In Morris et al. (2012), the phonological (phonics-including) intervention alone showed no significant reading benefits, while conditions adding orthographic and semantic instruction did¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r? · q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The phonological intervention did not significantly improve any reading outcomes versus a no-instruction control (positive but nonsignificant g = 0.06 to 0.32). → Jeffrey S. Bowers 2021 q2 i? The two interventions adding orthographic and semantic instruction showed similar, significant benefits over the phonology condition across multiple outcome measures. → Jeffrey S. Bowers 2021 (2)

Evidence¶

Jeffrey S. Bowers 2021¶

Jeffrey S. Bowers. (2021). Yes Children Need to Learn Their GPCs but There Really Is Little or No Evidence that Systematic or Explicit Phonics Is Effective: a response to Fletcher, Savage, and Sharon (2020). Educational Psychology Review (2021) 33:1965–1979. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09602-z

q2 · i? · causal · r?

Morris et al. (2012) intervention study for struggling readers in grades 2–3, described in this commentary: 70 × 30-min phonological lessons including phonics produced no significant improvement on word reading accuracy, spelling, fluency, or comprehension versus no-instruction control (g = 0.06 to 0.32).

"The authors found that the phonological intervention did not signif- icantly improve any reading outcomes (including word reading accuracy, spelling, fluency, or comprehension) compared to a control condition that included no reading instruction, although the effect sizes were positive, ranging from g = 0.06 to 0.32"

Jeffrey S. Bowers 2021 (2)¶

Jeffrey S. Bowers. (2021). Yes Children Need to Learn Their GPCs but There Really Is Little or No Evidence that Systematic or Explicit Phonics Is Effective: a response to Fletcher, Savage, and Sharon (2020). Educational Psychology Review (2021) 33:1965–1979. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09602-z

q2 · i? · theoretical · r3

In the same Morris et al. (2012) study, the two conditions adding 30 min of orthographic and semantic (including morphological) instruction to each phonological lesson significantly outperformed the phonology-only condition across multiple outcome measures.

"By contrast, the two interventions that added orthographic and semantic instruction showed similar and significant benefits compared to the phonology condition across multiple outcome measures."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Reading Fluency — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Phonics effects in the Galuschka et al. (2014) meta-analysis were similar in size to several alternative interventions, with no evidence phonics was more effective — related
• There is little or no support for the claim that systematic phonics is effective by itself or within a richer literacy curriculum — related
• Phonemic Awareness Training Improves Reading — reports the opposite
• Systematic phonics outperforms unsystematic or no-phonics instruction on children's reading overall, but its advantage over whole-word teaching on novel words is untested in children and contested — reports the opposite
• Word reading efficiency and sentence comprehension show distinct behavioral subcomponent profiles: word reading correlates with phonological subcomponents, comprehension with morphological awareness and orthography-semantic mapping — related
• Efficiency in phonological and orthographic processing contributes significantly to individual differences in adult ESL reading measures — related