Welcome to the Reading Research Recap!

I am Dr. Neena Saha, Vice President of Science of Reading at MetaMetrics and founder and CEO of Elemeno, now a part of MetaMetrics. My focus as an executive is the same as it is as a researcher–to bridge the research-practice gap so that educators can access real-time tools to support reading success. In my role expanding the understanding of research to inform teaching and learning strategies, I put together this monthly compendium of the relevant and must-read research that impacts the reading and learning landscape. I offer research highlights in digestible summary slices. Hopefully, the data and findings you see here are useful to you as researchers, educators, and district and edtech leaders. Email me at nsaha@lexile.com to share what you find insightful, and how we can make this regular installment more useful to you in your work supporting early learning success.

Evidence-based Features of Writing Instruction in Widely Used Kindergarten English Language Arts Curricula

The first 50 reads are open access — made available by the author on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Why This is Important: Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m featuring an article about writing in the Reading Research Recap! But writing skill is tightly connected to reading development and even is predictive of later reading skill. Therefore, this study examined 3 Kindergarten writing curricula that account for 48% of the market: Journeys 19.8% (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), Reading Street: Common Core 14.0% (Pearson Education, 2013), and Reading Wonders 14.3% (McGraw Hill, 2017). They looked at the teacher guides to see whether the curricula included evidence-based writing instruction (evidence-based standards were taken from this IES report).
Key Findings: Generally, the 3 curricula did use evidence-based practices but there were some components missing. For example, the authors found that curricula did not afford students enough practice with higher-order writing skills such as composition with clear and explicit teacher feedback (rather than shared writing or teacher modeling). Furthermore, they found that teacher feedback on invented spelling – a way for teachers to help support reading development – was broad or vague, such as telling the student to make sure they wrote every letter in a word.
What Can We Do: As a teacher, you could offer more opportunities for your student to practice their own compositions independently, rather than in the context of shared writing or just modeling writing for them. Then, be sure to offer clear and explicit feedback. This is true not just for composition, but also for spelling: offering more specific feedback on which graphemes a student is struggling with will not only help their spelling, but also their reading development!

Does Feedback Targeting Text Comprehension Trigger The Use Of Reading Strategies Or Changes In Readers’ Attitudes? A Meta-Analysis

Open access!

Why This is Important: One way to help students extract meaning from text is for teachers to provide feedback on text comprehension strategies such as making connections between the text and background knowledge, or highlighting the text to help determine the salient points. Research shows that feedback increases comprehension, but whether students transfer reading strategies to new material is understudied. Additionally, the research on reader attitude is ambiguous: some studies found that feedback resulted in more positive reader attitudes, whereas other research found it had a negative effect on comprehension. Therefore, this study conducted two meta-analyses examining these two outcomes: the effect of feedback on the transfer of reading strategies to new texts, and its effect on reader attitudes.
Key Findings: The authors found that feedback did influence the extent of reading strategies (g+ = .61), which led to improved reading comprehension (g+ = .34) even on new texts:
- “The eight studies that did focus on reading strategies showed that feedback targeting text comprehension positively influenced readers’ abilities to deploy reading strategies even in situations in which they did not receive feedback. This transfer of reading strategy skills consequently related to improved reading comprehension.”

However, the authors found that feedback did not influence readers’ attitudes toward the task (but future research is needed because there were possible confounding variables).

What Can We Do: While the meta-analyses included a small number of studies, the authors state that the findings for the use of feedback targeting text comprehension were “reliable” and “robust.” So, as an educator, what types of modeling/feedback can you provide? I think this free resource published by the What Works Clearinghouse is timely. The section that relates to their third recommendation will be particularly helpful, as it presents research-based recommendations for comprehension-building practices, including examples of modeling, and expert panel tips and tricks.

The Gold Standard for Whom?: Schools’ Experiences Participating in a Randomized Controlled Trial

Open access link via the author!

