappropriate, the data were 

coded using a subset of the coding scheme adopted by 

the NRP. These data are contained in Appendix B. 

Some Additional Considerations in 

Research on Teacher Education 

When research is conducted on instructional variables, 

it is often the case that the participating teachers 

receive instruction in the instructional interventions. For 

example, when comprehension strategy research is 

conducted in classrooms, the instructors (either 

classroom teachers or the researchers) must be taught 

to conduct instruction in the appropriate manner. In this 

sense, almost all of the research the NRP has identified 

contains some elements relative to teacher education. 

However, in these circumstances, the focus is almost 

exclusively on student outcomes, without detailed data 

on changes in teacher behaviors. Although the NRP 

recognizes the importance of the more general form of 

teacher education and professional development, it 

determined that these factors would not be included in 

the current analysis because of the lack of teacher 

performance data. 

There are also notable programs where teacher 

education or professional development is an important 

component of the intervention. Reading Recovery© is 

one example of such a program; Success for All is 

another. However, most of the research studies on 

these programs do not include measures of teacher 

changes in their results. Again, as in most instructional 

research, the focus is on the specific interventions and 

student outcomes rather than teacher change. The 

Panel did not find studies that met the NRP criteria that 

were in either of the two categories. 

One reason that teacher education has been ignored in 

these research contexts is that researchers believe that 

any changes in student outcomes are attributable to the 

intervention, which is, in turn, delivered by the 

participating teachers. This would logically imply that 

teachers had learned to deliver the instruction in the 

way the research program dictated. This is, in part, the 

criterion of fidelity to the intervention. However, the 

issue goes well beyond fidelity of teaching to the many 

other variables that relate to teaching rather than to 

learning. 

Although these studies have not been analyzed as part 

of the pool of studies, they have some relevance to the 

interpretation of the analysis. Consequently, 

recommendations at the end of the analysis have been 

influenced by these concerns. 

Results 

In the presentation of results, the research on 

preservice teacher education has been separated from 

that on professional development with inservice 

teachers. The Panel believes this is fundamentally 

appropriate because different quality criteria and 

outcome measures can be applied to the research 

studies. In particular, the criteria of success are 

different for the two sets of studies. 

That is, for preservice studies, the focus is almost 

entirely on changing teacher behavior, without a 

concomitant focus on the outcomes of students who are 

(eventually) instructed by those teachers. The Panel 

found no instances of research in the pool that 

continued with preservice teachers as they moved into 

full-time teaching positions. There is no inherent reason 

why this is the case. The reasons seem, instead, to be 

pragmatic and related to the complexities of research 

that would be introduced in attempting to follow 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups	 5-6 

teachers into full-time teaching. Although the lack of 

student data limits the conclusions one can draw about 

the results of this research, it does provide an important 

background for other teacher education and 

professional development research. If teacher 

behaviors cannot be transformed by changes in the 

curriculum in preservice programs, it is unlikely that 

teacher behaviors can be changed later. 

For inservice research, the ultimate test of success is 

whether students benefit from instruction delivered by 

teachers as a result of that intervention. Consequently, 

the Panel invoked a strong criterion that student 

outcomes must be part of the research on inservice 

teachers. However, another criterion is also critical. If 

there is no change in teachers as a result of the 

intervention, it is not possible to attribute changes in 

student outcomes to the teacher development 

intervention. Other factors must be invoked to account 

for the changes in students. Consequently, the NRP 

must have both teacher changes and student changes to 

agree that inservice interventions are effective. 

Although the Panel believes that preservice and 

inservice research form two different bodies of work, 

they are related in that preservice does provide 

evidence for the efficacy of producing teacher change. 

Those changes can be important in designing inservice 

interventions. 

Preservice Studies 

Eleven preservice studies met the criteria for this 

portion of the NRP analysis. These preservice studies, 

with coded information, are grouped in Table 1 in 

Appendix B. Table 2 in Appendix B lists two studies that 

involved preservice interventions as well as inservice 

interventions. Most of the preservice research (ten 

studies) focused on elementary reading instruction. Two 

(of the ten) studies had a broad range of grade samples, 

spanning grade levels from K through 8 and 1 through 

6. For one study it was not possible to determine the 

grade level. 

The content of the teacher education in these studies is 

a primary variable in distinguishing among studies. The 

11 studies can be classified into the following four 

categories. For each category, the number of studies is 

indicated in parentheses. 

•	 Comprehension and strategy instruction:

Questioning techniques (2) 

•	 General methods: Directed Reading-Thinking 

Activities (DRTA); teaching word recognition skills; 

Directed Reading Activity (DRA); Informal 

Reading Inventory (IRI) (4) 

•	 Materials: Estimating readability levels; teacher 

decisionmaking and awareness of materials (2) 

•	 Others: Case method; study skills; theoretical 

orientations to reading (3) 

The majority of the preservice studies reviewed 

(10 of 11) reported improvements in teacher knowledge. 

Of these ten, two reported mixed or modest effects. 

Only one study, which looked at the accuracy of 

teachers in estimating the readability levels of materials, 

did not report any effect from having either theoretical 

knowledge of reading or teaching experience, or both, 

compared with a control group with neither theoretical 

knowledge nor teaching experience. 

The duration of the studies reviewed here ranged from 

5 to 6 weeks to about a year, which corresponds closely 

to the structure of university-based coursework. 

Although these studies show that preservice courses 

improved prospective teachers’ knowledge, there is no 

way of knowing whether this increased knowledge 

actually translates into effective teaching because none 

of the studies reports data on the teachers after their 

participation in the experimental program. 

In the NRP sample, no studies of larger scale 

interventions at the program level were found. For 

example, there were no experimental studies that 

looked at changes in the format of teacher education 

programs like the use of professional development sites 

or the use of standards-based programs. 

Inservice Studies 

There were 21 inservice studies that met the criteria for 

this review. These studies are listed in Appendix B: 

Coding of Studies. There are four groupings: studies that 

involved both inservice and preservice interventions 

(Table 2), studies that measured only teacher outcomes 

(Table 3), studies that measured both teacher and 

student outcomes (Table 4), and studies that measured 

only student outcomes (Table 5). 
Report 

5-7	 National Reading Panel 

The first analysis of the data was to determine the 

grade levels of the teachers who participated in the 

inservice work. For 18 of the studies, it was possible to 

do so. Because the studies often involved multiple grade 

levels, there was a total of 70 different samples of 

teachers represented in the 18 studies. These data are 

represented in Figure 1 on the next page. 

It is evident that the inservice instruction is targeted at 

the elementary grades with approximately equal 

emphasis. The numbers of studies across grades 1 

through 5 are equal. There are far fewer studies at the 

middle and high school grade levels, with only a single 

study at each of the high school grades. 

A second analysis examined the focus of inservice 

instruction for teachers of reading. Compared with the 

work in preservice programs, inservice instruction 

seems to be more eclectic, ranging from training in 

specific methods (e.g., how to use reading groups) to 

more extensive instruction encompassing ways to teach 

reading, classroom management, and lesson design. The 

topics fell into the following categories, with the number 

of studies indicated in parentheses. 

•	 Comprehension and strategy instruction:

Higher order questioning, explicit instruction in using 

reading skills strategically; questioning and studentteacher interactions; Transactional Strategy 

Instruction (TSI); questioning and response 

guidance cues (8) 

•	 General methods: Skills vs. Language Experience 

Approach (LEA); DRA; whole language; phonics, 

question-and-answer, and giving feedback; teaching 

a language arts/integrated curriculum (5) 

•	 Classroom management: Small groups; reading 

groups; conducting cooperative learning activities; 

using performance assessment; translating 

Madeline Hunter’s Instructional Theory Into 

Practice, focusing on effective classroom 

management, motivation and lesson design (5) 

•	 Improving teachers’ attitudes: Teaching writing 

as a process to facilitate change in teachers’ 

attitudes to language; improving content area 

teachers’ skills and attitudes to teaching reading; 

enthusiasm training. (3) 

It appears to be the case that the emphasis is on 

specific methods of teaching reading, rather than the 

general methods that characterize preservice research. 

There is much less emphasis on the general aspects of 

teaching reading. Three studies investigated ways in 

which to improve teacher attitudes, reflecting the needs 

of teachers on the job. 

Effectiveness of Inservice Instruction 

Only 11 studies in the NRP pool measured both teacher 

and student outcomes. Six other studies measured only 

teacher outcomes, whereas four measured only student 

outcomes. As noted above, it is necessary to have both 

teacher and student outcomes to be able to determine 

whether teacher education is effective. If it is, it must 

change both teacher and student behavior. That is, 

teachers must adopt new ways of teaching and students 

must show appropriate improvement if the results are to 

be attributed to the new ways of educating teachers. 

The measures of teacher change and student outcomes 

used in this body of research were a combination of 

informal, researcher-designed assessments and 

standardized evaluations. As a generalization, the 

teacher outcome measures were all researcherdesigned, whereas the student measures tended to be 

standardized instruments. At times, student outcomes 

were measured with a combination of researcherdesigned and standardized measures. Given that the 

researchers designed the treatments, standardized 

measures of outcomes often did not exist, necessitating 

the development of researcher-designed instruments. 

Another set of analyses examined the duration of the 

project and the number of hours of instruction delivered. 

Figure 2 presents the data on the duration of projects. 

Of the 21 studies, only 4 had durations of 6 months or 

less. However, the duration of the project is not 

necessarily the crucial variable. Where possible, the 

total amount of time spent in instruction was also 

examined. It was possible to determine the number of 

hours of instruction in 11 studies. For many of the 

studies, the number of hours of instructional intervention 

is not specified; these studies were not included in this 

analysis. Often what are reported are phrases like “a 

monthly meeting” or “weekly workshops.” No attempt 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-8 

was made to interpret these; only those studies for which Figure 3 shows that for the 12 studies for which 

unambiguous determinations could be made were instructional time could be determined, the greatest 

analyzed. The data for instructional time are presented in number of hours of instruction was 60. The majority of 

Figure 3. the studies (8 of 12) presented 15 or fewer hours of 

instruction. 
5-9 National Reading Panel

Figure 1. Number of Studies as a Function of

Grade Levels of Teachers for Inservice Research

(18 Studies with 70 Grade Samples)
Reports of the Subgroups 5-10 Figure 2. Number of Studies as a Function of Duration of Inservice Projects (N=20)
Figure 3. Number of Studies as a Function of

Amount of In-Service Professional Development, (N=12)

5-11 National Reading Panel
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

Studies Reporting Positive Changes in 

Teacher Outcomes 

Seventeen out of the 21 studies reviewed measured 

teacher outcomes. Fifteen of these studies reported 

significant or modest improvements in teachers’ 

knowledge or practice. Out of the fifteen studies that 

measured student outcomes, 13 reported improvements 

in student achievement. One clear trend in the data is 

that where teacher outcomes showed significant 

improvement, so did student achievement. In studies 

where no gains are reported for the teachers, no gains 

are reported for the students in the same study. In 

general, one can conclude that inservice professional 

development does lead to improved teacher knowledge 

and practice and improved student achievement. 

Because the content of each of these studies is widely 

divergent, it is not possible to reach a specific 

conclusion about the content of instruction. 

Studies Reporting No Change in Teacher 

Outcomes 

Three studies (Coladarci & Gage, 1984; Morrison, 

Harris, & Auerbach, 1969; Stallings & Krasavage, 

1986) reported no change in teacher outcomes, in at 

least some of the conditions in the research projects. In 

two of these studies, where student outcomes were 

measured, student achievement did not improve either. 

A closer look at these studies reveals two interesting 

points. First, one study (Coladarci & Gage, 1984) did 

not involve any formal instruction for teachers. Instead, 

teachers in the treatment group were given “teacher 

education packets” consisting of materials on a diverse 

range of topics, including behavior management, largegroup instruction, use of question-and-answer, phonics, 

questioning, and feedback strategies. 

Second, all three studies were long-term projects. The 

study in which teachers received no formal instruction 

lasted about a year. The other two were 3 years in 

duration. Morrison and colleagues (1969) caution 

against using short-term results to validate teacher 

education efforts because, in the course of their 3-year 

study, they found that teachers and administrators 

reverted to what they had been doing before the project 

began. Stallings and Krasavage (1986), at the end of 

their 3-year study, also reported that teacher and 

student outcome measures actually declined although 

gains by teachers and students were reported during the 

first 2 years of the study. 

However, three long-term inservice programs reported 

by Talmage, Pascarella, and Ford (1984), Miller and 

Ellsworth (1985), and Duffy and coworkers (1987a) 

showed gains by teachers and significant or partial 

achievement gains by students. Because of this 

discrepancy, the Panel could find no relationship 

between the amount of instructional time (or duration of 

programs) and student outcomes. This may be a 

function of the limited number of research studies for 

which the Panel could make the relevant 

determinations. 

It is difficult to compare the studies reviewed here in 

terms of the duration of instruction that the teachers 

received. Hence, it is not possible to draw specific 

conclusions about the relationship between length or 

intensity of instruction and outcomes. The duration of 

the inservice intervention depends on the specific 

objectives and requirements of the program. Sometimes 

the intervention consisted of the dissemination by mail 

of a manual (Coladarci & Gage, 1984) or two meetings 

and the discussion of a teaching manual (Anderson, 

Evertson, & Brophy, 1979). It could take the form of a 

series of workshops or meetings spread over 2 days 

(Scheffler, Richmond, & Kazelskis, 1993) or a year 

(Shepard, Flexer, Hiebert, Marion, Mayfield, & Weston, 

1996) or three workshops spread over 3 summers 

(Spanjer and Layne, 1983). It could also take the form 

of a systematic 3-year staff development program 

(Stallings, Robbins, Presbrey, & Scott, 1986; Stallings & 

Krasavage, 1986). The studies do not report the 

duration of the intervention in a consistent manner: 

some report the number of hours of instruction, 

whereas others report the overall duration of the project 

or duration of the staff development program. 

Two other issues were difficult to assess. The Panel 

was unable to determine the amount of resources 

(personnel, equipment, and materials) from the reports 

of the research. This amount would have a direct 

bearing on the ultimate effectiveness of the 

interventions. It was also not possible to find any 

experimental research on inservice professional 

development that related to the issues surrounding 

standards-based education. 

The NRP did not conduct a separate analysis of the 

research on preparation of teachers for comprehension 

instruction. An extensive analysis of this research is 

included in the report from the comprehension 

subgroup. 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-12 
Report 

5-13	 National Reading Panel 

Results: Vocabulary Instruction 

Methods 

Summary of Findings 

The NRP is encouraged by the fact that there is a 

growing body of experimental research on teacher 

education and professional development. Although this 

body of research does not, at present, converge on 

highly explicit and specific recommendations for 

teacher education, it does suggest that teacher 

education is successful in most contexts. It also clearly 

indicates that when teacher education is successful, 

student performance improves as well. 

At the outset of the review, five questions were listed 

that guided this analysis. In the following summary, 

there are first some general comments about what was 

found with regard to each of the questions. Following 

that is a more interpretive summary. 

Summary Answers to the Specific 

Questions for the Review 

Unfortunately, the Panel was unable to answer all five 

questions with the same level of confidence, simply 

because the data were insufficient. The following 

paragraphs summarize the information from the analysis 

relevant to each of the questions. 

• How are teachers taught to teach reading?

The Panel found no single method that produced results 

that clearly indicated unquestioned superiority. Rather, 

an eclectic mix of methods was found that ranged from 

macro to micro in their focus. There was an emphasis 

on methods at the preservice levels contrasted with an 

emphasis on particular instructional problems at the 

inservice level. As indicated above, there were simply 

too many approaches in this small sample to allow 

conclusions about any one specific method. 

• What do studies show about effectiveness of

teacher education?

The set of results for these studies shows 

overwhelmingly that interventions in teacher education 

and professional development are successful. That is, 

teachers can learn to improve their teaching in ways 

that have direct effects on their students. Although this 

was demonstrated only for inservice interventions, there 

is no reason to believe this is not the case for preservice 

teachers. There is simply no research that demonstrates 

this in a positive fashion. Because most of the research 

demonstrates the effectiveness of teacher education 

interventions, there is no reason to envisage a different 

outcome for preservice teachers. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

How can research be applied to improve 

teacher development? 

Although there is no single, consistent set of findings 

that points to specific conclusions, the research has 

some general implications for effective teacher 

education and development. First, research can 

determine which of the interventions in teacher 

education are most effective. Moreover, characteristics 

of successful teacher education interventions are 

beginning to emerge. This research suggests that there 

is a need, particularly at the inservice level, for 

extensive support (both money and time) on a 

continuing basis for teacher education efforts. It is also 

the case that the support must be continued for an 

extended period of time. The report on Teacher 

Preparation by the comprehension subgroup reaches 

similar conclusions. 

What findings can be used immediately? 

The studies analyzed in this report do not converge on 

specific findings with regard to content. Rather, the 

research suggests that teachers can and do learn to 

change and improve their teaching. So long as the 

interventions themselves are based on solid research 

findings, the interventions in teacher education should 

produce positive results for teachers and for their 

students. The research does have implications for the 

manner in which teacher education is conducted. These 

implications are discussed more thoroughly in 

subsequent sections. 

