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The Role of Instruction in Learning to Read: Preventing Reading Failure in At-

Risk Children

Article in Journal of Educational Psychology · March 1998

DOI: 10.1037/0022-0663.90.1.37

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Journal of Educational Psychology Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
1998, Vol. 90, No. 1,37-55 0022-0663/98/$3.00

The Role of Instruction in Learning to Read:

Preventing Reading Failure in At-Risk Children
Barbara R. Foorman David J. Francis
University of Texas—Houston Medical School University of Houston

Jack M. Fletcher Christopher Schatschneider

University of Texas—Houston Medical School University of Houston

Paras Mehta
Arizona State University

First and 2nd graders (N = 28?) receiving Title I services received 1 of 3 kinds of classroom
reading programs: direct instruction in letter-sound correspondences practiced in decodable
text (direct code); less direct instruction in systematic sound-spelling patterns embedded in
connected text (embedded code); and implicit instruction in the alphabetic code while reading
connected text (implicit code). Children receiving direct code instruction improved in word
reading at a faster rate and had higher word-recognition skills than those receiving implicit
code instruction. Effects of instructional group on word recognition were moderated by initial
levels of phonological processing and were most apparent in children with poorer initial
phonological processing skills. Group differences in reading comprehension paralleled those
for word recognition but were less robust. Groups did not differ in spelling achievement or in
vocabulary growth. Results show advantages for reading instructional programs that
emphasize explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle for at-risk children.

Learning to speak one's native language is a natural process percentage of children who are at risk of reading failure for a
in that explicit teaching is not required. Reading, in contrast, variety of cognitive, linguistic, or social-emotional factors.
has been called an "unnatural act" (Gough & Hillinger, However, in urban settings, there are entire schools in which
1980) to emphasize the fact that one's writing system relates reading failure is the norm, in part because of lack of home
to speech in an arbitrary way and, therefore, has to be taught preparation in understanding the alphabetic principle (Ad-
(Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989). What needs to ams, 1990) and also because of inadequate instruction in the
be taught is the alphabetic principle: that letters in a word classroom (Slavin, Karweit, & Wasik, 1994). The impor-
relate to speech in a conventional and intentional way. For tance of learning to read in the early grades is clearly
many children, insight into this principle will develop illustrated in a longitudinal study that addressed long-term
through informal instruction at home and nondirective development of reading skills from kindergarten to Grade 9
activities at school. However, as many as one in five children (Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1996).
have difficulty learning to read (Lyon, 1995; Shaywitz, This study showed that, on average, children who were poor
Fletcher, & Shaywitz, 1994). There may always be a small readers in Grade 3 did not "catch up" to their peers in their
reading skills; the growth of reading skills fit a deficit, not a
lag, model. Moreover, 74% of children who were poor
readers in Grade 3 were poor readers in Grade 9.
Barbara R. Foorman and Jack M. Fletcher, Department of
Pediatrics, University of Texas—Houston Medical School; David In the last two decades, a scientific body of evidence has
J. Francis and Christopher Schatschneider, Department of Psychol- accumulated pointing to a phonological processing deficit as
ogy, University of Houston; Paras Mehta, Department of Psychol- the core cause of poor reading (Fletcher et aL, 1994;
ogy, Arizona State University. Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, & Lynn, 1996; Liberman et al.,
Portions of this article were presented at the meetings of the 1989; Stanovich & Siegel, 1994; Wagner, Torgesen, &
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Seattle, Rashotte, 1994). Burgeoning evidence exists that deficits in
Washington, February 18, 1997, and the American Educational this area can be ameliorated through appropriate training,
Research Association, Chicago, March 25,1997. This research was particularly with younger children in kindergarten through
supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development Grants HD30995 and HD28172. Grade 2 (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Bradley & Bryant, 1983;
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Foorman, Francis, Shaywitz, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1997a;
Barbara R. Foorman, Center for Academic and Reading Skills, Univer- Torgesen, 1997; Vellutino et al., 1996) or as early as
sity of Texas—Houston Medical School, 7000 Fannin, UCT #860, preschool (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991, 1993, 1995).
Houston, Texas 77030. Electronic mail may be sent to bfborman@pedl. Ball and Blachman (1991) and Foorman et al. (1997a)
med.uth.tmc.edu. supplemented kindergarten programs for children at risk for

