Abstract of

Phonemic Awareness Instruction Helps Children Learn to Read: Evidence From the National Reading Panel's Meta-Analysis

Linnea C. Ehri

Simone R. Nunes

Dale M. Willows

Barbara Valeska Schuster

Zohreh Yaghoub-Zadeh

Timothy Shanahan

A quantitative meta-analysis evaluating the effects of phonemic awareness (PA) instruction on learning to read and spell was conducted by the National Reading Panel. There were 52 studies published in peer-reviewed journals, and these contributed 96 cases comparing the outcomes of treatment and control groups. Analysis of effect sizes revealed that the impact of PA instruction on helping children acquire PA was large and statistically significant (d = 0.86). PA instruction exerted a moderate, statistically significant impact on reading (d = 0.53) and spelling (d = 0.59). Not only word reading but also reading comprehension benefited. PA instruction impacted reading under all the conditions examined although effect sizes were larger under some conditions. PA instruction helped various types of children: normally developing readers as well as at-risk and disabled readers; preschoolers, kindergartners, and first graders; low socioeconomic status children as well as mid-high SES. PA instruction improved reading, but it did not improve spelling in disabled readers. PA instruction was more effective when it was taught with letters than without letters, when one or two PA skills were taught than multiple PA skills, when children were taught in small groups than individually or in classrooms, and when instruction lasted between 5 and 18 hours rather than longer. Classroom teachers were effective in teaching PA to their students. Effect sizes were larger for studies using more rigorous experimental designs, with rigor assessments drawn from Troia (1999). In sum, PA instruction was found to make a statistically significant contribution to reading acquisition. [See also a letter to the editors regarding this article, and the first author's response: http://dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.37.2.1]

Abstract from Ehri, L.C., Nunes, S.R., Willows, D.M., Schuster, B., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z., & Shanahan, T. (2001). Phonemic Awareness Instruction Helps Children Learn to Read: Evidence From the National Reading Panel's Meta-Analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 250–287. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.36.3.2