Additional Conclusions About Teacher 

Education and Professional Development 

The most obvious conclusion about the research 

reviewed is that it clearly demonstrates that teachers 

can be taught, in both preservice and inservice contexts, 

to improve their teaching. For preservice teachers, this 

means that prospective teachers do adopt the teaching 

methods and attitudes they acquire during the course of 

their education. Inservice teachers not only demonstrate 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-14 

improvement in their teaching; this improvement leads 

directly to higher achievement on the part of their 

students. These findings were demonstrated in an 

overwhelming majority of the research studies 

reviewed. 

However, there is insufficient research to draw exact 

conclusions about the content of teacher education and 

professional development programs. Rather, a wide 

range of techniques and content seemed to produce 

improvement in teaching and in student outcomes. The 

body of research on these topics is fragmented when it 

comes to this level of questioning. There are studies of 

specific methods of teacher education with specific 

content as well as more general studies that offer no 

guidance on content. 

Teacher attitudes do change as a result of intervention 

in both preservice and inservice contexts. This is an 

important finding because it is the predisposition of 

teachers to change that makes change possible. Without 

a change in attitude, it is extremely difficult to effect 

changes in practice. Most of the research that 

measured attitudes demonstrated that attitudes did 

change as a result of the interventions, indicating that at 

least one of the major prerequisites for teacher change 

can be taught. 

Teacher practices improve as a result of education, but 

it is not clear for how long these changes are sustained. 

Teachers may use the new methods only when 

observed. Although some of the studies in this sample 

were long term, exceeding 2 years, there is little 

evidence on the sustainability of the interventions. That 

is not to say that the interventions were not sustained, 

but that in most of the studies there was simply no 

evidence presented that spoke to this issue. 

Student achievement outcomes can be improved as a 

result of teacher development. For inservice studies that 

measured both teacher and student outcomes, this was 

a clear finding. These studies represent the most 

effective types of research, recognizing the need to 

assess both teachers and students. However, even in 

these studies, sustainability of the student improvements 

is an issue that was not addressed. 

Directions for Further Research 

What important gaps remain in our 

knowledge? 

Perhaps the most apparent feature of the research 

analyzed in this study is that there are significant gaps in 

our knowledge of teacher education and development 

across the board. Part of the difficulty is that highquality teacher education research is expensive and 

requires intensive collaborative efforts from all the 

stakeholders. In subsequent sections, the Panel details 

what it considers the most important questions that need 

to be resolved. 

The Panel found no studies in the sample that 

addressed questions related to the development of 

standards. Therefore, it makes no conclusion about the 

efficacy of establishing either content standards for 

students or for teaching teachers on the basis of those 

standards. Many of the interventions clearly include 

elements that are also contained in many standardsbased programs. However, too many other factors are 

involved to be able to attribute causal relationships. 

The Panel also found that the reporting of studies was 

inconsistent. Many studies were not described in 

sufficient detail to make comparisons. Foremost was a 

lack of consistent attention to the amount of instruction 

and the frequency of instruction in the description of the 

studies, which makes it difficult to tell whether it was 

reasonable to expect either success or failure in 

individual studies. Some studies reported only the 

number of sessions, others only the amount of 

instruction, and still others neither. 

Another important oversight was a description of the 

resources (personnel, time, money, facilities, etc.) 

required to implement particular programs. It was often 

impossible to tell what it would take to implement some 

of the interventions. Consequently, no assessment could 

be made about the cost-effectiveness of most of the 

programs or interventions. 

There is a large body of nonexperimental literature that 

addresses teacher education issues. Under the 

guidelines established for the review, this literature was 

to be used to help interpret findings from the analysis of 
 

Report 

5-15 National Reading Panel 

the experimental literature. However, because of the 

lack of convergence in the experimental research, the 

Panel was unable to bring this nonexperimental 

literature to bear on the current analysis. 

The NRP believes that the nonexperimental literature is 

a rich source for future research programs. Teacher 

education research involves particularly complex 

problems. Doing the research is expensive and time 

consuming. Therefore, one particular contribution of the 

nonexperimental literature may be to provide a source 

of problems to be studied under more controlled 

conditions. That is, the descriptive literature could be 

brought to bear to reveal current practices, variables, 

and so forth, that seem promising (or not) under general 

conditions. Such insights could guide research that looks 

more closely at causal relationships or in more specific 

situations. In addition, the Panel refers the reader to the 

conclusions of the Text Comprehension report, in the 

belief that the principles underlying them apply more 

broadly to other subject areas and could also serve to 

guide future research in teacher preparation. 

The small set of experimental studies reviewed does not 

allow us to address all the questions that originally 

guided the analysis. Some of these remain unanswered 

because of the eclectic nature of the work found. Many 

are unanswered because they were not addressed 

specifically in the experimental body of research. There 

was a great deal of nonexperimental research that fell 

outside the scope of the experimental domain examined. 

This research addresses a few of the relevant questions 

that are listed below, but not all and certainly not 

definitively. A general conclusion here is that although 

we have a great deal of knowledge about teacher 

education, much more remains to be learned. 

Many of the questions are unanswered because of the 

resource intensity of teacher education research. It 

takes a great deal of time and money to do teacher 

education research in ways that will yield appropriate 

answers. It takes a commitment from stakeholders, and 

it takes a great deal of coordination among them. 

Rarely do all of these elements come together in a way 

that admits of experimental research. 

However, simply providing money and time is 

insufficient. High-quality teacher education research 

must bring together persons who are engaged in quite 

different endeavors in school contexts. They are used 

to having control over their own domains and often do 

not want to relinquish control to any outside influences. 

Moreover, new “alliances” need to be formed. For 

example, to answer the questions about effectiveness of 

preservice education, graduating teachers will need to 

be followed as they assume teaching jobs. Those who 

do the preparation of teachers will have to work with 

persons in the new locations where the graduates work. 

(Because schools rarely hire teachers en masse, the 

alliances may have to span districts or other geographic 

locations to be able to study teachers in sufficient 

numbers.) 

To accomplish the kind of reforms that accompany 

teacher education improvement requires years of 

sustained effort at keeping all elements of the system in 

balance. All of this must take place against a backdrop 

where the participating individuals may change over the 

course of a research project. Placed against the other 

demands (tenure, teaching, publication) on many 

academic researchers, commitments to the long-term 

nature of teacher education research often seem 

daunting. 

In addition to the appropriate resources, stronger and 

more coherent conceptualizations of teacher education 

and professional development are needed. These 

conceptualizations need to combine research from a 

wide variety of perspectives and paradigms to provide 

the most coherent description of teacher education 

possible. Such conceptualizations will guide research in 

more systematic ways, rather than allowing the highly 

eclectic forms of investigations that characterize 

current teacher education research. There are excellent 

examples of good teacher education research; more are 

needed, as is better reporting of the results as they are 

disseminated so that subsequent research can build on 

completed research rather than begin anew with each 

effort. 

We need to find out how teachers can be supported over 

the long term to ensure sustained implementation of new 

methods or programs, as well as the sustainability of 

student achievement. There is a trend in the research 

analyzed that suggests that teachers may revert to their 

original methods of teaching; it is important to determine 

how best to have teachers maintain any improvements 

they make in their teaching abilities. 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-16 

Another problem that needs to be addressed in teacher 

education research is the precise nature of the 

interventions. In the literature the NRP analyzed, there 

is only sparse information on the precise content of 

what teachers were taught. Rather, there is a mix of 

techniques, methods, theories, and materials that are 

often confounded with each other in the instructional 

contexts. Some of the instructional methods focus on 

teacher attitudes while others focus on the use of 

specific materials. This question should be addressed in 

a systematic way. 

There is a need to develop and refine the ways in which 

we study the link between teacher education and 

student outcomes. Only a few inservice studies looked 

at both teacher and student outcomes. None of the 

preservice research made the link between teacher 

outcomes and ultimate student performance. Although 

all the inservice research that reported improved 

teacher outcomes also reported improvement in student 

achievement, there is no evidence that this is true for 

preservice programs. 

Because teacher education is a labor-intensive 

endeavor, new ways of instruction need to be developed 

that make it possible for instruction to be more 

effective. In the sample of studies, the Panel found a 

total of seven preservice and inservice research studies 

that used various forms of technology to improve 

teacher education. This is a promising direction. 

Computer technology has made the use of video 

modeling and simulation even more available than it has 

been. The use of either simulated or real teaching 

cases, linked with appropriate instruction, can provide 

supplemental experiences to classroom instruction in 

teaching. 

The list of questions that remains is a long one. 

However, there is a growing consensus on many 

elements of the problems in teacher education and 

professional development. The technology to improve 

teacher knowledge and performance exists. Positive 

changes in teacher education have been demonstrated 

by a wide variety of interventions. Further studies are 

needed to address the problems that remain. 
Report 

5-17 National Reading Panel 

References 

Anders, P., Hoffmann, J., & Duffy, G. (2000). 

Teaching teachers to teach reading: Paradigm shifts, 

persistent problems, and challenges. In M. Kamil, P. 

Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.). Handbook 

of Reading Research, Vol. 3. (pp. 721-744). Mahwah, 

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 

Clay, M. M. (1991). Why is an inservice 

programme for Reading Recovery teachers necessary? 

Reading Horizons, 31(5), 355-372. 

Cruickshank, D. R., & Metcalf, K. K. (1990). 

Training within teacher preparation. In W. R. Houston 

(Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teacher Education 

(pp. 469-497). NY: Macmillan Publishing Company. 

Gordon, B. (1985). Teaching teachers: “Nation at 

risk” and the issue of knowledge in teacher education. 

Urban Review, 17, 33-46. 

Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). Teacher quality and 

student achievement: A review of state policy evidence. 

Education Policy Analysis Archives [On-line], 8(1). 

Available: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n1/ 

Jongsma, K. S. (1990). Training for Reading 

Recovery teachers (questions and answers). Reading 

Teacher, 44(3), 272-275. 

Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: 

Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational 

Researcher, 15(2), 4-14. 
Appendices

 

TEACHER EDUCATION AND READING INSTRUCTION 

Appendices 

5-19 National Reading Panel 

Appendix A 
 

Studies Analyzed
 

Anderson, L. M., Evertson, C. M., & Brophy, J. E. 

(1979). An experimental study of effective teaching in 

first-grade reading groups. Elementary School Journal, 

79(4), 193-223. 

Baker, J. E. (1977). Application of the in-service 

training/classroom consultation model to reading 

instruction. Ontario Psychologist, 9(4), 57-62. 

Block, C. C. (1993). Strategy instruction in a 

literature-based reading program. Elementary School 

Journal, 94(2), 139-51. 

Book, C. L., Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., Meloth, 

M. S., & Vavrus, L. G. (1985). A study of the 

relationship between teacher explanation and student 

metacognitive awareness during reading instruction. 

Communication Education, 34(1), 29-36. 

Brown, R., El-Dinary, P.B., Pressley, M., & CoyOgan, L. (1995). A transactional strategies approach to 

reading instruction (National Reading Research 

Center). Reading Teacher, 49(3), 256-58. 

Brown, R., Pressley, M., Van Meter, P., & Schuder, 

T. (1996). A quasi-experimental validation of 

transactional strategies instruction with low-achieving 

second-grade readers. Journal of Educational 

Psychology, 88(1), 18-37. 

Coladarci, T., & Gage, N. L. (1984). Effects of a 

minimal intervention on teacher behavior and student 

achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 

21(3), 539-555. 

Conley, M. M. W. (1983). Increasing students’ 

reading achievement via teacher inservice education. 

Reading Teacher, 36(8), 804-808. 

Copeland, W. D., & Decker, D. L. (1996). Video 

cases and the development of meaning making in 

preservice teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 

12(5), 467-481. 

Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L., Meloth, M. S., Vavrus, L. 

G., Wesselman, R., Putnam, J., & Bassiri, D. (1986). 

The relationship between explicit verbal explanations 

during reading skill instruction and student awareness 

and achievement: a study of reading teacher effects. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 21(3), 237-252. 

Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., Sivan, E., Rackliffe, 

G., Book, C., Meloth, M. S., Vavrus, L. G., Wesselman, 

R., Putnam, J., & Bassiri, D. (1987). Effects of 

explaining the reasoning associated with using reading 

strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 22(3), 347-368. 

Dupuis, M. M., Askov, E. N., & Lee, J.W. (1979). 

Changing attitudes toward content area reading: the 

content area reading project. Journal of Educational 

Research, 73(2), 65-74. 

Greenberg, K. H., Woodside, M. R., & Brasil, L. 

(1994). Differences in the degree of mediated learning 

and classroom interaction structure for trained and 

untrained teachers. Journal of Classroom Interaction, 

29(2), 1-9. 

Hoover, N. L., & Carroll, R. G. (1987). Selfassessment of classroom instruction: an effective 

approach to inservice education. Teaching and Teacher 

Education, 3(3), 179-191. 

Johnson, C. S., & Evans, A. D. (1992). Improving 

teacher questioning: A study of a training program. 

Literacy Research, 10. 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-20 

Klesius, J. P., Searls, E. F., & Zielonka, P. (1990). 

A comparison of two methods of direct instruction of 

preservice teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 

41(4), 34-44. 

Levin, B. B. (1995). Using the case method in 

teacher education: The role of discussion and 

experience in teachers’thinking about cases. Teaching 

and Teacher Education, 11(1), 63-79. 

Miller, J. W., & Ellsworth, R. (1985). The 

evaluation of a two-year program to improve teacher 

effectiveness in reading instruction. Elementary School 

Journal, 85(4), 485-496. 

Morrison, C., Harris, A. J., & Auerbach, I. T. 

(1969). Staff after-effects of participation in a reading 

research project: a follow-up study of the craft project. 

Reading Research Quarterly, 4, 366-395. 

Olson, M. W., & Gillis, M. (1983). Teaching reading 

study skills and course content to preservice teachers. 

Reading World, 23(2), 124-133. 

Reid, E. R. (1997). Exemplary Center for Reading 

Instruction (ECRI). Behavior and Social Issues, 7(1), 

19-24. 

Scheffler, A. J., Richmond, M., & Kazelskis, R. 

(1993). Examining shifts in teachers’ theoretical 

orientation to reading. Reading Psychology, 14(1), 1-13. 

Shepard, L. A., Flexer, R. J., Hiebert, E. H., 

Marion, S. F., Mayfield, V., & Weston, T. J. (1996). 

Effects of introducing classroom performance 

assessments on student learning. Educational 

Measurement: Issues and Practice, 15(3), 7-18. 

Spanjer, R. A., & Layne, B. H. (1983). Teacher 

attitudes toward language: Effects of training in a process 

approach to writing. Journal of Educational Research, 

77(1), 60-62. 

Stallings, J., & Krasavage, E. M. (1986). Program 

implementation and student achievement in a four-year 

Madeline Hunter follow-through project. Elementary 

School Journal, 87(2), 117-138. 

Stallings, P., Robbins, P., Presbrey, L., & Scott, J. 

(1986). Effects of instruction based on the Madeline 

Hunter model on students’ achievement: findings from a 

follow-through project. Elementary School Journal, 

86(5), 571-587. 

Streeter, B. B. (1986). The effects of training 

experienced teachers in enthusiasm on students’ 

attitudes toward reading. Reading Psychology, 7(4), 

249-259. 

Talmage, H., Pascarella, E. T., & Ford, S. (1984). 

The influence of cooperation learning strategies on 

teacher practices, student perceptions of the learning 

environment, and academic achievement. American 

Educational Research Journal, 21(1), 163-179. 

Tyre, B. B., & Knight, D. W. (1972). Teaching 

word recognition skills to preservice teachers: An 

analysis of three procedures. Southern Journal of 

Educational Research, 6(3), 113-122. 

Wedman, J. M., Hughes, J. A., & Robinson, R. R. 

(1993). The effect of using systematic cooperative 

learning approach to help preservice teachers learn 

informal reading inventory procedures. Innovative 

Higher Education, 17(4), 231-241. 

Wedman, J. M., & Moutray, C. (1991). The effect 

of training on the questions preservice teachers ask 

during literature discussions. Reading Research and 

Instruction, 30(2), 62-70. 

Wedman, J. M., & Robinson, R. (1988). Effects of 

a decision-making model on preservice teachers’ 

decision-making practices and materials use. Reading 

Improvement, 25(2), 110-116. 

Westermark, T. I., & Crichlow, K. A. (1983). The 

effect of theoretical and situational knowledge of reading 

on teachers’estimates of readability. Reading 

Psychology, 4(2), 129-139. 