37
38 FOORMAN, FRANCIS, FLETCHER, SCHATSCHNEIDER, AND MEHTA

reading problems with activities and tasks involving phono- Recovery can more quickly recover children to middle
logical awareness skills. Both studies showed clearly that reading group levels if it is modified to include direct
the supplementation of standard kindergarten curriculums instruction in the alphabetic code (Iverson & Tunmer, 1993),
with activities involving phonological awareness skills re- and other programs may provide equally large effects
sulted in growth in phonological awareness skills relative to without the tutorial component (Shanahan & Barr, 1995).
children who received the standard curriculum without Classroom change models are based on the assumption
phonological awareness skills. The studies also showed that that the best way to minimize the need for remedial services
these gains continued and were also manifested in areas is to provide the best possible classroom instruction in the
involving word reading in the first and second grades (see first place. A more traditional kind of classroom change
Foorman, Francis, Beeler, Winikates, & Fletcher, 1997). model is what Slavin et al. (1989) referred to as "continuous
Vellutino et al. (1996) provided either one or two semes- progress models.'* Students in these classrooms proceed at
ters (depending on progress) of 30 min daily, one-on-one their own pace through a sequence of well-defined instruc-
tutoring to poor readers in Grade 1. The tutoring in letter tional objectives. They are taught in small groups on the
identification, phoneme awareness, word-reading skills, and basis of skill level and are frequently assessed and regrouped
practice in connected text helped the majority of these on the basis of these assessments. The best known of these
children become average readers. Torgesen (1997) found programs is DISTAR (Engelmann & Bruner, 1995; now
that 20 min a day for 80 hr of one-on-one tutoring in SRA Reading Mastery), a highly structured and scripted
phonological decoding strategies (with or without training in program that has produced positive results in many large-
articulatory gestures) and practice in reading and writing scale studies (see Aukerman, 1984; Shanahan & Barr, 1995).
enabled approximately 75% of first graders who had been in Although programs such as Reading Recovery, SRA
the bottom 10th percentile in phonological skills in kinder- Reading Mastery, and Success for All show good efficacy,
garten to move to national averages in timed and untimed they have not attempted to isolate the components of
decoding. Similar results were achieved with older, severely effective reading instruction. Current research suggests that
disabled readers (age 10 years on average); however, the a necessary skill to be mastered in learning to read in the
one-on-one tutoring was much more intensive—2 hr daily early grades is decoding. Decoding typically refers to the
for 80 hr—and decoding accuracy but not speed reached application of the letter-sound correspondences taught in
national averages. Olson, Wise, Ring, and Johnson (1997) phonics. Although decoding is more accurately described as
had similar results with third to sixth graders below the 10th deciphering the printed word, and phonic rules may simply
percentile in word recognition who were tutored individu- play an attentional role in the weightings of connections
ally in phonological decoding strategies (with or without between orthographic and phonological units (Adams, 1990;
training in articulatory gestures). Foorman, 1994), decoding accuracy is the single best
The efficacy of the interventions in these studies, which predictor of reading comprehension (Stanovich, 1990; Vel-
emphasized tutorial interventions, is interesting in relation to lutino, 1991). Thus, an instructional focus on developing
older studies that also focus on early intervention. In decoding skills early in school is consistent with the
summarizing these programs, Slavin and his colleagues relationship of decoding skills and comprehension, espe-
(Slavin, Karweit, & Madden, 1989; Slavin et al., 1994) cially for children whose only chance to learn to read is in
noted that the most widely used supplementary-remedial school. An important question is how explicit decoding
programs, diagnostic-prescriptive pullout programs pro- instruction needs to be, whether highly explicit through
vided under Title 1 programs for economically disadvan- decontextualized letter-sound correspondence rules prac-
taged children, showed little evidence of effectiveness ticed in controlled vocabulary text or implicit through
unless they involved one-on-one tutoring. Moreover, the incidental learning gained by feedback on reading literature.
attempt to mainstream at-risk children by having Title 1 or "The Great Debate" over code-emphasis versus meaning-
special education aides work in the regular classroom has emphasis approaches to reading captures the extremes of
been no more effective than the pullout model (Archam- this continuum of explicitness (Chall, 1983; Foorman,
bault, 1989; Puma, Jones, Rock, & Fernandez, 1993). 1995a, 1995b). However, there is the middle ground of
embedded-phonics approaches in which instruction in letter-
In contrast, kindergarten or first-grade prevention pro-
sounds and spelling patterns is contextualized within litera-
grams and classroom change models have proved effective.
ture selections.
The only prevention programs for which data are available
on long-term effects of intensive reading instruction in the In the present article, we investigated questions involving
early grades are Reading Recovery (Pinnell, Lyons, DeFord, the degree of explicitness in alphabetic code instruction and
Bryk, & Seltzer, 1994; Shanahan & Barr, 1995) and Success effects of phonological processing on growth in word
for All (Slavin, Madden, Dolan & Wasik, 1996). In evalua- reading in children at risk for reading failure traditionally
tions of Reading Recovery, first graders tutored daily for 30 served in Title 1 programs. In a large sample of children
min by a trained Reading Recovery tutor exceeded matched receiving Title 1 services, we hypothesized that children
control children's reading performance with an effect size of who received explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle
.87. This effect size fell to .45 and .29 one and two years with an emphasis on letter-sound correspondences would
later, respectively, without additional intervention. More show greater growth over 1 school year of classroom
recent analysis of the effects of Reading Recovery continue instruction relative to children receiving less explicit instruc-
to show large effect sizes that diminish over time. Reading tion focusing on spelling patterns or children receiving
 ROLE OF INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING TO READ 39