As a former classroom teacher, Ph.D. student who conducted research, and mom to a son who had expressive language delays, this article hits home! I can empathize with the tensions described in this paper between researchers and practitioners, between designing studies with high rigor (internal validity) and generalizability (external validity), and the ethical quandary of withholding interventions from students who can benefit, for the sake of a good study design. I recommend reading this paper if you are a researcher interested in conducting school-based research, or an administrator thinking about having your school participate in an RCT.

Why This is Important: Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are typically considered the “gold-standard” research study design. Indeed, some funding agencies only fund RCTs due to their unique ability to discern causal relationships. Furthermore, RCTs are the only study design that can meet What Works Clearinghouse criteria “without reservations”. School administrators often base curricular decisions on RCTs reviewed by the WWC, which creates a cycle that stimulates further RCT research. However, the problem is that RCTs pose significant challenges for schools.
Key Findings: This paper describes a RCT of an adolescent reading intervention in 15 schools. By the second year, 11 schools dropped out, with 8 schools saying that randomization of students (to the control group vs. the intervention) was unethical as it withheld the intervention from students who could benefit from it.
What Can We Do: RCTs are important for establishing an initial causal relationship, but perhaps are not as appropriate for mid-phase studies where an intervention has already proved effective and the goal is no longer to see “…whether an intervention works, but how, why and under what conditions it can work.” The author describes several alternatives that are more amenable to schools, such as designs that utilize: switching replications, an active control condition, regression discontinuity, matched, non-random comparison groups, or taking an improvement science approach.

It was neat to read about how one district in the study used Lexile measures to identify students who would be eligible for the intervention (which was an RCT). The author then goes on to show how Lexile measures could be utilized in a regression discontinuity design (which is not an RCT and therefore does not force administrators to face the ethical quandary of withholding an intervention from students who could benefit. Here’s how you can use Lexile measures in a regression discontinuity design:

“In a regression discontinuity design, District B would offer STARI to all eligible students, and the research team would compare the achievement of students who scored between 750 and 800, who received STARI, with students who scored between 800 and 850, and therefore did not receive STARI. This design assumes that a score of 800 is a relatively arbitrary cut point, and that there is no practical, meaningful difference in the reading skills of students scoring just on one side or the other of this threshold. Therefore, any differences in the achievement trajectories of these students at the end of the year may be attributed to participation in STARI.”

Policy & Commentary

Lessons Learned? Reading Wars, Reading First, and a Way Forward “We are in the midst of yet another battle in the reading wars. Before the fog of war overcomes us yet again, we should recall recent history where an attempt at a resolution—Reading First— mostly left ambiguity in its wake. Moving forward, there is a foundation upon which to build. But doing so will require learning from the past, addressing challenges with clarity, and marshaling resources among collaborating researchers and practitioners.”

A Commentary On Some Recent Claims Made Against The Simple View Of Reading (open access!) “In early May 2021, Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) published an article by Drs. Nell Duke and Kelly Cartwright (available through open access) that alarmed both me and Bill Tunmer. We were shocked by how dismissive (and plainly hostile) the authors were toward the Simple View of Reading (SVR) given the limits of the theoretical and empirical substance they provided in support of their position…”

Phonological Awareness, & Phonics

The “P” Word Revisited: 8 Principles for Tackling Today’s Questions and Misconceptions about Phonics Instruction “Educators have many questions about phonics instruction centering on topics including programs, approaches, assessment, transfer, and differentiation. We propose 8 principles to (1) help answer these common questions, (2) tackle current misconceptions, and (3) discuss research-based practices about phonics instruction.”

Maximising Access to Reading Intervention: Comparing Small Group and One-to-One Protocols of Reading Rescue “This study compared the performance of two cohorts (N = 146; 104) of randomly assigned first-graders who received 50 sessions of Reading Rescue in a one-to-one or a small group setting compared with a control group. Results showed that intervention groups outperformed the control group (for most associations, p < .05) and performed similarly to each other (for most associations, p > .05), suggesting the small group protocol is as effective as one-to-one, enabling the programme to serve substantially more students.”