Wham, M. A. (1993). The relationship between 

undergraduate course work and beliefs about reading 

instruction. Journal of Research and Development in 

Education, 27(1), 9-17. 
Appendices 

5-21 National Reading Panel 

Appendix B 
 

Search Details
 

Search Terms Used and Number of Articles Returned: November 12, 1998 

Key Term OCLC ­

World Cat 

OCLC ­

Article First 

PsycINFO ERIC 

Reading teacher 

education 

4 4 1,350 

Teacher education 

reading 

558 4 5 

Preservice reading 

teachers 

Training reading 

teachers 

733 4 5 
Reports of the Subgroups 5-22 Search Terms Used and Number of Articles Returned: April 13, 1999 SEARCH PsycLIT 1887- 1999 Teacher oniEducat ceiPreserv Teacher oniEducat ceiInserv Teacher Education Teacher nginiTra Teacher oniPreparat Inservice Preservice Teacher oniEducat Program uationlEva Staff 

Deve 

opmentlDeve Teacher Education 3,562 Preservice Teacher Education 33 33 iInserv ce Teacher Education 625 1 625 Teacher Training 541 1 89 1,181 Teacher Preparat oni 174 1 6 28 319 

ceiInserv 709 3 625 118 17 1,704 

Preservice 366 33 35 52 5 165 885 

Teacher Education Program 

Ev la uation 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 

Staff Development 84 0 53 14 3 75 17 0 445 

iProfess onal Development 138 5 39 12 8 106 35 0 90 

ngiRead 213 5 44 85 27 84 76 0 25 

ngiWrit 94 5 9 19 5 27 35 0 9 

Literacy 55 3 6 11 9 25 26 0 6 
Appendices 

Search Terms Used and Number of Articles Returned

Additional Searches:

Professional development <and> teacher - 247 

Reading <and> inservice <and> teacher education - 52 

Reading <and> writing <and> literacy -438 

Reading <and> preservice <and> teacher education -35 

Reading <and> writing <and> literacy <and> teacher education -14 

Reading <and> writing <and> literacy <and> teacher education program evaluation - 0 

Reading <and> writing <and> literacy <and> teacher training -1 

5-23 National Reading Panel 
5-25 National Reading Panel

Appendix C

Coding of Studies 
 

Table 1: Preservice Studies 

Author, Date, & 

Publisher 

Exp/ Quasi 

Control: 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/No 

Pre/Inservice Type of Teacher Training & Duration Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) Findings 

Copeland, W.D., & Decker, D.L. (1996). Teaching and Teacher Education,12(5), 

467-481. 

Q No Yes Pre 9 

Group-based discussion experience with video of DRTA 

with 4th grade students 6 weeks 

4* 

Tr: How teachers interpreted 

(meaning-making) video data & improved after group discussion. 

Analyzed by topics. 

St: None 

More than one-tdiscussed were created by the r

their own meani

Questioning techniques: a) shared inquiry; b) basal reader 

questions c) question & answer relationships (QAR). Six class sessions of 100 minutes = 100minutes 

Johnson, C.S., & 

Evans, A.D. (1992). Literacy Research, 10. 

Q No Yes Pre 22 Ele 

Tr: Type of questions designed by trs after training. 

St: None 

Number & perceand literal questrelated and exte(esp. critical thin

Directed Reading Activity 

(DRA) [vocabulary, background, & motivation, guided silent reading, & comprehension questions] instruction via lecture & discussion vs instruction via 

video & simulation 1 semester 

(inferred) 

Klesius, J.P, 

Searls, E.F., & 

Zielonka, P. 

(1990). Journal of 

Teacher 

Education,41(4), 

34-44. 

E Yes + Random No Pre 37 Ele Tr: Classroom observations of teachers St: None 

There were no s

performance begroups, but thosand simulation reinformation bette

time. 

Yes + 

Random 

assignment of 

teachers 

in existing 

program 

Tr: 1) Survey of Study Habits & 

Attitudes 2) Vocabulary: Stanford Diagnostic 

Reading Test 

3) Compre: Stanford DRT 4) Researcher-designed MCQ 

course content test St: None 

Experimental gro

on survey of stucourse content. children in an elsuggests that prproficient readin

with lessons on 

same time as co

Olson, M.W., & 

Gillis, M. (1983). Reading World, 124-133. 

E 

­

No 

Pre 121 

?n = 

attrition not reported 

Learning study skills and content (topic: fundamentals of reading) concurrently. 1 semester (inferred) 

Not stated 
Reports of the Subgroups 5-26 Table 1: Preservice Studies (continued) Tyre, B.B. & ght, D.W.iKn (1972). Southern oflJourna lonaiEducat Research, 6(3), 113-122. E Yes. 3 Groups + random Yes Pre 72 iTeach ng word-recogn sllion skitioninstructiassroomlG1: c ngilith compiemented wlsupp an annotated ngist of teachil oninstructiques G2:itechn lth basaiemented wlsupp readers, prepar essonlngi deos ofing viewians, & vlp iteach ng G3: study s,lng basaians, &lesson plngiprepar on notidren. Duratling chiteach reported. elE nfer­i( red) iTr: 1) Phon cs Test for Teachers 2) es 3)lpincics PriTest of Phon cs Surveyia PhonifornilCa St: None iPhon cs Tes

ics PriPhon 

n knowiniga 

lls for allisk 

reported wh

iThtest. s s

cum e

ipract 

ng of 

iearnl 

courses. Treatment g

ih gher than 

outcomes mused la oneeffec it ve for and procedl earning alo

the par it cipa

lc ass as an 

b la ance bemethod and l earning act

Wedman, J.M., 

Hughes, J.A., & 

nson, R.R.iRob 

(1993). 

veiInnovat 

gheriH 

on, 17iEducat (4) 

231-241. 

E 

Yes. 

gnediAss 

to treatment 

l& contro 

based on GPA. 

lContro 

n=30; 

treatment 

n=47 

No Pre 77 

ngiearnlveing cooperatiUs 

approach to he ceip preservl

ngiReadlearn Informalteachers 

Inventory (IRI) concepts and procedures. 3 weeks.

1-6 

Tr: 2 measures a) Researcherides gned MCQ based on

ng InventoryiReadlcaiytlAna 

(Woods & Moe, 1981). 

iniAdm stered end of 3 weeks. b)

'pantsicions on partiQuest 

ipercept ons of the systemat ci

iearnlveicooperat ng approach.

Treatment group on y.l

St: None 

Wedman, J.M., 

& Moutray, C. (1991). ngiRead 

Research and 

on, 30iInstruct (2), 

62-70. 

E 

Yes. 3 

groups (A, B, C). 

gnmentiAss 

by GPA. 

lEqua 

numbers of 

ow,l 

e, &lddim 

gh.ih 

ylProbab 

zedirandom 

No Pre 36 

, text-basedlteraing: LioniQuest 

iquestlainferenti ons (TBIQ) and

edge-basedlor KnowiPr 

iquestlainferenti ons (PKBIQ) A:

onsiquestlainferenti<eraiL 

taught. B: Lower & h levelgheri

s wereln basaionsiquest 

taught. C: No nioninstructi

on oning. Instructioniquest 

lc assroom uses of terature. 8­il

ect.jweek pro 

elJr e 

oions & auditten questiTr: Wr 

record of quest ions generated

onsiscussing didur 

St: None 

Both Group

gher over

ih 

than C. As frequency o

que

'groups 

y 

lcantifignis 

llA groups 

asked more B. 
5-27 National Reading Panel

Table 1: Preservice Studies (continued) 

Wedman, J.M., & 

nson, R.iRob 

(1988) ngi. Read Improvement, 

25(2), 110-116. 

Q No Yes Pre 27 

edge oflknow'Teachers 

ts e ff ects oning andiread 

ces anding practionmakisidec 

awareness of mater s. 1lai

nferred)isemester ( 

elE 

Tr: Measures of dec ngionmakisi

s byiyslon and anaiutlem-sol(prob 

i"thought un ts" and percept on) (3­i

e).lnt scaipo 

St: None 

d

'pantsiciPart 

laimater s use 

posttest. Pos

isidec ons add

re

lonainstructi 

number of mai ncreased from 

Wham, M.A. 

(1993). oflJourna Research & 

niopmentlDeve 

on, 27iEducat (1), 

9-17. 

Q No Yes Pre 

Methods of teach ng K-ing readi

8. Undergraduate coursework + 

student teach enceing experi

ng teachers.ith cooperatiw 

lnaiN=35 F phase of the study

iexam ned changes ni

ientatior on from pre-coursework

to post-student teach ng.i

iDurat on: about 3 semesters

K-8 

lcais Theoret'Tr: DeFord 

eling Profions to ReadientatiOr 

(TORP) 6/35 teachers were 

iv deotaped to ensure cons stencyi

between read on andinstructingiresponses to TORP. St: None 

More than ha 

l

n 

iany change 

throughout the to support the 

uenc

lnfiorjma 

ons o

iconcept 

lias pup s. The 

the methods 

ng expe

iteach 

lre ated to cha

ientatior ons o
Reports of the Subgroups 5-28 Table 2: Studies of Both Preservice and Inservice Authors, Date, & Publisher Exp/ Quasi Control: Yes/No Pre & Post: Yes/No Pre/ In-S Type Of Teacher Tra ng &ini oniDurat Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) ngsiFind n, B.B.iLev (1995). ng andiTeach Teacher Education,11(1),­ 63-79. Q pantsiciPart from existing program. Yes. Not reported whether there was random assignment. Each group had equal numbers of student, beginning, 

and experienced 

teachers. 

Yes 8 pre 16 in 

Case method n teacheri

on.ieducat 

2 cases: teach ing writing in 4th

grade Reading & writing about case vs. reading, discuss ng,i

i& writ ng. About 5 weeks

4* 

Tr: analyses of written 

response to cases St: None 

Opportunity to recase affected teacase. For experdiscussion was a and metacogn itio

teachers and pre

able to clarify anOnly reading and 

ittle stlprovided 

elaborate their u

their perspect 

ve

i

Westermark, T.I., 

& Crichlow, K.A. (1983). 

ngiRead 

Psychology: An 

lInternationa 

y, 4,lQuarter 129­

139. 

Q 

Yes. Not 

random: 4 groups (1, 2, 

3, and 4) from 

existing 

mentlenrol 

No 

72: 36 

pre + 

ni36 

slty leveilng readabiiEstimat 

G1: Theoretical & s tuationaliknowledge of reading G2: Situational knowledge on ylG3: Theoretical know edgelonly G4: No know edgelof theory or practice. 

nferred)i1 semester ( 

elE 

Tr: Accuracy in estimating 

readability subjective ylcompared to actua l

s.laiof materlevelreading 

St: None 

No effect. Teachestimating readaestimated readaand accuracy de

level s increased 
Table 3: Inservice Studies with Teacher Outcome Measures Only 

Author/s, Date & 

Pub 

Exp/ Quasi 

:lContro 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/­

No 

Pre/ In-S 

Type of Teacher Tra ning &i

Duration Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) ngsiFind 

Dupuis, M.M., 

Askov, E.N., & 

Lee, J.W. (1979). 

oflJourna 

lEducationa 

Research, 73(2), 

65-74. 

Q 

Yes. Nonrandom 

assignment. 

grouplContro 

sted oficons 

teachers from the same 

school but not part of the project. 

Yes; teachers 

y.lon 

In 127 

iTeach ng content area teachers

how to teach read ngi

on,ivatis, motiagnosi(d 

organization for instruction, 

ection, skillsls selmateria 

development, evaluation, etc.). 

Also aimed to improve 

attitudes toward teaching reading in the content area classroom. Videotapes used. Duration: 1 year. nginiTrahours: about 45 hours. 

Jr high 

Tr: Teacher attitude toward teaching reading, teacher morale, 

ngin teachievelllliteacher sk 

iread ng, and staff ratings of teacher

change. St: None. 

The attitude ga 

experimental ggreater than thogroups. Morale 

fic

ibeen a sign 

'teachers attitud

ioninstructi n co

more experimechanged from posttest. The 

n

i

ijudg ng teache

determined. Raseemed to ind

ireflected n cla

, teache

loveral 

llski s did not im

hoped. 

Greenberg, K.H., 

Woodside, M.R., 

& Brasil, L. (1994). Journal of 

assroomlC 

Interaction, 29(2), 1-9. 

Q 

Yes. Not 

random. 

ngiExist 

classrooms used. 

No In 27 

iQuest oning & teacher-student

interactions (tr- questions, stanswers, tr-sustaining/ 

terminating feedback). 

COGNET: Cognitive Enrichment Network. Explored re onshipiatlbetween mediated learning interactions (based on 

Vygotsky & Feuerstein) and 

question dyad var ables.iDuration: 3 years. More than

60 hours of training. 

K, 1, 

2, 3 

Tr: Observational analysis based 

iated Learnion Med ng Experience

iObservat onal Analysis System

(Greenberg, 1990); Brophy & 

'Good s Teacher-Child Dyadic

Interaction System (1969). St: None 

The degree to 

mediated learn 

knowledge and 

ng pr

ithe learn 

group showed 

mediated learn process quest correct answer

ons requiquest 

between respo

them to think m

rephrasing and small sample. 

5-29 National Reading Panel
Author/s, Date, & isherlPub Exp/ iQuas Control: Yes/No Pre & Post: Yes/No Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher Training & oniDurat Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) ngsiFind Table 3: Inservice Studies with Teacher Outcome Measures Only (continued) Hoover, N.L., & , R.G.lCarrol (1987). Teaching & Teacher on, 3iEducat (3), 179-191. Q No Yes; teachers only In 53 Training in us ng readingi groups was provided. Teachers were also trained to luse a se f-assessment checklist to evaluate their own on oninstructingiread videotape. Duration: about 6 months. 32 hours of training. K-7 Tr: Random select on of videoi taped data (37%) was made and iaud ted by the researchers using the self-assessment st.ilcheck St: None Pre- and pos

the self-asses

effective in heinstruction. Tesignificant imp

ng beh

iteach by the quanti

iquest on: whe

assessment p

son, C.,iMorr s, A.J., &iHarr 

Auerbach, I.T. 

(1969). Reading 

Research Quarterly, 4, 366­

395. 

Q Yes Yes In 92 

Project was designed for 

teaching beg inning reading

sadvantagedion to dinstructi 

urban children. 

Two approaches cons ngisti

each of two methods: a) skills approach (basa reader &lphonovisual method); b) Language Exper encei

Approach (LEA & LE AudiolsuaiV ; d) Pilot (combinat on ofi

LEA & word recognit on).i

iDurat on: 3 years. Training

hours: not reported. 

1, 2, 3 

iTr: Att tude inventory &

ewsiinterv 

St: N = 1378 (started);

ireplicat on study, N = 679

St: None 

iResults ind ca

ionger uslno 

laimater s in th

when the stud

had, in fact, r

m

instruction si 

been doing. 

ng to 

iniperta 

back to what cautions agai

its to vallresu 

efforts. 

Scheffler, A.J., Richmond, M., & 

s, R.isklKaze 

(1993). Reading 

Psychology: An International Quarterly, 14(1), 1-13. 

Q No 

Yes. Teachers 

only. Pre-test, post-test, and delayed-­posttest 

In 

55 

lWhole anguage. Durat on: 2.5i

months 2 day-long workshops.

About 12-16 hours of training. 

K-8 

entation toiorlcaiTr: Theoret 

reading as measured by the DeFord Theoret Orientationlcai

e (TORP)ling Profito Read 

St: None 

iA sign ficant 

among the prpost-trial scorscores. As a 

moved signifl anguage orie

lthe de ayed-p

Reports of the Subgroups 5-30
Table 3: Inservice Studies with Teacher Outcome Measures Only (continued) 

Author/s, Date, & 

isherlPub 

Exp/ 

iQuas 

Control: 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/No 

Pre/ In-S 

Type of Teacher Training & 

oniDurat Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) ndingsiF 

er, R.A., &jSpan 

Layne, B.H. (1983). Journal of 

onaliEducat 

Research, 77(1), 

60-62. 

Q No 

Yes. Teachers 

only 

In 

78 

Teaching writing as a 

process to fac litate aichange in teachers attitude'

lto anguage. Workshop

curriculum adapted from 

'eylBerke s Bay Area Project

(1977). Duration: 3 years. 

3 workshops over 3 

summers. Training hours not reported. 

em.­l38 e 

d-sch.;im 

41 sec.­

post-sec. 

'Tr: Teachers attitudes were

assessed us ing the LanguageInquiry (Frogner, 1969) inventory. 

The instrument covers standards 

i n using American English. andon language study & teaching. 1 missing pretest score, n=78 St: None. 

The postte

greater thaprocess ainfluence tlanguage 

iptiprescr v

usage acccontext). 

5-31 National Reading Panel
Table 4: Inservice Studies with Teacherand Student Outcome Measures Author/s, Date, isherl& Pub Exp/ iQuas Control: Yes/No Pre & Post: Yes/No Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher Training & Duration Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) ngsiFind Anderson, L.M., Evertson, C.M., & Brophy, J.E.. (1979). Elementary School Journal, 79(4), 193-223. Q Yes. Not truly random. 10 treatment (observed); 10 control; 7 treatment (not observed). All in each school gned toiass control or treatment. No In 27 forlonal modeiInstruct promoting effect vei instructi on in small groups i n the early grades. Duration: 1 year. maliMin itrain ng. Teachers read a manual and 2 meetings d.lwere he Training hours: None. 1 Tr: Observations over 1 year to ensure imp on ofiementatl the model. St: C ass meansl were reported. 27 c asses.l Measures of student read nessi l(Metropo itan Readiness Tests, ngi1) and readlLeve evement.iach The treatment c

observed or un

iadjusted ach ev

iD fferences in t

the control and were observed

attributed to the 

treatment teach

ithose behav or

achievement. O

the treatment p

student achieveeffects (e.g., scbe ruled out. 

Baker, J.E.. (1977). Ontario 

ogist,lPsycho 

9(4), 57-62. 

Q 

Yes (students 

only). Not random. N =18 (control) 

18N =and 

(treatment) 

Yes; 

students 

ylon 

In 18 

Classroom consu tationlmodel (IS/C) to improve 

iread ng instruction for

underachieving readers. Strategies inc ude: 1)l

ation 2)ius varlmuist 

reinforcement techn ques 3)i

iresponse gu dance cues 4)

iquestion ng techniques.

iV deotapes (of elementary

& secondary teachers & 

their students) used for 

on: 4.5ing. Duratitrain 

months. 10 workshops (+ 6 attended prev ously) Abouti10-15 hours of train ngi

4 

Tr: N = ratings of'18. Teachers

relevance of the inserv ceisessions and written evaluations, indicating changes 

iin att tudes, values and

or. St: N =ibehav 36

(underachieving readers taught by 3 teachers) Dependent measures: G more OralliReading Test (Accuracy & Comprehension subtests); Schonell Graded Word Reading List; Metropo itanl

iAch evement Test (MAT):

Elementary Spelling Subtest. 