implicit instruction in the alphabetic principle. We also Table 1

hypothesized that this growth in reading skills would be Study Design and School Characteristics
moderated by initial phonological processing skills. Federal
lunch
program No.
Method
School Enrollment (%) Grade classrooms Curriculum
Participants 1 1,208 71.4 1 5 IC-S
2 5 IC-S
Participants were 285 of the 375 children in first and second 2 1,009 49.5 1 6 IC-R
grades eligible for services under Title 1 funding in an urban 2 4 IC-R
district with 19 elementary schools. The 90 children were excluded 3 1,232 64.2 1 6 EC
from the present analyses because they had been placed on a wait 2 6 IC-R
list and never did receive Title 1 services during the study. Thus, 4 908 43.2 1 3 DC
analyses are restricted to those eligible students who actually 5 887 41.8 1 2 DC
received tutoring during the year. 6 1,137 39.9 1 2 IC-R
Title 1 refers to federal funding provided for economically 1 2 DC
disadvantaged children with low achievement. Economic disadvan- 2 2 DC
tage is usually denned in terms of the percentage of children 2 2 IC-R
participating in the federal lunch program, as it was in this study. 2 3 IC-S
Low achievement was defined by school district officials as scores 7 853 64.5 1 2 EC
on the district's emergent literacy survey in the bottom quartile in 1 2 DC
first- and second-grade classrooms at each Title 1 school. Hence, 2 2 EC
although all children in the lowest quartile received the classroom 2 2 DC
interventions, the present sample represented the lowest 18% 8 839 32.3 1 3 IC-R
because of lack of funds for tutoring. 1 3 EC
The participating children attended 8 of the 10 Title 1-eligible 2 2 IC-R
elementary schools in this district. (The Title 1 program was in its 2 1 EC
2nd year of implementation in the district.) The percentage Note. IC-S = implicit code-standard; IC-R = implicit code-
participation in the federal lunch program ranged from 32.3% to research; EC = embedded code; DC = direct code.
71.4% at the 8 schools. Thus, the participating children were only
those 3 to 8 children in each regular education classroom who were
served through Title 1 in the participating schools. The non-Title 1
children in the classrooms were not participants in the study, at the instruction in letter-sound correspondences practiced in decodable
request of district officials; however, they received the same text (direct code [DC]); less direct instruction in systematic
classroom curricula as the participating children. spelling patterns (onset rimes) embedded in connected text (embed-
ded code [EC]); and indirect, incidental instruction in the alpha-
School participation was determined by the willingness of the
betic code embedded in connected text (implicit code [IC]). The IC
principal and teachers to participate. The design called for some
condition was either the district standard curriculum (IC-S) or a
schools to have only one instructional approach and for others to
research implementation developed to ensure comparability of
have two approaches in an attempt to control for school effects. The
training across instructional approaches (IC-R). Each condition
design is described in Table 1, which provides information on the
was directed by an advanced graduate student who had been a
number of classrooms per grade receiving each of the four
teacher and who had expertise in professional development, and
curricula. No second-grade classrooms are listed for Schools 4 and
did not include the authors of this study.
5 because Title 1 funds were available only to serve first graders.
Also, it is important to note that the school selected by district In DC the emphasis was on a balance of phonemic awareness,
officials to be the unseen comparison had the largest total enroll- phonics (with blending as the key strategy), and literature activi-
ment, the largest percentage of children participating in the federal ties, using Open Court Reading's (1995) Collections for Young
lunch program (71.4%), and the lowest achievement scores on the Scholars. Phonemic awareness activities dominate the first 30
statewide test in Grade 3. To deal with what was widely perceived lessons of Open Court. The 42 phonic rules are introduced in
as a "tough" school, district officials placed a well-respected Lessons II through 100, using sound-spelling cards, alliterative
principal and Title 1 teachers at the school; nonetheless, the school stories, and controlled vocabulary text that practice the rule just
was not regarded as a desirable teaching assignment by classroom taught. At the same time decodable texts are used, a parallel strand
teachers. of Big Book reading occurs so that skills in oral language
comprehension and love of story can be developed. Spelling
The ethnic composition of the sample was as follows: 60%
dictation exercises move students from phonetic spellings toward
African American, 20% Hispanic, and 20% White. The ethnic
conventional spelling based on phonics knowledge and spelling
composition of the district at large was approximately 20% Asian,
conventions. Writing workshop activities and anthologies of fic-
26% African American, 23% Hispanic, and 31% White. Sixty-one
tion, nonfiction, and poetry are introduced by mid Grade 1.
percent of the sample was male. Instructional groups did not differ
in age, gender, or ethnicity. In EC the emphasis was on phonemic awareness and spelling
patterns in predictable books, using an adaptation of Hiebert, Colt,
Catto, and Gary's (1992) program. Teachers providing EC instruc-
Instructional Methods tion used a common list of sequenced spelling patterns and a guide
prepared by participating teachers that listed library books that
During the 90-min daily language arts period, the children were contained the spelling patterns (see Appendix A for the list of
instructed in one of three classroom reading methods, all of which spelling patterns). Whole-class activities such as shared writing,
existed within a literature-rich environment in the classroom: direct shared reading, choral or echo reading, and guided reading
40 FOORMAN, FRANCIS, FLETCHER, SCHATSCHNEIDER, AND MEHTA