Do Family Learning Phonics Courses Improve Parents’ Reading-Related Skills And Ability To Support Their Children’s Reading? (open access!) “We provide evidence that family learning phonics courses can improve crucial reading skills (letter-sound knowledge) and increase parents’ confidence to support their children’s reading. Some reading skills (phonological awareness, whole word reading, and decoding) may be slower to change and require longer term support. Future work should explore long-term consequences of such courses for parents’ and their children’s reading habits and skills.”

Redesigning for Equity and Achievement: Non-Leveled Guided Reading Instruction (open access!) “Elementary school students are often placed into groups with peers of similar reading ability for leveled guided reading instruction. Through this practice, students are differentially exposed to reading skills, strategies, and texts that are presumed to match their reading ability. This widespread practice is problematic given that (1) current notions of matching early readers to texts for reading instruction are based on traditional instructional practice rather than reading science, (2) poor and minority students are overrepresented in the lowest ranked groups, (3) students in higher ranked groups make greater academic gains than those in lower ranked groups, and (4) teacher perceptions of students’ abilities are often inaccurate. Conversely, as supported by research, when students are presented with texts of increased difficulty and given appropriate instructional support, they are able to make accelerated reading progress.”

Spelling & Writing

The Word Nerds project: Findings from A Research–Practice Partnership Focused On Spelling Instruction (open access!) “Classrooms engaged in small-group spelling instruction included more teacher talk; classrooms engaged in individual instruction were highly differentiated; and classrooms engaged in whole-group instruction included more student-to-student talk and engagement…Student data showed evidence of spelling by analogy, but students were less likely to spell more semantically challenging words correctly and made more errors in spelling those words, even when orthographic difficulty was held constant.”

Teacher Preparation & Professional Development

What Do Teachers Know About Dyslexia? It’s Complicated! (Open access link here via one of the author’s blogs) “For some concepts, teachers either mostly held scientific conceptions or held misconceptions. For other concepts, teachers were either distributed between scientific conceptions, misconceptions, and/or unsure or responded differently depending upon whether the item contained a term versus an explanation of the term within the item. Although teachers’ amount of previous training and confidence did significantly predict dyslexia knowledge, years of experience did not.”

Researcher–practitioner Partnerships and In-school Laboratories Facilitate Translational Research in Reading “With growing awareness of the neurobiological origins of RD and increasing popularity of putative ‘brain-based’ approaches in clinics and classrooms, it is imperative that we create more direct and bidirectional communication between scientists and practitioners. Such direct collaborations can help dispel neuromyths, and lead to increased understanding of the promises and pitfalls of neuroscience approaches.”

Middle School Matters: Examining The Effects Of A Schoolwide Professional Development Model To Improve Reading Comprehension. “In this experimental pilot study, we aimed to boost middle schoolers’ reading comprehension outcomes by providing schoolwide professional development (PD) on integrating reading comprehension practices within content instruction for English language arts, social studies, and science teachers…Students in schools assigned to the PD condition significantly outperformed those in the BaU condition on a measure of main idea generation (ES = 0.29) but not on measures of asking and answering questions (ES = 0.11) and general reading comprehension (ES = − 0.09).”

The Role of Teacher Closeness in Emotions and Achievement for Adolescents With and Without Learning Difficulties. “The results indicated that higher teacher closeness was related to increasing positive emotions and increasing literacy achievement during seventh grade, whereas lower levels of teacher closeness were associated with increasing learning-related anger and boredom. The results were mostly similar for students with and without LDs, which indicates that students in general benefit from close teacher relationships during the first year in lower secondary school.”

Screening Children for Reading Difficulties

Translating the Science of Reading Screening into Practice: Policies and Their Implications (open access!) “As policy continues to move forward in reading screening, there are areas where the bridge between research and practice can be strengthened. First, it is paramount that the top priority be a preventative approach. All students need high-quality reading instruction. Teachers, principals, and policy makers should be focused on this core issue. Odegard and colleagues (2020) also found that the majority of the 8,000 students in their sample had deficits in at least one foundational reading skill.”