Changes in the increased awar

itechn ques, imp

lskil s and introd

sequentially, re

lprincip es of thi

discussions to 

iowlng, aliwrit ng 

presentations o

lresu ts were sig

performance fodependent mea

ng test) dil(spel 

differences betw

ects

jcontrol sub 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-32
Table 4: Inservice Studies With Teacher and Student Outcome Measures (continued) 

Author/s, Date, 

& Publisher 

Exp/ Quasi 

:lContro 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/No 

Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher oning & DuratiniTra Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) Findings 

Book, C.L., Duffy, G.G., Roehler, L.R., 

oth, M.S., &lMe 

Vavrus, L.G.. 

(1985). Communication Education, 

34(1), 29-36. 

E 

Yes. 

Randomly 

gned.iass 

No In 22 

Direct Explanat on method.i

Teachers were trained in the use of explicit 

ngions of readiexplanat 

lskil s and processes. Low

reading groups. Duration: not reported. 3 train ngi

isess ons. Number of

training hours not reported. 

5 

Tr: Teachers in control and 

iexper mental groups observed

and rated on explic tness ofi

ltheir exp anations, using a

lng scairat e developed by the

researchers. St: After each lesson, at least 5 students 

iwere nterviewed on strategy

awareness: - What did youlearn? - Why t important? ­isiHow do you do it? No measures of student strategy usage or reading 

evement.iach 

Students of treascored significastudents of constrategy awaren

teachers were 

more explicit 

n 

i

lthan contro tea

lteachers a so b

ana

ln their expi 

was a significa

between studeawareness and i .e., as teacher

r 

in theiexplicit 

ratings of aware

Brown, R., Pressley, M., 

Van Meter, P., & 

Schuder, T. (1996). Journal of Educational Psychology, 88 (1), 18-37 

Q 

Yes. Teachers were not 

ylrandom 

gned.iass 

Yes (for 

students) 

In 10 

teachers 60 

students 

StrategieslonaiTransact 

on (TSI),iInstruct 

emphasizing ntioj

on of texticonstruct 

interpretations and student strategy usage. Students read below 2nd grade 

ilevel. Durat on: 1 academic

iyear. Tra ning hours: not

reported. The exper mentaligroup teachers d d noti

ng for thisireceive train 

llstudy. A had extensive

prior experience w th TSI.i

2 

Tr: No formal measures were 

lused a though lessons were

observed. Treatment classes 

were observed to have more 

on ofiscussiprominent d 

strategies than compar soni

iread ng groups. St: a)

ies interviStrateg ew to assess

awareness of comprehens oniand problem-so ngivl

strategies. b) Rete ngill

iquest ons to assess students'

lrete ling and sequenc ng of 2i

stories. c) Th ink-aloud task to

ideterm ne whether students

were more text- or readeribased in the r responses to

probes. d) Standardized subtests of reading 

on and wordicomprehens 

lisk ls (Stanford Ach evementi

Test [SAT]). 

Students of treascored significastudents of concomprehension subtests of SAT

ifignis cantly gre

these measurethe study. Studteachers reca ll 

informati on and 

more interpretiv

ithe stor es. Stu

teachers repor

comprehension 

istrateg es than 

teacher

lcontro 

5-33 National Reading Panel
Table 4: Inservice Studies With Teacherand Student Outcome Measures (continued) Author/s, Date, sheril& Pub Exp/ Quasi Control: Yes/No Pre & Post: Yes/No Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher oning & DuratiniTra Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) Findings Coladarci, T., & Gage, N.L. (1984). American onaliEducat Research Journal, 21(3), 539-555. E Yes Yes; pre and post for teachers & student­ s. 28 asseslc (data abl­liava e) 32In Teacher education packets (TEP) by Crawford et al., 1978 were given to treatment and control group teachers. TEP consisted of a) beha iv or manage- ment & discipline b) large-group instruction, use of Q&A, & pho in cs exercises in rea id ng; c) questioning and feedback strate ig es. There was no formal tr ia ning; teachers were asked to fo ll ow what was

ig ven in the guidelines.

Duration: About 1 year. Form la training: None.

4,5,6 

Tr: Classroom observat on pre-i

and posttreatment. Observation 

ded roughlrecords yie 

estimates of the extent to 

which teacher behavior 

ected TEPlref 

recommendat ons St:iComprehensive. Test of Bas ci

s was used.llSki 

As an experim

corroborate th

iobta ned prev

lc assroom-ba

Toward the enthe experime

not show appconformity to recommendat

iasseslc mpro

academic ach 

Conley, M.M.W. (1983). ngiRead 

Teacher, 36(8), 804-808. 

E 

Yes. Teachers 

i n each school

were random yl

assigned 

Yes, for 

students only 

In 32 

Comprehension instruction (literal, 

inferenti la , critical, andcrea it ve). Included higherorder questioning 

techniques. Note: 

Students were la l black &

from low socioeconomic

backgrounds. They were s le ected because theyread b le ow the nationalnorm for their age lev le .Duration: 6 months. 

About 10-15 hours of tr ia ning.

Grade 6 materi la s

were 

used; students 

were 

ungraded 

Tr: Ongoing formative 

on.iuatleva St: Gatesng Testinitie ReadiMacG 

(level E) 

Teachers ben

iqualitat ve dat

evaluations an

i mportant wercomprehensio

Reports of the Subgroups 5-34
Table 4: Inservice Studies With Teacher and Student Outcome Measures (continued) 

Author/s, Date, 

sheri& Publ 

Exp/ Quasi 

:lContro 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/No Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher Training & Duration Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) Findings 

Duffy, G.G., Roehler, L.R., Meloth, M.S., 

Vavrus, L.G., 

Book, C., Putnam, J., & 

Wesselman, R. 

(1986). ngiRead Research Quarterly, 21(3), 

237-252. 

E Yes; randomly assigned 

1) Yes: 

neiBasel 

data on 

teacher 

effectiveness 

through 

observations 

+ posttreatment 

observations. 

2) Yes: 

students 

were 

measured pre- and post- on standardized 

test. 

In 22 

iciExpl t instruction and

ianatlexp on in using read ngi

Lowy.ls strategicalllski 

reading groups. Durat on: 7imonths. 1 meeting & presentation + 10 hours of 

training. 

5 

Tr: Ratings of teachers '

onsianatlexplinstructiona 

ngs ofipts) St: Rati(transcr 

"awareness" after essonsl

i(transcr pts): 5 students

iinterv ewed per teacher.

Gates-MacGinitie Reading 

Test (1978) Time taken for control and treatment 

groups to do the test. 

Teachers who 

lcantignifis y hig

lcontro group i

on. Stud

instructi 

groups showed awareness of r

there were no 

comprehension

3 good teacheteachers show

lcantignifis y gre

achievement. Sgroup took lonposttest. 

Duffy, G.G., Roehler, L.R., Sivan, E., 

iffe, G.,lRack 

Book, C., Meloth, M.S., 

Vavrus, L.G., Wesselman, R., 

Putnam, J., & Bassiri, D. (1987). Reading Research Quarterly, 22 (3), 

347-368. 

E 

Yes. 

Randomly assigned. 

Yes 

In 20 148 students 

lDirect Exp anation with a

focus on explain ng thei

reasoning associated with 

llski and strategy usage.

ng groups.iLow read 

iDurat on: 1 academ c year.i

Training hours: 12 

3 

Tr: Researcher-designed 

rating instrument was used to rate transcripts of 

ons forianatlexp'teachers 

iexplic tness. St: a) SAT

(comprehens on & wordiskills subtests) b) Michigan Educational 

Assessment Program 

(MEAP) [delayed posttest] c) Lesson 

atelyiews (immediinterv 

iowllfo ng a lesson) &

concept interviews (at the end of the year) d) 

lementalSupp 

Achievement Measure 

(SAM) [researcherdesigned] e) Modif ediGraded Oral Reading Paragraph (GORP) 

The treatment t

more explicit in associated with 

were the contro

students of trea

lcantignifis y hig

lcontro teacher

on comprehen

treatment teach

ih gher than stu

on MEAP. Stud

gher 

iscored h 

nterv

i-Concept 

not Part 1) -Mo

5-35 National Reading Panel
Table 4: Inservice Studies With Teacher and Student Outcome Measures (continued) 

Author/s, Date, 

& Publisher 

Exp/ Quasi 

:lContro 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/No Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher Training & Duration Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) Findings 

er, J.W., &lMil Ellsworth, R. (1985). Elementary School Journa ,l 85(4), 485-496. Q & E Yes. a) Not random 143for N = b) Random for 33N = 1) Yes for teachers 2) No complete pretest data for students, neilbut base was shedilestab through pretest scores of entlvaiequ students. In 141/143 Four semester-long courses aimed at improv ngi iread ng instruction: a) assessment of reading needllevels & skil ation ofib) different instruction c) use iof d verse instructional materials d) Directed Read ng Activityi (DRA) as bas c format fori lesson preparation; e) story discussion techniques f) promotion of recreat onali iread ng & develop ngi nterests.ingistudent read Duration: 2 years. Train ngi hours: not reported. 2-5 Tr: a) Knowledge of reading assessed by the Inventory of Teacher Knowledge of Reading (Artley & Hard n, 1975). Ni = 143. Not random. b) Measurement of actua l teacher behavior. lC assroom observation. N = 16 (exp). N = 17 (control). Random. St: California Achievement Test. (N = 511). Post-inservice training program comparison of ng and non-icipatipart 'ng teachersicipatipart students. Teachers who had 

lng, butiread ess 

college degrees, 

ithe nservice cou

toward reading in

icant dignifis fferen

posttest means: 1

the basis of intere

iread ng program 

disagreed more sdoes not respond 

he should be taug(trained teachers 

s a skingi3) read 

practiced if prof ic

i(tra ned teachers 

Trained teachers 

lgher impih ement

iorsibehav n all s

sample of nonpar17). A posthoc an

ignifithere were s 

student achievem

Stallings, J., 

ns, P.,iRobb 

Presbrey, L., & Scott, J. (1986). Elementary 

School Journa ,l

86(5), 571-587. 

Q Yes. Not random. 

1) Yes, 

teachers were 

observed before 

training. 2) Yes for 

students 

In 13 

teachers; 208 

students 

s'ine HunterlMade 

Instructional Theory into Practice to improve instruction and classroom management. ng wasiFundgiven by NIE to improve 

iread ng and math of

Chapter 1-eligib ldren.ie chl

l2 se ected schools had the

ih ghest percentage of

Chapter 1-eligib ldrenie chlin their schoo l districts (50%

& 55%). Reports data from1982-1983 (II), 1983-1984 

on: 3 years.i(III). Durat 

Training hours: not 

reported. 

1-4 

Tr: Quality and quantity of 

iprogram mplementation

were measured by 

Instructional Sk llsiObservation Instrument 

me-Off-Taski(ISOI) & T 

Observation System, questionnaires & 

iinterv ews. Designed by

the researchers. 

ng and mathiSt: a) Read 

achievement scores. b) Rate of student engagement as measured by T me-Off­i

Task system. 

iTeachers mprove

lisk ls significantly 

range in teacher preduced. Studenti n reading during 

n math 

istudy and 

ional skinstructi lls 

lnot corre ate with 

ispeak ng (LES) s

the program. The

iread ng and math 

of the other chi ldr

Reports of the Subgroups 5-36
Table 4: Inservice Studies With Teacher and Student Outcome Measures (continued) 

Author/s, Date, 

& Publisher 

Exp/ Quasi 

Control: 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/No 

Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher Training & Durat oni Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) Findings 

ings, J., &llSta 

Krasavage, EM. (1986). 

ementarylE 

,lJournalSchoo 

87(2), 117-138. 

Q Yes. Not random 

Yes for teachers 

& students 

450 

students 

As above. Reports data from 1984-5 (IV). Schools 

selected had the highest percentage of Chapter 1­

ile gible students. Duration:

as above. Training hours: as above. 

1-4 As above 

Seven of ten teISOI scores drengaged rates 

gnifidropped s 

Comparisons wschools on stagreater gains a

from 1984-1985

more than EngInconsistencies 

ng 

istudent read 

of the study. Evlink between imHunter mode l a

Streeter, B.B. (1986). 

ngiRead 

Psychology: An 

lInternationa 

Quarterly, 7(4), 

249-259 

E 

Yes. Teachers were randomly 

assigned 

Yes In 19 

Enthusiasm training for 

teachers. Videotapes used for postconferencing. 

Duration: 2 weeks. 10 hours of training. 

1-5 

Tr: Teachers were 

observed pre- and 

ng.iposttrain Variables

very,idellinclude voca 

eyes, gestures, 

movements, fac lai

ons, wordiexpress 

iselect on, acceptance of

ideas, and overa llenergy. 

iSt: Att tudes to read ngi

measured by the SRA Primary Level (pre and post). 

lThe contro gro

but not as muc

ngigroup. Train 

observable teaone of the four measure show

There was a d

iReading D fficu

iless perce ved 

Hence, teacheenthusiasm po

'students attitud

5-37 National Reading Panel
Table 4: Inservice Studies with Teacher and Student Outcome Measures (continued) Author/s, Date, sheril& Pub Exp/ Quasi Control: Yes/No Pre & Post: Yes/No Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher iniTra ng & Duration Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) ndingsiF mage, H.,lTa a, E.T.,lPascarel & Ford, S. (1984). American onaliEducat Research Journa , 21l (1), 163-179. Q Yes. Not random Yes. Teachers and students (except 1st grade) In 107 s inlskil'ng teachersiIncreas conducting cooperat vei ng activities.ilearn Duration: 3 years. Training hours: not reported. 2-6 assroomlTr: C observations, interviews and pre- and postmeasures of teaching practices and teacher iatt tudes were used. St: 1) Students ' rions of theipercept earninglassroomlc environment were ned.iobta 2) Reading Comprehens on &i Language Arts achievement measured 

by district standard zedi

itests (Sc ence Research

Associates, Inc.) 

lveiCooperat earnin

learned effect ively 

ilong-term nservice 

iwere pos tive effec

ience wiexper th co

student perceptions 

There were some e

reading scores but Some ambigu 

ty stii

for the influence of 

on achievement. Thother unmeasured 

project that helped achievement. 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-38
Table 5: Inservice Studies With Student Outcome Measures Only 

Author/s, Date, & 

Publisher 

Exp/ Quasi 

Control: 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/No 

Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher Training & Duration Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) ndingsiF 

Block, C. (1993).Elementary School Journal, 

94(2), 139-151. 

E 

asseslYes. C 

were 

ylrandom 

assigned. 

Yes (for 

students) 

Research assistants 

were 

used. No. not reported. 

352 

students 

on in ainstructiStrategy 

student-centered 

.e., studenticurriculum, 

choice of object ves andimaterials. Durat on: 8i

months. Training hours:not reported. 

2-6 

Tr: None 

St: a) Iowa Test of Basic S ik lls was

administered posttest. It was not reported whether this was used at pretest. b) Observa it ons: The last lesson

taught in each experimental and

control lc ass was videotaped andrated for levels of comprehensionand thinking a ib lities seen in

id scussions.

c) Student 's self-esteem, ideagenera it on, and reflective thinkingab li ity were assessed pre- andposttest. d) Reasoning a ib lity wasmeasured using the Califor in aState Department of Educa it onStatewide Assessment Test (1989). 

Experiment la ssig in ficantly higposttests for re

vocab lu ary, an

sig in ficant diffebetween the twEnglish grammOn the basis oobservations, rexpe ir mental c

than controls. E

better than conesteem, idea g

transfer t ih nking 

situations, re lf eand pro lb emso

Brown, R., ElDinary, P.B., 

ey, M., &lPress 

Coy-Ogan, L. (1995). 

ng Teacher,iRead 

49(3), 256-258. 

Q 

Yes. Not 

random: used 

teachers from 

stingiex 

classrooms 

No 

In 10 

teachers 

12 students 

Students "were experiencing at east somel

ldifficulty earning how to

read." 1-year study.

Training hours: not 

reported. 

2 

Tr: None 

lSt: Severa measures of read ng &i

strategic processing (instruments not stated) (ref: Brown et al. Tech report). Instruments are described in Brown, Pressley, Van Meter, & Schuder (1996), Journal of 

ogy, 88lonal PsychoiEducat (1), 

18-37. 

TSI students: a

strategic proce

ion the r own m

reading a chal lb) acquired mo

ldeve oped rich

stories read; c) showed gre

icomprehens on 

Teachers belie

lse f-confidence 

ireaders, mpro

students during 

found it challen

use a reperto ir

5-39 National Reading Panel
Table 5: Inservice Studies With Student Outcome Measures Only (continued) 

Author/s, Date, & 

Publisher 

Exp/ Quasi 

Control: 

Yes/No 

Pre & Post: 

Yes/No Pre/ In-S Type of Teacher Training & Duration Gr Dependent Measures: Teacher (Tr) & Student (St) 

Fi

Reid, E.R. (1997). 

or andiBehav 

Social Issues, 

7(1), 19-24. 

