Powerful New Research on the Effects of Systematic PD in Phonics Instruction

Hello Friends!

This is research study that I am sharing far and wide. It is also highly relevant to the previous blog post on the journalistic article focused on the "cueing system" approach to beginning reading. So, I wanted to share the key points here. The study was authored by Linnea Ehri, the "great dame" of word recognition research. Here is a bit of the abstract that introduces the details of the study:

Teaching systematic phonics effectively to beginning readers requires
specialized knowledge and training which many primary grade teachers lack. The
current study examined effects of a year-long mentoring program to improve
teachers’ knowledge and effectiveness in teaching phonics and the extent that it
improved students’ achievement in reading and spelling. Teachers in urban, lower
SES schools completed a 45 h course followed by 90 h of in-school training.
Mentors (N = 29) worked with kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers
(N = 69) twice a week for 30 weeks during the year. Each visit included a 45 min
prep period plus 45 min of modeling and feedback in the classroom. Mentors taught
teachers how to provide systematic phonics instruction to their students
(N = 1,336). Monthly ratings by mentors revealed that teachers improved their
phonics teaching skills with many reaching the highest ratings by May.
Teachers’ agreement with principles of phonics instruction remained
strong or increased from fall to spring. Students’ reading and spelling skills showed
large gains during the year and far exceeded effect sizes from comparable data
sources. Students met grade-level expectations at the end of kindergarten and first
grade.

Just how large were the student gains vs. the norming sample of the Gates reading tests that were used? In first grade, the effect size for decoding was 1.67 (2.22 for ELs!)! This is an enormous effect! In second grade, the EF was 1.05 for decoding and 1.01 for reading comprehension; not as large as first grade, but still extremely large (even on the test of comprehension!).
 
Although it never seems particularly "sexy" to talk about phonics instruction in this day and age, these kinds of gains in reading in a setting with significant lower-SES and EL student populations strike me as what so many schools chase but rarely achieve. What produced these gains? Providing teachers with extensive professional development to enhance their expertise in implementing systematic phonics instruction across the primary grades. Seems like a "doable" approach to me! What do you think?