Screening for Early Literacy Milestones and Reading Disabilities: The Why, When, Whom, How, and Where (open access!) “To move from a reactive to a proactive model, we need to initiate screening as early as preschool and no later than the fall/winter of formal schooling to identify at-risk students.”

Dyslexia & Learning Disabilities

Prevalence of Developmental Dyslexia in Primary School Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (open access!) “The pooled prevalence of DD was 7.10% (95% CI: 6.27–7.97%). The prevalence in boys was significantly higher than that in girls (boys: 9.22%, 95%CI, 8.07–10.44%; girls: 4.66%, 95% CI, 3.84–5.54%; p < 0.001), but no significant difference was found in the prevalence across different writing systems (alphabetic scripts: 7.26%, 95%CI, 5.94–8.71%; logographic scripts: 6.97%, 95%CI, 5.86–8.16%; p > 0.05) or across different orthographic depths (shallow: 7.13%, 95% CI, 5.23–9.30%; deep: 7.55%, 95% CI, 4.66–11.04%; p > 0.05).”

Poor Reading And Anxiety (Prax): Building A Theory And Practice. “This article outlines how – over the last 5 years or so – national and international associates of the PRAX (poor reading and anxiety) research group have made significant progress in our understanding of whether there is a genuine association between poor reading and emotional problems, what type of emotional problem is most closely related to poor reading, how this problem can be detected by appropriate assessment, and how it might be treated effectively.”

Evidence-Based Reading Instruction for Secondary Students With Reading Difficulties Within Multitiered Systems of Support. “By providing students with clear modeling and frequent opportunities to respond and practice, teachers can reduce the frequency of problem behaviors and increase opportunities for students to develop mastery of the skills and knowledge being taught.”

Vocabulary & Comprehension

Delivering Language Interventions at Scale: Promises & Pitfalls (open access!) “While many educators recognise the importance of language for communication, the benefits of oral language interventions are only recently becoming prioritised by policy-makers. We propose that challenges to successful delivery and adoption of evidence-based language interventions in mainstream settings can be remedied through better communication with stakeholders and collaboration between researchers and professional colleagues including senior leaders, teachers, teaching assistants, speech and language therapists and psychologists.”

Infant Attention And Maternal Education Are Associated With Childhood Receptive Vocabulary Development. “These findings illustrate that even after accounting for child sex and maternal education, infant visual attention predicts children’s receptive language development starting from the early preschool period into the elementary school years.”

*By MetaMetrics’ own Jeff Elmore* Academic Vocabulary Volume In Elementary Grades Disciplinary Textbooks. “The purpose of the study was to assess the volume of academic vocabulary in elementary grades disciplinary textbooks…Main conclusions were: (a) The estimated overall elementary grades volume of academic vocabulary in disciplinary textbooks was relatively high. Summed across all grades and disciplines, 31% of all of the estimated unique word types in the textbooks were academic word types…”

Impacts Of The Let’s Know! Curriculum On The Language And Comprehension-Related Skills Of Prekindergarten And Kindergarten Children “We randomly assigned 69 prekindergarten classrooms (n = 361 children) and 56 kindergarten classrooms (n = 328 children) to receive language-focused intervention or to a control condition…Multilevel analyses showed similar effects for both instantiations, with Let’s Know! positively impacting some of the immediate tests of curriculum-aligned skills (vocabulary, comprehension monitoring, understanding of expository text) and also the posttest vocabulary outcome, but not standardized language comprehension outcomes…”

Data-Based Differentiated Instruction: The Impact Of Standardized Assessment And Aligned Teaching Material On Students’ Reading Comprehension “In the control group, the gain was greatest for the low achievers and lowest for the high achievers. This imbalance was not found in the intervention group, where the learning gain was similar for students of each achievement level. This shows that DBDI is a tool for addressing achievement-related heterogeneity which empowers teachers to cater to the differences between students.”

Neena’s Top Reading Research Picks for April