Q Yes. Not random No In N not stated 

Training for a language 

arts/integrated curriculum: word recogni it on, vocabularycomprehen is on, study skills,spelling, penmanship, proo if ng,

w ir ting, and literature. Training

included the above, using strategies that prevent f ia lureand management systems to enable all students to learn. 

iM crocomputers used to teach

typing, reading, and spelling in

K-8. Duration: 1 year. 5-dayseminar. Approximately 30-35 hours. 

1-12 

Tr: None 

St: SAT; CTBS, & ITBS. 

Woodcock-Johnson & NelsonDenny (for some of the special ed 

and bilingual students in two schools). Included regulareduca it on, special ed, gifted, andspe ic al needs students. 2,274

students (1990); regular students N = 1,733.1,986 students (1996). 

Shepard, LA, 

lF exer, R.J.,

Hiebert, E.H., Ma ir on, S.F., May if eld, V., &

Weston, T.J. 

(1996). Education la 

Measurement: 

Issues and Practice, 15(3), 718. 

Yes. Not 

random. 

Treatment 

schools 

volunteered 

and control schools 

were 

matched on SES data. 

Appro ix mately

premeasures 

appropriate for 

3rd graders 

used and compared iw thoutcome scores at the 

end of the 

year. 

Performance assessment in 

reading and math. After school

workshops were held weekly for a whole year la ternating

between reading and math. Duration: 1 year. Training hours: not reported. 

Tr: None

St: 1991 Mar ly and SchoolPerformance Assessment Program, sup lp emented by apor it on of another measure (Koretset la ., 1991) for math. N = 335.

Q In 3 

Reports of the Subgroups 5-40

­

In at 

exNo

vo

coof 

co

evsisuacNo 

fo

i n

as
Appendices 

Appendix D 
 

Standards 
 

The 1989 NCATE Approved Curriculum Guidelines 

of the ACEI for the basic programs for the 

preparation of elementary education teachers include 

the following standards: (Note that indicators are 

provided for Standard 13, the standard dealing with 

literacy.) 

1.	 Programs should provide teacher candidates 

with an understanding of the roles of 

elementary school teachers and the 

alternative patterns of elementary school 

organization. 

2.	 Programs should provide study and 

experience concerning the role of the 

teaching profession in the dynamics of 

curriculum change and school improvement. 

3.	 Programs should include study and 

experiences, throughout the professional 

studies sequence that link child development 

to elementary school curriculum and 

instruction. 

4.	 Programs should develop the teacher 

candidates’ capacities to organize and 

implement instruction for students. 

5.	 Programs should include study and 

application of a variety of developmentally 

appropriate experiences that demonstrate 

varied approaches to knowledge construction 

and application in all disciplines. 

6.	 Programs should include study and 

application of current research findings about 

teaching and learning. 

7.	 Programs should provide a well-planned 

sequence of varied clinical/field experiences 

with students of different ages, cultural and 

linguistic backgrounds, and exceptionalities. 

These experiences should connect course 

content with elementary school practice. 

8.	 Programs include opportunities to study, 

analyze, and practice effective models of 

classroom management in campus and fieldbased settings and to engage in a gradual 

increase in responsibility. 

9.	 Programs should provide study and 

experiences for critically selecting and using 

materials, resources, and technology 

appropriate to the age, development level, 

cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and 

exceptionalities of students. 

10.	 Programs should provide for indepth study in 

at least one academic discipline by including 

significant course work beyond the 

introductory level to reflect processes of 

inquiry and research. 

11.	 Programs should develop understandings of 

positive health behaviors, movement skills, 

and physical fitness to allow teacher 

candidates to provide appropriate health 

education and physical education experiences 

for students. 

12.	 Programs should prepare teacher candidates 

to become confident in their ability to do 

mathematics and to create an environment in 

which students become confident learners 

and doers of mathematics. 

13.	 Programs in the area of students’ literacy 

development should be designed to help 

teacher candidates create experiences for 

their students in reading, writing, and oral 

language. These programs should stress the 

integration of reading, writing, and oral 

language with each other and with the 

content areas of the elementary school 

curriculum. 

Program emphasis include study of and 

experiences with: 

5-41	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

13.1	 The cognitive and linguistic 

foundations of literacy development 

in students 

13.2	 Ways of promoting vocabulary 

growth in students 

13.3	 The flexible use of a variety of 

strategies for recognizing words in 

print 

13.4	 Teaching of the conventions of 

language needed to compose and 

comprehend oral and written texts 

(e.g., text structure, punctuation, 

spelling) 

13.5	 The strategies readers can use to 

discover meaning from print and to 

monitor their own comprehension 

13.6	 The ways listening, speaking, 

reading, and writing relate to each 

other and to the rest of the 

elementary curriculum 

13.7	 Identifying and developing 

appropriate responses to differences 

among language learners (e.g., 

linguistic, sociocultural, intellectual, 

physical) 

13.8	 Communicating with parents 

concerning the school language 

program and developmentally 

appropriate language experiences at 

home 

13.9	 Speaking and writing that vary in 

form, subject, purpose, audience, 

point of view, tone, and style 

13.10	 Ways to promote reading, writing, 

and oral language for personal 

growth, lifelong learning, enjoyment, 

and insight into human experience 

13.11	 The literature of childhood including 

(a) knowing a range of books, (b) 

knowing how to share literature with 

students, and (c) knowing how to 

guide students to respond to books in 

a variety of ways 

13.12	 Promoting creative thinking and 

expression, as through storytelling, 

drama, choral/oral reading, 

imaginative writing, and the like. 

14.	 Programs in science for teacher candidates 

should focus on academic, personal, social, 

and career applications of the biological, 

earth, and physical sciences and should 

develop skills in instruction to promote these 

understandings and positive attitudes among 

students and youth. 

15.	 Programs should prepare teacher candidates 

to translate knowledge and data-gathering 

processes from history and the social sciences 

into appropriate and meaningful social studies 

experiences for students. 

16.	 Programs should prepare teacher candidates 

to translate knowledge of and experience in 

the visual and performing arts into 

appropriate experiences for students. 

The 1983 NCATE Approved Curriculum Guidelines 

of the International Reading Association for advanced 

programs in reading education follow in this report, 

but readers should be aware that IRA has published a 

1998 revision of the standards for reading 

professionals. The 1998 standards will be applied to 

programs of institutions currently seeking 

accreditation or continuing accreditation. 

Competencies required of candidates from those 

institutions presently approved are the following: 

1.	 Philosophy of Reading Instruction: Reading 

is a complex, interactive, and constructive 

process. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 5-42 
Appendices 

1.1	 Recognizes the importance of 

teaching reading as a process rather 

than as a discrete series of skills to be 

taught through unrelated activities/ 

exercises 

1.2	 Recognizes the importance of using 

a wide variety of print throughout 

the curriculum, including high-quality 

children’s/adolescents’literature and 

diverse expository materials 

appropriate to the age and 

developmental level of learners 

1.3	 Has knowledge of current and 

historical perspectives about the 

nature and purposes of reading and 

about widely used approaches to 

reading instruction 

1.4	 Recognizes and appreciates the role 

and value of language in the reading 

and learning processes 

1.5	 Recognizes the importance of 

embedding reading instruction in a 

meaningful context for the purpose 

of accomplishing specific authentic 

tasks or for pleasure 

1.6	 Recognizes the value of reading 

aloud to learners. 

2.	 Professionalism 

2.1	 Pursues knowledge of reading and 

learning processes by reading 

professional journals and publications 

and participating in conferences and 

other professional activities 

2.2	 Employs inquiry and makes 

thoughtful decisions during teaching 

and assessment 

2.3	 Interacts and participates in 

decisionmaking with teachers, 

teacher educators, theoreticians, and 

researchers and plays an active role 

in schools, classrooms, and the wider 

professional community 

2.4	 Supports and participates in efforts 

to improve the reading profession by 

being involved in licensing and 

certification 

2.5	 Participates in local, state, national, 

and international professional 

organizations whose mission is the 

improvement of literacy 

2.6	 Promotes collegiality with other 

literacy professionals through regular 

conversations, discussions, and 

consultations about learners, literacy 

theory, and instruction 

2.7	 Shares knowledge, collaborates, and 

teaches with colleagues, as in 

inclusion programs. 

3.	 Moral Dimensions and Values 

3.1	 Recognizes the importance of literacy 

as a mechanism for personal and 

social growth 

3.2	 Recognizes that literacy can be a 

means for transmitting moral and 

cultural values within a community 

3.3	 Recognizes values and is sensitive to 

human diversity 

3.4	 Recognizes and is sensitive to the 

needs and rights of individual 

learners. 

4.	 Perspectives About Readers and Reading 

4.1	 Understands and accepts the 

importance of reading as a means to 

learn, to access information, and to 

enhance the quality of life 

4.2	 Understands and is sensitive to 

differences among learners and how 

these differences influence reading 

4.3	 Understands and respects cultural, 

linguistic, and ethnic diversity and 

recognizes the positive contributions 

of diversity 

5-43	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

4.4	 Believes that all students can learn 

to read and share in the 

communication process 

4.5	 Recognizes the importance of using 

reading in positive ways in the 

classroom 

4.6	 Recognizes the value and importance 

of creating a supportive and positive 

environment for literacy learning 

4.7	 Recognizes the importance of giving 

learners opportunities in all aspects of 

literacy as readers, authors, and 

thinkers 

4.8	 Recognizes the importance of 

implementing literacy programs 

designed to meet the needs of 

readers rather than imposing 

prescribed, inflexible programs 

4.9	 Recognizes the importance of 

building on the strengths of 

individual learners rather than 

emphasizing weaknesses. 

5.	 Language, Development, Cognition, and 

Learning 

5.1	 Understands that language is a 

symbolic system 

5.2	 Understands major theories of 

language development, cognition, and 

learning and uses them to implement 

a well-planned and comprehensive 

reading program 

5.3	 Is aware of the linguistic, 

sociological, cultural, cognitive, and 

psychological bases of the reading 

process 

5.4	 Is aware of the physical, emotional, 

social, cultural, environmental, and 

intellectual factors on learning, 

language development, and reading 

5.5	 Understands dialect variations and 

respects linguistic differences 

5.6	 Understands the importance of 

language development in relation to 

reading and writing. 

6.	 Knowledge of the Reading Process 

6.1	 Perceives reading as the process of 

constructing meaning through the 

interaction of the reader’s existing 

knowledge, the information 

suggested by the written language, 

and the context of the reading 

situation 

6.2	 Is aware of relationships among 

reading, writing, listening, and 

speaking 

6.3	 Has knowledge of emergent literacy 

and the kinds of experiences that 

support literacy 

6.4	 Is aware that reading develops best 

through activities that embrace 

concepts about the purpose and 

function of reading and writing and 

the conventions of print 

6.5	 Understands the role of models of 

thought that operate in the reading 

process 

6.6	 Is able to explain the model various 

word recognition, vocabulary, and 

comprehension strategies used by 

fluent readers 

6.7	 Understands the role of 

metacognition in reading 

6.8	 Has knowledge of the importance for 

reading in language development; 

listening ability; cognitive, social, and 

emotional development; and 

perceptual motor abilities 

6.9	 Understands the nature and multiple 

causes of reading disabilities 

6.10	 Understands the relationship of 

phonemic, morphemic, semantic, 

and syntactic systems of language to 

the reading process. 

Reports of the Subgroups	 5-44 
Appendices 

7. Creating a Literate Environment	 

7.1	 Promotes the development of a 

literate environment that fosters 

interest and growth in all aspects of 

literacy 

7.2	 Uses texts to stimulate interest, 

promote reading growth, foster 

appreciation for the written word, 

and increase the motivation of 

learners to read widely and 

independently for information and for 

pleasure 

7.3	 Models and discusses reading as a 

valuable activity 

7.4	 Engages students in activities that 

develop their image of themselves as 

literate 

7.5	 Promotes feelings of pride and 

ownership for the process and 

content of learning 

7.6	 Provides regular opportunities for 

learners to select from a wide variety 

of books or other quality written 

materials 

7.7	 Provides opportunities for students to 

be exposed to a variety of highquality, relevant reading materials 

7.8	 Provides opportunities for students to 

be exposed to various purposes for 

reading/writing, to experience 

reading/writing as relevant to 

themselves, and to write and have 

their writing responded to in a 

positive way 

7.9	 Recognizes the importance of 

providing time for reading of 

extended text for authentic purposes 

7.10	 Provides opportunities for creative 

response to text. 

8.	 Organizing and Planning for Effective 

Instruction—Knowledge of Contextual 

Factors 

8.1 Understands how factors such as
 

content, purpose, tasks, and settings 

influence the reading process 

8.2	 Provides flexible grouping based on 

students’ instructional levels, rates of 

progress, interests, or instructional 

goals 

8.3	 Understands how assessment and 

grouping procedures can influence 

motivation and learning 

8.4	 Understands how environmental 

factors can influence students’ 

performance on measures of reading 

achievement 

8.5	 Understands the relationship among 

home factors, social factors, and 

reading habits in students 

8.6	 Understands the influence of school 

programs (e.g., remedial, gifted, 

tracking) on students’ learning 

8.7	 Understands the conditions 

necessary for all students to 

succeed. 

9.	 Knowledge of Individual Differences 

9.1	 Understands what the reader brings 

to the reading experience (e.g., prior 

knowledge, metacognitive abilities, 

aptitudes, motivation, attitude) 

9.2	 Understands the influence of 

cultural, ethnic, and linguistic 

backgrounds on the reading process 

9.3	 Understands the relationship among 

reader’s self-concept, attitudes, and 

learning 

9.4	 Understands the interactive nature 

and multiple causes of reading 

difficulties. 

10.	 Knowledge of Instructional Materials 

5-45	 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 5: Teacher Education and Reading Instruction 

10.1	 Understands how to design, select, 

modify, and evaluate materials that 

reflect curriculum goals, current 

knowledge, and the interests, 

motivation, and needs of individual 

learners 

10.2	 Understands the structure and 

content of various texts used for 

instruction 

10.3	 Understands and uses new 

instructional technologies 

10.4	 Understands methods for 

determining whether materials are 

clear and appropriate for individual 

students. 

11.	 Knowledge of Instructional Strategies— 

Teaching Strategies 

11.1	 Provides direct instruction and 

models what, when, and how to use 

reading strategies with narrative and 

expository texts 

11.2	 Models questioning strategies 

11.3	 Employees strategies to encourage 

and motivate students to pursue and 

respond to reading and writing for 

personal growth and fulfillment 

11.4	 Teaches effective study strategies 

12.	 Learning Strategies 

12.1	 Helps students learn and apply 

comprehension strategies for a 

variety of purposes 

12.2	 Helps students monitor their 

comprehension and reading 

processes 

12.3	 Understands and helps students learn 

and apply reading comprehension 

strategies in the content areas 

12.4	 Helps students gain understanding of 

the conventions of language and 

literacy 

12.5	 Teaches word recognition through 

the use of context, word analysis, 

and syntactic cueing strategies 

12.6	 Helps students learn that word 

recognition strategies aid 

comprehension 

12.7	 Helps students learn effective 

techniques and strategies for the 

ongoing development of vocabulary 

12.8	 Helps students analyze information 

presented in a variety of texts 

12.9	 Helps students connect prior 

knowledge with new information 

12.10	 Assists students in assuming control 

of their reading 

12.11	 Helps students use new technology 

and media effectively. 

13.	 Demonstrate Knowledge of Assessment 

Principles and Techniques 

13.1	 Recognizes assessment as an 

ongoing and indispensable part of 

reflective teaching and learning 

13.2	 Recognizes and understands that 

assessment must take into account 

the complex nature of reading, 

writing, and language and must be 

based on a range of authentic 

literacy tasks using a variety of texts 

13.3	 Is able to conduct assessment that 

involves a consideration of multiple 

indicators of learner progress and 

that takes into account the context of 

teaching and learning 

13.4	 Is knowledgeable about the 

characteristics and appropriate 

applications of widely used and 

evolving assessment approaches 

13.5	 Uses information from normreferenced tests, criterion-referenced 

tests, formal and informal 

inventories, constructed-response 

measures, portfolio-based 

Reports of the Subgroups	 5-46 
Appendices 

assessment, observations, anecdotal 

records, journals, and multiple other 

indicators of students; progress to 

inform instruction and learning 

13.6	 Recognizes and understands the 

importance of aligning assessment 

with curriculum and instruction. 

14.	 Communicating Information About Reading 

14.1	 Communicates effectively with 

students, teachers, and support 

personnel about strengths and areas 

that need improvement 

14.2	 Shares pertinent information with 

other teachers and support 

personnel 

14.3	 Understands how to involve parents 

in cooperative efforts and programs 

to help students with reading 

development 

14.3	 Communicates information about 

reading programs to administrators, 

staff members, school board 

members, parents, and the 

community 

14.4	 Effectively communicates 

information and data about reading 

to the media, policymakers, and the 

general public 

14.5	 Interprets and communicates 

research findings related to the 

improvement of instruction to 

colleagues and the wider community 

14.6	 Communicates with allied 

professionals in assessing and 

planning instruction. 

15.	 Planning and Enhancing Programs— 

Curriculum and Development 

15.1	 Initiates and participates in ongoing 

curriculum development and 

assessment 

15.2	 Adapts programs to the needs of 

different learners to accomplish 

different purposes 

15.3	 Supervises, coordinates, and 

supports all services associated with 

reading programs (e.g., needs 

assessment, program development, 

budgeting and evaluation, grant and 

proposal writing) 

15.4	 Understands and uses multiple 

indicators of curriculum 

effectiveness. 

