A reading block in an elementary school classroom can feel like a carefully choreographed 120-minute dance.
Time is a finite resource, and it is often up to teachers to decide how much instructional time to allocate to the multiple interrelated components of reading. What is the dosage of each so kids can get it?
New research provides insight into questions about phonemic awareness, one of the key components of early reading development. Essentially you ~can do There are so many good things happening.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in words. For example, mixing the sounds /c/, /a/ and /t/ into the word cat. It provides young children with the knowledge to map letters to written letters and helps them sound out words, acting as a kind of stepping stone for reading and spelling.
Teaching this skill is important. However, at some point, students will master this skill and you will no longer need to teach it. new researchA team of researchers from Texas A&M University aimed to find out where that spot was.
Researchers examined 16 experimental and quasi-experimental studies of phonemic awareness instruction. All of these studies were conducted in small group or one-on-one settings with students in pre-kindergarten through first grade. They found that the more time teachers invested, the better their students mastered the skills compared to the control group, but only up to a certain point, a total of 10.2 hours. After that point, programs that spent longer periods of time teaching phonemic awareness showed diminishing returns.
Research shows that while practicing this skill is important, “overemphasis” on phonemic awareness may not be beneficial, said Florina Erbeli, an assistant professor of educational psychology at Texas A&M and lead author of the paper.
“We need to remember that phonemic awareness is not the goal of the entire lesson. “The goal is to teach students how to read,” he said. “Teaching phonemic awareness is just one of the steps in getting children started reading and spelling. … After a while, you wouldn’t expect the average child to continue to need this forever.”
Research doesn't provide a 'magic number'
As the “science of reading” movement spread across the country, more schools implemented phonemic awareness instruction as part of their early literacy approach. 2022 EdWeek Research Center Survey Nearly a quarter of pre-K-2nd grade and special education teachers say they use Heggerty, an early literacy curriculum provider that offers popular daily phonemic awareness lessons.
This study is one of the first to provide research-based guidance on the dosage of phonemic awareness. This comes at a time when the science of reading exercises is raising questions about how to organize classroom time.
Many states have passed new laws mandating that schools use evidence-based practices, but these laws and accompanying state guidelines often do not provide a roadmap for constructing effective literacy blocks. The lack of specific guidance can leave some teachers feeling frustrated because they want to change their practices but don't know exactly how.. Some educators gave examples. What their classes look like.
But there is no single research-based schedule, in part because dosages are difficult to study, said Matt Burns, a special education professor at the University of Florida who studies reading interventions. Burns was not involved in the Texas A&M study.
He said that even the same amount of accumulated time can have different effects depending on how it is divided. For example, practicing a skill for 30 minutes once a week may lead to different results than practicing it for 10 minutes three times a week. Many studies do not report this kind of detailed information about dosage. And students' needs vary. Some may require more practice and repetition, while others may require less, Burns said.
These differences must be taken into account when interpreting studies, Erbeli said.
“10.2 hours is not a magic number,” she added. “We said in the paper that these numbers don’t tell us anything about specific classes, specific individuals.” Teachers should plan phonemic awareness instruction based on the needs of the students in front of her, she said.
Still, the study could provide useful guidance, Burns said. “If you spend more than that [10.2 hours], take a look at your practice. If you’re spending a lot less than that, take a look at the walkthrough.”
Phonemic awareness: With or without letters?
The study also addresses a distinction that has been a source of debate in the field of reading: whether it is better to teach phonemic awareness orally or with written letters.
Many teachers use materials designed solely for oral practice. For example, a teacher might say a word and then ask students to segment the sounds in it. However, some researchers argue that allowing students to see the letters in words while practicing this skill may strengthen comprehension.—According to some studies Students have better reading and spelling outcomes when phonemic awareness instruction includes letters.
In the Texas A&M study, researchers found that phonemic awareness training using letters led to greater long-term returns. Even after 16 hours of training over the course of the program, the intervention group continued to demonstrate better phonemic awareness skills than the control group. . (This program runs from kindergarten to first grade.)
That may be because phonemic awareness and decoding are reciprocal skills, Erbeli said. Seeing how sounds are connected to letters can help students manipulate sounds more accurately.