Decoding (Word Attack) showed the strongest gain of the targeted skills, with a moderate effect size of d = .46 overall¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr2·q3·i2medium
Currency · newest study 2011 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
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 i2 The strongest pre-to-post effect was for basic decoding, d = .46, with fluency at d = .34 and other skills at d = .19 to .21. → Sabatini John P. 2011
Evidence¶
Sabatini John P. 2011¶
Sabatini John P., Shore Jane, Holtzman Steven, Scarborough Hollis S. (2011). Relative Effectiveness of Reading Intervention Programs for Adults with Low Literacy. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3269067/
q3 · i2 · causal · r2
Discussion of the completers' pre-to-post gains reports effect sizes by skill: "the effect size was moderate overall (d = .46)" for Word Attack, d = .34 for Reading Fluency, and d = .19 to .21 for the remaining measures. Table 1 gives the total-sample Word Attack gain as 12.20 W-score points.
"With respect to decoding (i.e., Word Attack), the effect size was moderate overall (d = .46), and with respect to Reading Fluency the effect size was between small and moderate (d = .34). However, gains were more modest (d = .19 to .21) for Word Identification, Reading comprehension, Sight Word Efficiency, and Phonological Decoding Efficiency."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Adults who completed supplemental basic-skills tutoring showed significant pre-to-post gains across a battery of decoding, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension measures — a broader claim this one bears on
- Program-specific gains appeared only in isolated t-tests: GRR on reading comprehension and RAVE-O on word-level efficiency measures — related
- The MSDS structured decoding curriculum produced a small but significant effect on adult learners' pseudoword decoding (WJR Word Attack) relative to control instruction — related
- Only one between-group difference emerged: the Control/Comparison, Decoding and Fluency, and DCEF groups showed stronger word attack outcomes than the Extensive Reading group — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
word-attack-strongest-gain-d46 |
title |
Decoding (Word Attack) showed the strongest gain of the targeted skills, with a moderate effect size of d = .46 overall |
description |
Decoding (Word Attack) showed the strongest gain of the targeted skills, with a moderate effect size of d = .46 overall |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2011 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — sabatini-john-p-2011 |
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