16.	 Staff Development 

16.1	 Initiates, participates in, and 

evaluates staff development 

programs 

16.2	 Takes into account what participants 

in staff development programs bring 

to ongoing education 

16.3	 Provides staff development 

experiences that help emphasize the 

dynamic interaction between prior 

knowledge, experience, and the 

school context 

16.4	 Provides staff development 

experiences that are sensitive to 

school constraints (e.g., class size, 

limited resources) 

16.5	 Understands and uses multiple 

indicators of professional growth. 

17.	 Research 

17.1	 Initiates, participates in, or applies 

researching on reading 

17.2	 Reads or conducts research within a 

range of methodologies (e.g., 

ethnographic, descriptive, 

experimental, historical) 

17.3	 Promotes and facilitates teacherand classroom-based research. 

5-47	 National Reading Panel 

Report

COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY AND READING INSTRUCTION 

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

Although reading is based on the technology of writing 

and printing, the history of reading instruction reflects a 

recurrent interest in the application of other 

technologies, for example, reading pacers, 

tachistoscopes, and even television. The use of 

computers in reading instruction dates only to the mid1960s with the work of Suppes, Atkinson, and their 

colleagues. For example, Atkinson and Hansen (1966­

1967) published the first report of the use of computers 

in teaching reading. The current review was undertaken 

to examine research that used computers to deliver 

reading instruction to determine what the results have 

been, what the potential is, and what questions remain. 

Background 

Despite the current intense interest in computer 

technology, there has been relatively little systematic 

research into problems of involving computers or other 

technologies. Several factors seem responsible for the 

limited research on computers in literacy contexts. First, 

many reading researchers did not and do not consider 

technology to be a mainstream topic. That is, they often 

believe that reading instruction can be delivered only by 

a human. Others believe that technology must be 

considered in the overall context of reading instruction. 

Those in the latter category believe that other problems 

in reading instruction should be attended to before issues 

of technology are addressed. These general impressions 

are reinforced by some of the factors described in the 

following paragraphs. 

Until recently, computers did not have all (or even most) 

of the capabilities that were needed to implement a 

complete program of reading instruction. A primary lack 

among these capabilities was the inability to comprehend 

oral reading and judge its accuracy. Another lack was 

the inability of computers to accept free-form responses 

to comprehension questions, leading to reliance solely 

on recognition tests such as multiple-choice formats. 

The situation is currently very different, with most new 

computers capable of speech recognition, as well as a 

host of multimedia presentation capabilities. Artificial 

intelligence is beginning to make inroads into software 

for instruction, and systems for text comprehension are 

fairly sophisticated, even on home computers. 

The development of the Internet and the linking of 

schools and school computers to it have combined to 

provide a new interest in computer usage. The kinds of 

information resources available have provided a stimulus 

for renewed efforts to deliver instruction of all sorts, 

including reading, by computer. Coupled with the facts 

that computers have become much more capable and 

software has become much more advanced, interest in 

using the Internet has led to a dramatic new wave of 

interest in using computers in reading instruction. 

Methodology 

A database had previously been developed on this topic. 

That database covered the period from 1986 to 1996 

and included all the studies on technology and literacy 

(e.g., writing as well as reading). Because this database 

had been developed by a combination of electronic and 

hand searching all of the journals, it was deemed 

expedient to use the database and update it with more 

recent work. Only those studies that met the criteria of 

the National Reading Panel were included. 

Results and Discussion 

There is a small body of research on the problems of 

computer technology and reading. The work that met 

the National Reading Panel requirements is substantially 

smaller. Many of the research studies that have been 

published are explorations of capabilities of computers, 

comparisons of computers with traditional tasks, word 

processing, and learning. Very few of these studies 

directly examined the effects of using computer 

technology for reading instruction. 

A total of 21 studies was found, representing 

experimental manipulations of problems across the entire 

spectrum of reading instruction. As a first step to further 

analysis, the problems addressed by these studies were 

categorized. The largest group of studies (six) included 

those that studied the addition of speech to computerpresented text. There were two studies that examined 

the effects of vocabulary instruction, two more that 

6-1 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 6: Computer Technology and Reading Instruction 

looked at word recognition instruction, and two that 

investigated comprehension instruction, broadly defined. 

One study examined spelling, and two studies examined 

the effects of broad programs on learning to read. These 

last studies looked at the delivery of reading instruction 

by comprehensive software that covered many, if not 

most, elements of reading instruction. 

Conclusions 

It is extremely difficult to make specific instructional 

conclusions based on the small sample of experimental 

research available. One conclusion is that it is possible 

to use computer technology for reading instruction. All 

the studies in the analysis report positive results. The six 

studies that examined the addition of speech to print 

presented on computers suggest that this may be a 

promising alternative, particularly in light of the 

powerful multimedia computers now available. 

There are two other trends that should be examined 

more systematically. A small, but growing, body of 

research examines the use of hypertext in learning 

environments. Although this is technically not reading 

instruction, it is possible that hypertext might be used in 

instructional contexts to some advantage. 

A second area outside the scope of the current review 

is that of using computers for word processing. Given 

that instruction in reading is most efficacious when 

combined with writing instruction, the use of word 

processing has the potential to make reading instruction 

more effective. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

Although the Panel is encouraged at the reported 

successes in using computer technology for reading 

instruction, there are relatively few specific instructional 

applications to be gleaned from the research. It is clear 

that some students can benefit from the use of 

computer technology in reading instruction. In particular, 

studies on the addition of speech to print suggest that 

this may be a promising alternative, especially given the 

powerful multimedia computers now available and those 

being developed. In addition, the use of hypertext and 

word processing appear to hold promise for application 

to reading instruction. 

Directions for Further Research 

The reported successes to date in using computer 

technology for reading instruction indicate that this is an 

area that needs a great deal of additional exploration. 

There are many questions that still need to be 

addressed and many areas in which research does not 

exist. Particularly striking in its absence is research on 

Internet applications as they might be incorporated in 

reading instruction. Another area is the use of computer 

technology to perform speech recognition. Although 

great strides have been made in this technology, there 

have been no recent studies of speech recognition 

applied to reading instruction, despite its increasing use. 

Finally, the issue of multimedia presentations has not 

been addressed in the context of reading instruction. 

There are many questions that remain about the 

efficacy of multimedia incorporated in reading 

instruction. 

Reports of the Subgroups 6-2 
Report

COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY AND READING INSTRUCTION 

Report 

Introduction 

Reading is based on the technology of writing and 

printing. The history of reading instruction reflects a 

recurrent interest in the application of other 

technologies (Kamil & Lane, 1998; Kamil, Intrator, & 

Lane, 2000). (The “other technologies” include, for 

example, reading pacers, tachistoscopes, and 

television.) The use of computers in reading instruction 

dates only to the mid-1960s with the work of Suppes, 

Atkinson, and their colleagues. For example, Atkinson 

and Hansen (1966-1967) published the first report of 

the use of computers in teaching reading. This 

pioneering work in demonstrating the efficacy of using 

computers to deliver reading instruction set the way for 

much of the subsequent research. Although there were 

debates about whether or not they were really teaching 

reading at the time (Spache, 1968-1969; Atkinson, 

1968-1969), such public debates no longer seem to 

exist. 

Despite the current intense interest in computer 

technology, there has been relatively little systematic 

research in problems of involving computers or other 

technologies. Kamil and Intrator (1998) conducted an 

extensive review of the research in literacy and 

technology and found that between 1986 and 1996 there 

were only 350 published research journal articles that 

reported investigations of reading and writing. The 

yearly proportion of these technology studies was 

relatively constant over that time period, ranging from 

2% to 5% of the total of all research articles on reading 

and writing. These totals reflect all research on 

computers and other technologies, not simply 

instructional research. 

Several factors seem responsible for the limited 

research on computers in literacy contexts. First, many 

reading researchers did not and do not consider 

technology to be a mainstream topic. That is, many 

believe that reading instruction can be delivered only by 

a human. Others believe that technology must be 

considered in the overall context of reading instruction; 

they believe that other problems in reading instruction 

should be attended to before issues of technology. 

These general impressions were reinforced by some of 

the factors described in the following paragraphs. 

Second, for much of the time since the initial reports of 

computerized reading instruction, computers did not 

have all (or even most) of the capabilities that were 

needed to implement a complete program of reading 

instruction. A primary lack among these capabilities 

was the inability to comprehend oral reading and judge 

its accuracy. Another lack was the inability of computers 

to accept free-form responses to comprehension 

questions, leading to sole reliance on recognition tests 

like multiple choice formats. 

Lack of those capabilities meant that computer 

technology often was considered useful only as a 

supplement to conventional instruction, rather than as a 

primary delivery system. As a supplemental device, at 

best, it occupied a less prominent position in the problem 

space of reading researchers. Indeed, because 

computer software was relatively incapable of speech 

recognition or text comprehension, there were only a 

few activities that the computer seemed to be capable 

of handling independently. At least in the early history 

of computers and reading, this was reflected in the 

translation of things like paper and pencil worksheets to 

the computer screen. The situation is currently very 

different, with most new computers capable of speech 

recognition, as well as a host of multimedia presentation 

capabilities. Artificial intelligence is beginning to make 

inroads into software for instruction, and systems for 

text comprehension are fairly sophisticated, even on 

home computers. 

A third consideration in the history of computers and 

reading has been the cost factor. With the introduction 

of microcomputers, the steady decline in prices, 

accompanied by a steady increase in capabilities, has 

produced computers that cost only a few hundred 

dollars. These machines can easily outperform the 

machines of a decade ago. Most new computers are 

capable of presenting audio and video, controlling 

external devices, and being expanded. They have 

substantial amounts of memory and a great deal of 

external storage capacity. In addition, there are lowcost printers, scanners, cameras, and a host of other 

peripherals that can be attached, typically for far less 

even a few years ago. All of these make unbelievable 

some of the original predictions that computers would 

never be cost effective in classrooms. 

6-3 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 6: Computer Technology and Reading Instruction 

Finally, there was often resistance to the idea that a 

computer could deliver reading instruction. One 

important reason for this simply seems to be the age-old 

debate about whether teaching reading is an art or a 

science. Software, to match teacher performance, must 

be adaptable to a very broad range of responses from 

learners. It must be able to analyze responses to 

questions, separating correct from incorrect; respond to 

idiosyncratic responses in appropriate ways; and bring 

multiple methods to bear on pedagogical contexts. 

Computers are still unable to do many of these activities 

today, despite advances in hardware and software. This 

problem is not limited to the use of computers to deliver 

reading instruction. It is endemic to much current 

software. Despite dramatic developments in learning 

theory and software design, this seems to be the most 

serious impediment to progress. The rapid pace of 

technological innovation in both hardware and software, 

however, suggests that this issue is being addressed. 

At the same time, a different sort of development has 

caused a renewed interest in computer technology. The 

development of the Internet and the linking of schools 

and school computers to it have combined to provide a 

new interest in computer usage. The kinds of 

information resources available have provided a stimulus 

for renewed efforts to deliver instruction of all sorts, 

including reading, by computer. Coupled with the much 

greater capability of computers and major advances in 

software, use of the Internet has led to a dramatic new 

wave of interest in using computers in reading 

instruction. 

The current review was undertaken to examine the 

research that used computers to deliver reading 

instruction in an effort to determine what the results are, 

what the potential is, and what questions remain. 

Methodology 

Database 

The Technology Subcommittee began its task by using a 

database that was assembled by Kamil and Intrator 

(1997). This database was deemed an appropriate 

starting point because it was assembled by a 

combination of electronic searches and exhaustive hand 

searches of all the journals that appeared in the electronic 

searches. The following paragraphs describe the methods 

used in the creation of the database in that study. 

A review of the research on computer technology and 

reading was undertaken to document the trends in this 

area. To accomplish this task, the first step was to 

interrogate both the ERIC and PsycINFO databases. 

Any journal research article that matched the 

descriptors of technology, computers, reading, writing, 

or literacy was listed. 

Queries were generated in the form of SUBJECT 

READ# and SINCE 1986 not YEAR = 1996 and 

DOCTYPE = research and DOCTYPE = journal 

article and S = technology. Other queries were 

composed to cover similar topics in reading, writing, 

speaking, listening, and literacy. Both “technology” and 

“computer” were used as qualifiers. The Panel decided 

that single descriptors would yield a more liberal 

sampling of articles, even though such a procedure 

yields more “false positives.” (For example, using 

literacy as a descriptor yielded many studies of science 

literacy and computer literacy that did not deal with 

reading or writing.) These queries yielded a total of 965 

articles in 159 different journals. 

In a preliminary hand search of the journals, evidence 

was found that there were articles that did not appear in 

the ERIC or PsycINFO databases. Consequently, each 

of the 159 journals was hand-searched for relevant 

articles that were missed or missing from the database 

interrogation. In addition, many of the articles in the 

original set did not meet the criteria of true research 

reports about literacy and technology. For example, 

some of the articles were mere speculation; others 

were about computer literacy rather than reading. Still 

others were commentaries arguing for or against the 

efficacy of technology interventions in literacy learning. 

The Panel applied a simple criterion to include or 

exclude articles. To be included, an article had to deal 

with the areas laid out above and had to be based on an 

empirical data collection. However, reviews of research 

studies based on empirical studies were included. 

Because the original search was conducted prior to the 

end of 1996, the Panel included any available 1996 

issues of journals in the hand search. 

Subsequent additions to the database were made by 

queries of the INSPEC database and hand-searching 

similar to that described above. This yielded an ultimate 

pool of 350 studies. Information on all relevant articles 

was entered into a Filemaker Pro database. Each 

Reports of the Subgroups 6-4 
Report 

article was assigned a value for number of pages, 

literacy type, technology type, subject population, 

special population characteristics, problem, platform, 

methodology, findings, recommendations, and quality. 

For the present analysis, the studies in the database 

were filtered to identify a subset of experimental or 

quasi-experimental instructional studies. Of the 350 

studies, a total of 92 investigated reading using 

experimental or quasi-experimental methods. Of the 92, 

only 47 studies were instructional. Studies that merely 

compared computerized versions of a task with 

conventional versions were not counted as instructional. 

Studies that merely examined effects of the computer, 

unless attended by some instructional intervention, were 

also eliminated from the pool. What this last criterion 

did was to remove a few studies that simply translated 

existing materials for use in a computer presentation. 

Studies that did not deal with computer technologies 

were also eliminated. (In the original database, for 

example, there were studies that examined instructional 

uses of television.) 

Studies that were about word processing were not 

considered further, because many or most of these did 

not involve any connection with reading. Finally, studies 

of special populations, non-native speakers of English, 

or adult readers were deemed inappropriate for further 

analysis. (A number of studies dealt with learning to 

read in a second language, for example, and fell outside 

the scope of the charge to the National Reading Panel.) 

This produced a final pool of only 21 studies. 

Figure 1. Number of Computer Technology Studies as a Function of Reading Problems 

(N = 22 Problems in 21 Studies) 

0 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

Word Recognition Vocabulary Speech Comprehension Spelling General Other 

Problem Studied 

Number of Studies 

Analysis 

The 21 studies represent experimental manipulations of 

problems across the entire spectrum of reading. As a 

first step to further analysis, the problems addressed by 

these 21 studies were categorized. This procedure 

ultimately yielded seven categories. The largest group 

of studies (six) studied the addition of speech to 

computer-presented text. There were two studies that 

examined the effects of vocabulary instruction, two 

more that looked at word recognition instruction, and 

two that investigated comprehension instruction, broadly 

defined. One study examined spelling, and two studies 

examined the effects of broad programs on learning to 

read. The last studies looked at the delivery of reading 

instruction by comprehensive software that covered 

6-5 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 6: Computer Technology and Reading Instruction 

many, if not most, elements of reading instruction. One 

study examined the learning of picture-word 

relationships and was not classified. Figure 1 presents 

these data graphically. 

Consistency With NRP Methods 

Meta-analysis was judged inappropriate because the 21 

studies were spread across the entire spectrum of 

variables and across populations ranging from preschool 

to high school. The distribution of the final pool of 

studies as a function of grade levels is included as 

Reading Panel. Even though these numbers are low, 

they are in agreement with the conclusions of Kamil 

and Intrator (1997), Kamil and Lane (1998), and Kamil, 

Intrator, and Kim (2000) that there has been a dearth of 

research on problems in technology and literacy. 

According to Kamil and Intrator (1997), there was no 

significant increase in published research on technology 

and literacy over the time span from 1986 to 1996. 

 

 

F ig ure 2 . D istributio n o f S tudie s a s a F unc tio n o f G ra de Le ve l o f the Le a rne rs 

(N = 1 6 S tudie s w ith 2 3 G ra de S a m ple s ) 

0 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

Number of Studies 

Pre K Primary Ele me ntary M iddle Sc ho o l H igh Scho ol 

Grade Le ve l 

Figure 2. What is interesting about this distribution is 

that it is equally focused on primary and elementary 

students. The implication is that technology has been 

applied with equal emphasis to problems of early 

readers and of more experienced ones. Perhaps the 

anomaly is that there are so few studies at the high 

school level. 

