Struggling adult readers made significant reading gains across all instructional groups, but all improvements were associated with small effect sizes¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr2·q3
Currency · newest study 2011 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2016: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Adults reading at 3.0–5.9 grade equivalency made significant gains in word identification, word attack, passage comprehension, and reading fluency across pretest, midpoint, and posttest, independent of instruction group, with small effect sizes. → Greenberg Daphne 2011
Evidence¶
Greenberg Daphne 2011¶
Greenberg Daphne, Wise Justin, Morris Robin, Fredrick Laura, Nanda Alice O., Pae Hye-K. (2011). A randomized control study of instructional approaches for struggling adult readers. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3237050/
q3 · i? · causal · r2
Repeated measures ANCOVAs collapsed across instructional group with the four WJ subtests as dependent variables and age as covariate. All four showed significant main effects of time, with η2 ranging from .03 to .18, described by the authors as "small effect sizes (from .03 to .18)".
"Results indicated a significant main effect of time for all dependent variables, F (2, 392) = 10.44, p < .001, η2 = .05 (Letter Word Identification); F (2, 390) = 5.46, p = .005, η2 = .03 (Word Attack); F (2, 392) = 11.87, p < .001, η2 = .06 (Passage Comprehension); and F (2, 292) = 42.17, p < .001, η2 = .18 (Reading Fluency), with participants making significant gains in their scores across all reading instructional groups."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- The MSDS structured decoding curriculum produced a small but significant effect on adult learners' pseudoword decoding (WJR Word Attack) relative to control instruction — related
- Correlations among reading and reading-related measures were much lower than expected, indicating poor integration of skills in struggling adult readers — related
- No significant instructional-group effects were detected at the six-month follow-up assessment — related
- ESL participants showed significantly higher posttest word attack scores than native English speakers — related
- The MSDS curriculum showed no statistically significant effects on word recognition, spelling, fluency, or comprehension outcomes — related
- Non-native English learners made significantly greater reading gains than native learners on 7 of 11 measures, while native learners gained more on vocabulary — related
- Learner characteristics, class assignment, and WIC benefits significantly predicted persistence in adult literacy classes (Greenberg et al.) — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
adult-literacy-significant-gains-small-effect-sizes |
title |
Struggling adult readers made significant reading gains across all instructional groups, but all improvements were associated with small effect sizes |
description |
Struggling adult readers made significant reading gains across all instructional groups, but all improvements were associated with small effect sizes |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2011 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
recheck_by |
2016 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — greenberg-daphne-2011 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.