A striking feature of the entire pool of studies is the 

small proportion of studies that used experimental or 

quasi-experimental methods compared to the total 

number of instructional studies. Only 92 of the 350 

studies, or 26%, used experimental methods. Moreover, 

fewer than 5% of the studies in the original data set met 

the criteria for inclusion established by the National 

Reports of the Subgroups 6-6 
Report 

Results 

It is difficult to conclude much on the basis of the 21 

studies. They all report successful uses of computer 

technology in one context or another. Kamil and Intrator 

(1997) classified the studies in their database according 

to whether the processes studied were old or new 

modes of instruction. For example, an “old” process 

might be completing a workbook page at the computer 

rather than with paper and pencil. A new one might be 

reading from hypertext. 

They further classified the old modes as to whether 

they merely replaced an old form of instruction or 

augmented it. If, for example, the workbook page was 

merely completed and the student was given no 

feedback, this was a simple replacement. If, however, 

the student was given appropriate instruction, based on 

the answers, it was considered to be an augmented 

process. 

In the final data set of instructional studies, there were 

no new processes studied. They were equally divided 

between the augmented or replacement categories. 

This seems to suggest that, for the experimental 

research, there are few examples of truly new uses for 

computer technology to date. 

This is an important finding in that it suggests that there 

are few truly innovative uses of computer technology in 

literacy instruction, despite the great promise. There will 

almost certainly be more developments of new uses for 

technology in literacy instruction in the future. For now, 

the computer seems to be used as technology to either 

present or augment traditional instructional practices. 

Discussion 

There are threads in the research database that are worth 

noting even if the studies on which they are based do not 

meet the formal criteria established by the NRP. These 

findings are based on a limited amount of data, and not 

all of these studies are purely instructional. They are 

given here to indicate that there are factors not quite 

central to reading instruction that might be adapted for 

such use. Before strong recommendations could be 

made that these should be incorporated in reading, 

additional research would be needed. These trends 

include the potential benefits of computers in reading 

for word processing, use of computers as motivational 

devices, use of computers as assistive technologies, and 

the potential of hypertext as an alternative medium for 

reading and studying. These trends are consistent with 

the trends noted by Kamil, Intrator, and Kim (2000). 

In particular, the database contains 131 studies (38%) 

that were about writing. Although not all of these were 

instructional studies, a number were. They were, 

however, excluded, as noted above, by the formal 

criteria established by the NRP. The exclusion of these 

studies is not meant to imply that the teaching of writing 

is unimportant. The Panel believes it can be integrated 

with beginning reading instruction in beneficial ways. 

What was missing from the published research was an 

explicit link to reading instruction. Consequently, these 

studies were not included. 

There are reviews of the specific literature on word 

processing that already exist, and it was considered 

unproductive to duplicate them. The Panel suggests that 

the use of word processing in writing instruction could 

be an important and effective addition to the reading 

curriculum that can benefit immediately from the use of 

computer technology. 

A second cluster of studies involved the use of 

computer technologies as motivational agents. The 

Panel judged that these studies were, again, not directly 

in the instructional charge but worth considering. It is 

probably the case that as computers become more 

familiar to students, their motivational value will 

diminish. For the present, though, this still seems to be a 

potent variable, although its precise application is far 

from clear. Again, reading instruction can probably 

make good use of the motivational aspects of 

computers and software. 

The third trend is reflected in a set of studies that 

examines what Kamil, Intrator, and Kim (2000) have 

called assistive technologies. There were 114 studies in 

the original database (33% of the total) that dealt with 

special populations. While not all of these are 

experimental or quasi-experimental studies, they do 

point to an important cluster of research activities. 

There seems to have been less resistance to the 

adoption of computer technologies for these populations 

than for mainstream populations. Although less 

evidence is presented of the effectiveness of computers 

for use in mainstream instructional applications, the uses 

with special populations may point the way for the 

future. 

6-7 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 6: Computer Technology and Reading Instruction 

Finally, the NRP looks to the promise of hypertext as an 

application for the future. A small, but steadily 

increasing, cluster of studies points the way toward 

potentially important applications revolving around 

hypertext and hypermedia. There were 12 studies that 

involved hypertext in the assembled database, but they 

do not adequately reflect the growing interest in the 

topic. Many of the studies do not meet the experimental 

or instructional criteria, but they will provide important 

data as researchers and practitioners conceptualize new 

ways to apply hypermedia in reading and learning to 

read. It will be those applications that must be 

researched and validated for use in reading instruction. 

Hypertext and hypermedia may also involve developing 

new modes of instruction for students to use them 

effectively. What is most exciting about this trend is that 

it represents truly new ways of applying computer 

technology to reading and reading instruction. 

Implications for Reading Instruction 

There are few implications for practice that can be 

drawn from the small set of instructional studies in the 

database. What is important is that there are uses for 

the computer that do impinge on reading instruction. 

The following is an attempt to draw some of these 

implications, with the caveat that the implications are 

clearly tentative and need to be verified by continued 

research. 

•	 Computers can be used for some 

reading instructional tasks. 

Although there are only a few experimental studies that 

are relevant to this point, they do report successes. 

What is clear is that as computer software becomes 

more capable, the opportunities for computers to be 

used in reading instruction will expand. 

At the very least, computers can provide opportunities 

for students to interact instructionally with text for 

greater amounts of time than they can if only 

conventional instruction is provided. Although there was 

no research that provided a general rule for determining 

what works, careful selections from available software 

can provide additional instructional assistance in 

classrooms. Although there is a publication bias to 

report only positive differences, there were no 

instructional studies in which the computer did not 

provide a significant addition to the instructional context. 

•	 Word processing is a useful addition to 

reading instruction. 

A very large portion of the database involved studies of 

word processing. Because writing is often part of 

reading instruction, the findings concerning word 

processing are relevant, even though the studies fell 

outside the criteria for analysis. Word processing has 

many benefits for writing, particularly in its close match 

with process writing approaches. Although the 

implication has not been experimentally tested (in terms 

of its effect on reading instruction), this seems likely to 

occur in the future. One implication seems to be that 

word processing alone is unlikely to make a difference; 

it must be embedded in other instruction. 

•	 Multimedia computer software can be 

used for reading instruction. 

There are many unanswered questions about the 

efficacy of multimedia learning. All of the conditions 

under which multimedia learning is more effective than 

conventional learning are not known. However, there 

appear to be many students who benefit from the 

addition of multimedia instruction to a conventional 

curriculum. One example that was tested in several 

studies was the addition of speech (computerized or 

not) to the instructional context. When multimedia 

software is available and appropriate, it should be 

exploited. 

•	 Computers do have a motivational use 

in reading instruction. 

Although there were no experimental instructional 

studies that supported this implication explicitly, the 

motivational aspects of computers should not be 

overlooked. This effect may diminish as computers 

become ever more common. For the time being, they 

still retain some motivational advantage over 

conventional instruction. 

•	 Hypertext has a great deal of potential 

in reading instruction. 

There is a growing interest in hypertext because of its 

potential to allow the reader to control some of the 

presentation of text, determining what to read at various 

junctures in the text. Another potential is the use of 

hypertext to assist the reader who is having difficulty 

with a passage. Despite the fact that there were no 

experimental instructional studies on this topic that met 

Reports of the Subgroups	 6-8 
Report 

the NRP criteria, the application of hypertext concepts 

to reading and reading instruction seems to have a great 

deal of potential. The use of hypertext and hypermedia 

on the Internet almost mandates the need to address this 

issue in reading instruction. In the meantime, hypertext, 

particularly coupled with Internet access, seems to have 

been adopted in many classrooms, regardless of the lack 

of research. 

Directions for Further Research 

It is inappropriate to separate the applications of 

computer technologies to reading instruction into a set 

of issues about technology and a set about reading. The 

Panel believes that technology is not a problem to be 

studied in and of itself. The problem is, rather, how the 

technology is applied to specific problems in reading 

instruction. To that end, the following questions are 

offered as among the most important ones to be 

answered by future research. They are neither simple 

nor easily answered. Answering them will involve 

issues as complex as professional development for 

teachers and as simple as the utility of drill and practice 

exercises. 

Research on these topics needs to be relatively 

independent of specific computer platforms and 

software because the rapidity of innovation makes 

specific choices obsolete in short time periods. One 

argument for not conducting more research has been 

that the technology outpaces the research. However, 

not all of the important questions are dependent on the 

state of technological innovation. 

The Panel believes that the following list of questions 

represents relatively short-term needs for today and 

shortly beyond the horizon of current development. 

Some effort should be directed at conceptualizing new 

uses for computer technology—uses that will augment 

conventional reading instruction in beneficial ways. The 

list does not include questions that may become 

important in the future—such as the role of literacy in a 

much more graphically oriented world. These may not 

be researchable, but the implications of these 

developments need to be systematically explored by 

research. 

One of the most striking findings of this analysis is that 

there is a surprising lack of published research. For 

whatever reason, the volume of published research has 

not kept pace with the interest in computer technology. 

Research is urgently needed to answer these and other 

questions that will affect the penetration of computer 

technology into conventional reading instruction. 

1.	 What is the proper role for integration of computers 

in reading instruction? In what contexts can they be 

used to either replace or supplement conventional 

instruction? 

2.	 What are the conditions under which multimedia 

presentation is useful or desirable in reading text? 

3.	 What are the requisite characteristics of software to 

teach reading? 

4.	 What is the appropriate mix of reading and writing 

instruction delivered by computer? 

5.	 How can professional development programs be 

structured to help teachers effectively integrate 

computer solutions with instruction? 

6.	 How are the effects of computer usage in pedagogy 

most effectively measured? Do conventional 

assessments measure all of the learning that takes 

place in computer environments? 

7.	 What is the utility of hypertext in instructional 

contexts? 

8.	 How can Internet resources be incorporated in 

reading instruction? 

Overall Conclusions 

The current analysis has found general agreement in the 

experimental literature that computer technology can be 

used to deliver a variety of types of reading instruction 

successfully. There has been relatively little research in 

this important area and, consequently, many unanswered 

questions remain. 

The rapid development of capabilities of computer 

technology, particularly in speech recognition and 

multimedia presentations, promises even more 

successful applications in literacy for the future. To be 

certain that these new developments are incorporated in 

instruction as efficiently as possible, it is important that 

research be initiated to answer the questions that have 

not been addressed to date. 

6-9	 National Reading Panel 
Report 

References 

Atkinson, R. (1968-1969). A reply to reaction to 

computer-assisted instruction in initial reading: The 

Stanford Project. Reading Research Quarterly, 3, 418­

420. 

Atkinson, R., & Hansen, D. (1966-1967). 

Computer-assisted instruction in initial reading: The 

Stanford Project. Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 5-26. 

Barker, A. B., & Torgeson, J. K. (1995). An 

evaluation of computer-assisted instruction in 

phonological awareness with below average readers. 

Journal of Educational Computing Research, 13, 89-103. 

Bass, G., Ries, R., & Sharpe, W. (1986). Teaching 

basic skills through microcomputer-assisted instruction. 

Journal of Educational Computing Research, 2, 207-219. 

Chambless, J., & Chambless, M. (1994). The 

impact of instructional technology on reading/writing 

skills of 2nd grade students. Reading Improvement, 31, 

151-155. 

Chang, L., & Osguthorpe, R. (1990). The effects of 

computerized picture-word processing on kindergartners’ 

language development. Journal of Research in Childhood 

Education, 5, 73-84. 

Davidson, J. (1994). The evaluation of computerdelivered natural speech in the teaching of reading. 

Computers and Education, 22, 181-185. 

Davidson, J., Coles, D., Noyes, P., & Terrell, C. 

(1991). Using computer-delivered natural speech to 

assist in the teaching of reading. British Journal of 

Educational Technology, 22, 110-118. 

Davidson, J., Elcock, J., & Noyes, P. (1996). A 

preliminary study of the effect of computer-assisted 

practice on reading attainment. Journal of Research in 

Reading, 19, 102-110. 

Gillingham, M., Garner, R., Guthrie, J., & Sawyer, 

R. (1989). Children’s control of computer-based reading 

assistance in answering synthesis questions. Computers 

in Human Behavior, 5, 61-75. 

Gore, D., Morrison, G., Maas, M., & Anderson, E. 

(1989). A study of teaching reading skills to the young 

child using microcomputer assisted instruction. Journal 

of Educational Computing Research, 5, 179-85. 

Icabone, D., & Hannaford, A. (1986). Comparison 

of two methods of teaching unknown reading words to 

fourth graders: Microcomputer and tutor. Educational 

Technology, 26, 36-39. 

Kamil, M. L., & Intrator, S. (1997, December). 

Quantitative trends in publication of research on 

technology and reading, writing, and literacy. Scottsdale, 

AZ: The National Reading Conference. 

Kamil, M. L., & Intrator, S. (1998). Quantitative 

trends in publication of research on technology and 

reading, writing, and literacy. In T. Shanahan & F. 

Rodriguez-Brown (Eds.). Forty-seventh Yearbook of 

the National Reading Conference (pp. 385-396). 

Chicago, IL: The National Reading Conference. 

Kamil, M. L., Intrator, S., & Kim, H. S. (2000). 

Effects of other technologies on literacy and literacy 

learning. In M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, et 

al. (Eds.) Handbook of reading research (Vol. 3) (pp. 

773-788). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 

Kamil, M. L., & Lane, D. (1998). Researching the 

relationship between technology and literacy: An agenda 

for the 21st century. In D. Reinking, M. McKenna, L. 

Labbo, et al. (Eds.). Handbook of literacy and 

technology: Transformations in a post-typographic 

world. (pp. 323-341). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 

Kolich, E. (1991). Effects of computer-assisted 

vocabulary training on word knowledge. Journal of 

Educational Research, 84, 177-182. 

Norton, P., & Resta, V. (1986). Investigating the 

impact of computer instruction on elementary students’ 

reading achievement. Educational Technology, 26, 35­

41. 

Olson, R. K., Foltz, G., & Wise, B. W. (1986). 

Reading instruction and remediation with the aid of 

computer speech. Behavior Research Methods, 

Instruments, and Computers, 18, 93-99. 

6-11 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 6: Computer Technology and Reading Instruction 

Reinking, D. (1988). Computer-mediated text and 

comprehension differences: The role of reading time, 

reader preference, and estimation of learning. Reading 

Research Quarterly, 23, 484-498. 

Reinking, D., & Rickman, S. S. (1990). The effects 

of computer-mediated texts on the vocabulary learning 

and comprehension of intermediate grade readers. 

Journal of Reading Behavior, 22, 395-411. 

Reitsma, P. (1988). Reading practice for beginners: 

Effects of guided reading, reading-while-listening, and 

independent reading with computer-based speech 

feedback. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 219-235. 

Roth, S., & Beck, I. (1987). Theoretical and 

instructional implications of the assessment of two 

microcomputer word recognition programs. Reading 

Research Quarterly, 22, 197-218. 

Spache, G. (1968-1969). A reaction to computerassisted instruction in initial reading: The Stanford 

Project. Reading Research Quarterly, 3, 101-109. 

Tobias, S. (1988). Teaching strategic text review by 

computer and interaction with student characteristics. 

Computers in Human Behavior, 4, 299-310. 

Weber, W., & Henderson, E. (1989). A computerbased program of word study: Effects on reading and 

spelling. Reading Psychology, 10, 157-171. 

Wise, B. (1992). Whole words and decoding for 

short-term learning: Comparisons on a talking-computer 

system. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 54, 

147-167. 

Wise, B., Olson, R., & Treiman, R. (1990). 

Subsyllabic units in computerized reading instruction: 

Onset-rime vs. postvowel segmentation. Journal of 

Experimental Child Psychology, 49, 1-19. 

Reports of the Subgroups 6-12 
Report 

COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY AND READING INSTRUCTION 

Appendices 

Appendix A 
 

Studies Analyzed

Barker, A. B., & Torgeson, J. K. (1995). An 

evaluation of computer-assisted instruction in 

phonological awareness with below average readers. 

Journal of Educational Computing Research, 13, 89-103. 

Bass, G., Ries, R., & Sharpe, W. (1986). Teaching 

basic skills through microcomputer assisted instruction. 

Journal of Educational Computing Research, 2, 207­

219. 

Chambless, J., & Chambless, M. (1994). The 

impact of instructional technology on reading/writing 

skills of 2nd grade students. Reading Improvement, 31, 

151-155. 

Chang, L., & Osguthorpe, R. (1990). The effects of 

computerized picture-word processing on 

kindergartners’ language development. Journal of 

Research in Childhood Education, 5, 73-84. 

Davidson, J. (1994). The evaluation of computerdelivered natural speech in the teaching of reading. 

Computers and Education, 22, 181-185. 

Davidson, J., Coles, D., Noyes, P., & Terrell, C. 

(1991). Using computer-delivered natural speech to 

assist in the teaching of reading. British Journal of 

Educational Technology, 22, 110-118. 

Davidson, J., Elcock, J., & Noyes, P. (1996). A 

preliminary study of the effect of computer-assisted 

practice on reading attainment. Journal of Research in 

Reading, 19, 102-110. 

Gillingham, M., Garner, R., Guthrie, J., & Sawyer, 

R. (1989). Children’s control of computer-based reading 

assistance in answering synthesis questions. Computers 

in Human Behavior, 5, 61-75. 

Gore, D., Morrison, G., Maas, M., & Anderson, E. 

(1989). A study of teaching reading skills to the young 

child using microcomputer assisted instruction. Journal 

of Educational Computing Research, 5, 179-185. 

Icabone, D., & Hannaford, A. (1986). Comparison 

of two methods of teaching unknown reading words to 

fourth graders: Microcomputer and tutor. Educational 

Technology, 26, 36-39. 

Kolich, E. (1991). Effects of computer-assisted
 

vocabulary training on word knowledge. Journal of
 

Educational Research, 84, 177-182.
 

Norton, P., & Resta, V. (1986). Investigating the 

impact of computer instruction on elementary students’ 

reading achievement. Educational Technology, 26, 35­

41. 

Olson, R. K., Foltz, G., & Wise, B. W. (1986).
 

Reading instruction and remediation with the aid of
 

computer speech. Behavior Research Methods,
 

Instruments, and Computers, 18, 93-99.
 

Reinking, D. (1988). Computer-mediated text and 

comprehension differences: The role of reading time, 

reader preference, and estimation of learning. Reading 

Research Quarterly, 23, 484-498. 

Reinking, D., & Rickman, S. S. (1990). The effects 

of computer-mediated texts on the vocabulary learning 

and comprehension of intermediate grade readers. 

Journal of Reading Behavior, 22, 395-411. 

Reitsma, P. (1988). Reading practice for beginners: 

Effects of guided reading, reading-while-listening, and 

independent reading with computer-based speech 

feedback. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 219-235. 

6-13 National Reading Panel 
Chapter 6: Computer Technology and Reading Instruction 

Roth, S., & Beck, I. (1987). Theoretical and 

instructional implications of the assessment of two 

microcomputer word recognition programs. Reading 

Research Quarterly, 22, 197-218. 

Tobias, S. (1988). Teaching strategic text review by 

computer and interaction with student characteristics. 

Computers in Human Behavior, 4, 299-310. 

Weber, W., & Henderson, E. (1989). A computerbased program of word study: Effects on reading and 

spelling. Reading Psychology, 10, 157-171. 

Wise, B. (1992). Whole words and decoding for 

short-term learning: comparisons on a talking-computer 

system. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 54, 

147-167. 

Wise, B., Olson, R., & Treiman, R. (1990). 

Subsyllabic units in computerized reading instruction: 

Onset-rime vs. postvowel segmentation. Journal of 

Experimental Child Psychology, 49, 1-19. 

Reports of the Subgroups 6-14 
Minority View

MINORITY VIEW 

Joanne Yatvin, Ph.D.
 

Oregon Trail School District, Sandy, Oregon
 

The charge from Congress to the National Reading 

Panel (NRP) was to “assess the status of researchbased knowledge, including the effectiveness of various 

approaches to teaching children to read.” In explicating 

that charge, the National Institute of Child Health and 

Development (NICHD), which convened the Panel, 

listed seven questions for the Panel to address. They 

were: 

1.	 What is known about the basic processes by which 

children learn to read? 

2.	 What are the most common instructional 

approaches in the United States to teach children to 

learn to read? What are the scientific underpinnings 

for each of these methodologic approaches, and 

what assessments have been done to validate their 

underlying scientific rationale? What conclusions 

about the scientific basis for these approaches does 

the Panel draw from these assessments? 

3.	 What assessments have been made of the 

effectiveness of each of these methodologies in 

actual use in helping children develop critical 

reading skills, and what conclusions does the Panel 

draw from these assessments? 

4.	 Based on the answers to the preceding questions, 

what does the Panel conclude about the readiness 

for implementation in the classroom of these 

research results? 

5.	 How are teachers trained to teach children to read, 

and what do studies show about the effectiveness 

of this training? How can this knowledge be applied 

to improve this training? 

6.	 What practical findings from the Panel can be used 

immediately by parents, teachers, and other 

educational audiences to help children learn to read, 

and how can the conclusions of the Panel be 

disseminated most effectively? 

7.	 What important gaps remain in our knowledge of 

how children learn to read, the effectiveness of 

different instructional methods for teaching reading, 

and improving the preparation of teachers in 

reading instruction that could be addressed by 

additional research? 

From this charge, it seems reasonable to infer that 

Congress’s goal was to settle the “Reading Wars,” 

putting an end to the inflated rhetoric, partisan lobbying, 

and uninformed decisionmaking that have been so 

widespread and so detrimental to the progress of 

reading instruction in America’s schools. Clearly, the 

main thrust of the charge is toward determining which 

of the many teaching methods used in schools, and 

promoted by advocates, really work best. 

Whether a review of the existing reading research 

literature could have provided answers to all of 

Congress’s questions, the Panel’s obligation was to dig 

in and find out. I am filing this minority report because I 

believe that the Panel has not fulfilled that obligation. 

From the beginning, the Panel chose to conceptualize 

and review the field narrowly, in accordance with the 

philosophical orientation and the research interests of 

the majority of its members. At its first meeting in the 

spring of 1998, the Panel quickly decided to examine 

research in three areas: alphabetics, comprehension, 

and fluency, thereby excluding any inquiry into the fields 

of language and literature. After some debate, members 

agreed to expand their investigations to two other areas: 

computer-linked instruction and teacher preparation. 

Five subcommittees were formed, and within the 

chosen areas, each selected a number of topics of 

interest. As work on the initial choices of topics 

proceeded, however, it became apparent that the Panel 

had insufficient time and support personnel to cover all 

it had identified. Ultimately, the Panel subgroups 

produced reviews of the research on the following 

topics: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, 

comprehension strategies, vocabulary development, 

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Minority View 

computer technology and reading instruction, teacher 

preparation in general, and teacher preparation to teach 

comprehension strategies. In addition, the Panel 

developed a set of criteria and procedures for 

evaluating reading studies, which all subgroups used and 

which the Panel hopes will serve as future guidelines 

for other researchers. 

These reviews show comprehensive and painstaking 

work by the subcommittees. They will prove valuable, I 

think, to other experimental researchers as they seek to 

expand the body of knowledge on those topics and fill in 

the gaps. On the other hand, the reviews are of limited 

usefulness to teachers, administrators, and policymakers 

because they fail to address the key issues that have 

made elementary schools both a battleground for 

advocates of opposing philosophies and a prey for 

purveyors of “quick fixes.” And, unfortunately, the 

reviews are of even less use to parents because they 

do not touch on early learning and home support for 

literacy, matters which many experts believe are the 

critical determinants of school success or failure. 

To have properly answered its charge, the Panel had 

to look at the field of reading both horizontally and 

vertically, examining the basic theoretical models of 

reading, the methods that grow out of them, and the 

processes of learning that begin in infancy and continue 

through young adulthood. (See Appendix A for 

definitions and descriptions of the three models 

underlying methods of instruction in American schools 

today.) The scientific basis for each of these models 

needed to be examined, then the effectiveness of the 

methods they have generated. The research on 

language development, pre-reading literary knowledge, 

understanding of the conventions of print, and all the 

other experiences that prepare young children to learn 

to read also demanded the Panel’s attention. And 

finally, the changing needs and strategies of adolescent 

readers called for a review of the existing research. 

If the Panel could not cover the whole field—as, in fact, 

it could not because of time and resource limitations—it 

should have concentrated on topics of highest interest 

and controversy in the public arena. Or, as 

professionally distasteful as the task might have been, it 

should have assessed the validity of the claims of 

various commercial programs being sold as cure-alls to 

schools and parents. (In order to be specific about 

topics the panel did not cover, I have included two lists 

in Appendix B.) The panel chose not to pursue any of 

these approaches. 

Furthermore, to have fully answered its charge, the 

Panel needed to assess the implications for practice 

growing out of research findings. As a body made up 

mostly of university professors, however, its members 

were not qualified to be the sole judges of the 

“readiness for implementation in the classroom” of their 

findings or whether the findings could be “used 

immediately by parents, teachers, and other educational 

audiences.” Their concern, as scientists, was whether 

or not a particular line of instruction was clearly enough 

defined and whether the evidence of its experimental 

success was strong. What they did not consider in most 

cases were the school and classroom realities that 

make some types of instruction difficult—even 

impossible—to implement. Outside teacher reviewers 

should have been brought in to critique the Panel’s 

conclusions, just as outside scientists were to critique its 

processes. Despite repeated suggestions that this be 

done, it was not. 

In fairness to the Panel, it must be recognized that the 

charge from Congress was too demanding to be 

accomplished by a small body of unpaid volunteers, 

working part time, without staff support, over a period 

of a year and a half. (The time Congress originally 

allotted was only 6 months.) 

Congress did not realize—and the Panel itself did not 

fully comprehend at the beginning of its labors—how 

large, uneven, and intractable the field of reading 

research really is. The Panel’s preliminary electronic 

searches of databases uncovered thousands of articles 

on some topics, hundreds on others, only a handful on 

some. Their completed reviews on several topics 

disclosed that the critical question of generalizability 

(i.e., Does a skill or strategy taught and learned carry 

over to new experiences?) often was not answered by 

researchers. The reviews show, in addition, that 

questions relevant to the success of an instructional 

technique, such as “how much” to teach and “when,” 

were not even examined in most studies. 

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Also in fairness to the Panel, I must acknowledge that a 

few of the topics I have identified as neglected are 

included in some of the reports. Still, they receive only 

peripheral attention when public interest demands much 

more. In the review on phonemic awareness, for 

example, the critical question of whether all children 

need special training in phonemic awareness was not 

addressed, even though several studies suggest that 

many children grasp the concept and are able to apply it 

through ordinary reading instruction. Other topics of 

interest, such as students’ need for “direct instruction,” 

appear in reviews only as assumptions about successful 

practices, but are never tested against their 

philosophical opposites. 

In the end, the work of the NRP is not of poor quality; it 

is just unbalanced and, to some extent, irrelevant. But 

because of these deficiencies, bad things will happen. 

Summaries of, and sound bites about, the Panel’s 

findings will be used to make policy decisions at the 

national, state, and local levels. Topics that were never 

investigated will be misconstrued as failed practices. 

Unanswered questions will be assumed to have been 

answered negatively. Unfortunately, most policymakers 

and ordinary citizens will not read the full reviews. They 

will not see the Panel’s explanations about why so few 

topics were investigated or its judgments that the results 

of research on some of the topics are inconclusive. 

They will not hear the Panel’s calls for more and more 

fine-tuned research. Ironically, the report that Congress 

intended to be a boon to the teaching of reading will 

turn out to be a further detriment. 

As an educator with more than 40 years of experience 

and as the only member of the NRP who has lived a 

career in elementary schools, I call upon Congress to 

recognize that the Panel’s majority report does not 

respond to its charge nor meet the needs of America’s 

schools. In spite of the Panel’s diligent efforts and its 

valuable findings on a select number of instructional 

practices, we still cannot answer the first and most 

central question of the charge: “What is known about 

the basic processes by which children learn to read.” 

We still do not know what types of instruction are 

suitable for different ages and populations of children. 

We still do not know the relative effectiveness of the 

three models of reading as bases for instruction. We do 

not even know whether the existing body of research 

can answer those questions. Therefore, I ask Congress 

not to take actions that will promote one philosophical 

view of reading or constrain future research in the field 

on the basis of the Panel’s limited and narrow set of 

findings. 

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Appendix A 
 

Definitions 
 

Word Identification Model of Reading

The word identification model hypothesizes that readers 

read by matching letters to sounds, then blending sounds 

into pronounceable words. In asserting that children 

who have mastered the skills of decoding “can read 

anything,” it separates word pronunciation from word 

understanding and defines the former as reading. 

Instructional materials evade the issue by using mostly 

decodable words in stories that reflect familiar life 

experiences of children and have only literal meanings. 

Although proponents of this model recognize that 

readers need vocabulary knowledge and skills of 

analysis and interpretation to understand advanced and 

specialized materials, they believe that the job of 

developing those skills properly belongs in subject 

matter classes. Getting students to understand the main 

idea of a short story, for example, is the business of the 

literature teacher, not the reading teacher, and is better 

left to middle and high school grades. 

This model does not consider the factor of reader 

motivation. At all levels the reader is viewed as a 

passive recipient of content. Children should learn to 

read because adults want them to. They should 

remember the facts in a text and accept the teacher’s 

interpretation of meaning. Because of these beliefs, 

there are few attempts to make reading an interesting 

or rewarding experience for children. 

Word Identification Plus Skills Model of Reading

In this model, learning to read is a two-tier process. The 

first tier is very much like that of the previous model, 

except that it defines reading as understanding words as 

well as pronouncing them. Children are able to read 

sentences, paragraphs, and whole texts by stringing 

together the pronunciations and meanings of individual 

words. 

The second tier of the process is “reading to learn.” As 

readers gain speed and automaticity in recognizing 

words and verbalizing sentences naturally, they free up 

their mental abilities to deal with larger vocabulary loads 

and implied meanings. However, because this model, 

like the first, views readers as recipients of content, 

they need direct instruction in comprehension strategies. 

Through instruction, readers learn how to deal with 

different kinds of texts and their increasing length, 

complexity, and subtlety. 

Reader motivation is a part of this model, but it is seen 

mostly as an external factor: What must the teacher do 

to move children to read this story and do the 

accompanying activities? 

Integration of Language and

Thinking Model of Reading

According to this model, children begin acquiring the 

knowledge and skills needed for reading long before 

they face the challenge of decoding print. Even at the 

earliest stages of reading, they are able to use what 

they know about language, literature, and the world to 

perform multiple operations in dealing with a text. 

Reading means not only recognizing words and knowing 

their meanings, but also understanding how they fit into 

a context of grammatical structure, speech phrasing and 

intonation, literary forms and devices, and print 

conventions. 

Because readers bring their own skills and knowledge 

to any text, and because written language is redundant, 

they are able to orchestrate their own reading 

experiences. When one skill or knowledge source is 

weak in relation to a particular text, such as life 

experience would be in reading about the history of a 

foreign country, stronger skills, such as vocabulary, may 

carry the reader through. In this model, learning to read 

and reading to learn are inseparable. 

Although this model also recognizes the need for reader 

strategies in dealing with more difficult texts, it views 

strategies as the products of individual needs and 

purposes, sometimes devised by the reader and 

sometimes prompted or provided by others at the point 

of need. Motivation, then, needs to be intrinsic. The 

teacher’s job is to create or allow situations where 

children want to read and are willing to work hard at it. 

Learning to read in this model involves “others” in many 

ways. Readers expand their vocabularies and 

background knowledge through listening to the teacher 

read stories aloud and conversing with their peers. They 

adopt and adapt strategies modeled by others. They 

modify their understanding of texts by listening to what 

others have to say. At the same time, roles continually 

change: the questioner is questioned, and the explainer 

is corrected. Thus, social interaction is a necessary 

component of this model. 

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Appendix B 
 

Below are two lists of topics not investigated by the 

National Reading Panel. The first is drawn from a 

survey of leaders in reading from across the United 

States done by the International Reading Association 

(Reading Today, December 1999). These leaders were 

asked to identify what topics they perceived to be “hot” 

in the field today. The second list is my own view of 

topics that teachers and parents are concerned about, 

either because they are now in wide use or are being 

advocated for inclusion in the reading curriculum. 

International Reading Association List

of “Hot” Topics

•	 Balanced reading instruction 

•	 Decodable text 

•	 Direct instruction 

•	 Early intervention 

•	 Performance assessment 

•	 Standards 

•	 State/national assessment 

•	 Volunteer tutoring 

My List of Topics of Public Concern

•	 Direct instruction 

•	 Use of decodable texts 

•	 Embedded skills instruction 

•	 Reading aloud to children 

•	 Invented spelling 

•	 Use of predictable texts 

•	 Early language development (vocabulary, grammar, 

and literary language) 

•	 Integrated reading and writing 

•	 Home-teaching programs 

•	 Access to quality literature 

•	 Whole-class instruction 

•	 Scripted instruction 

•	 Teacher modeling 

•	 Children’s understanding of print conventions 

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Appendix C 
 

Dear Panel Members: 

I spent most of Friday and yesterday at the annual conference of the Oregon Reading 

Association. Although I was not scheduled to speak, I was introduced at the first 

general session as a member of the National Reading Panel (NRP). Because of that 

introduction, I was later approached by a number of teachers who thanked me for 

representing them and who expressed the hope that the Panel’s report would relieve the 

pressure from the state legislature and local school boards to adopt one-sided 

commercial programs that would take away their authority to decide what is best for 

their students and that would consume most of the time allocated for reading over 

several years of schooling. I did not have the heart to tell them that the NRP Report 

would probably open the door to increased pressure rather than lessen it. 

I was also engaged in conversation by two reading researchers who testified at the 

Panel’s regional meeting in Portland in 1998. They called then for the inclusion of 

ethnographic research in the Panel’s investigations and have since learned that it was 

not included. They could not see any logic or fairness in that decision. I did not tell them 

that their appeals at the Portland meeting and those of like-minded colleagues at other 

regional meetings were not even mentioned in the Panel’s Executive Summary. 

In addition, I attended a presentation by Patricia Edwards, a member of the 

International Reading Association (IRA) Board, who has done research on the effects 

of home culture on children’s literacy development. She did not have to persuade me; 

this area of early language development and literary and world experience is the one I 

believe is most critical to children’s school learning, and the one I could not persuade the 

Panel to investigate. Without such an investigation, the NRP Report’s coverage of 

beginning reading is narrow and biased. 

Over the past 2 months, I have wavered about whether it was useful or right for me to 

submit a minority report. I waver no longer. I hereby reiterate my request that the 

minority report I submitted in January and include in this e-mail (with minor revisions), 

be sent to Congress along with the majority report. Only in that way can I honorably 

serve the teachers and children I represent. 

Joanne Yatvin 

February 27, 2000 

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