provided the context for EC instruction. In addition to a general was conducted by members of the research staff, all of whom had
emphasis on a variety of comprehension strategies, EC teachers previous elementary school teaching experience and were strong
used the following format in providing strategic guidance about proponents of the approach for which they were responsible.
patterns of words: Initially, the teacher would frame a word During summer in-service, the staff members provided background
containing the target spelling pattern during a literacy activity (e.g., for the research, discussed instructional strategies relevant to then-
bat). By deleting the initial phoneme (e.g., b), the pattern would be approach, and worked with teachers to develop a monitoring
extracted from the word (e.g., at). By substituting alternative checklist of the components of the curriculum being implemented.
beginning sounds, students could extend the pattern to new words To ensure adequacy of monitoring and control of time on task, all
(e.g., matf cat, hat). Then students were to identify the target primary reading instruction occurred in 30-min blocks as part of the
pattern as they encountered it in additional shared and independent 90-min language arts block mandated by the state. Because DC
reading and writing activities. Finally, patterns were reviewed in used basal materials that were new to the teachers, a representative
the context of reading and writing activities and were incorporated from the publisher spent 1 day orienting the teachers to the
into spelling lists. When the children were working in small groups, materials. The EC materials were also new, but the project director
they were able to practice these "make-and-break" activities with for this component had considerable experience with onset-rime
magnetic letters and acetate boards, always writing down their approaches. During the school year, the research staff visited each
constructed words and reading their written constructions back to teacher's classroom every other week or more frequently, if
the teacher. necessary, to monitor implementation of instruction and to provide
feedback on the quality of implementation. Instructional supervi-
At the time of this study, the staff development in this school
sors from the district were available at each school to help teachers
district emphasized an IC approach to reading instruction. Central
with basic issues of classroom management, a resource that was
to this IC approach was the emphasis on a print-rich environment
called on infrequently. Research staff members met with the
with the following characteristics: teacher as facilitator rather than
teachers of a particular grade level at each school during their
director of learning; children's construction of meaning as central;
planning time to discuss instructional issues. Finally, to share
the integration of reading, spelling, and writing into literary
instructional strategies across sites, teachers implementing a com-
activities that provide a context for phonics; emphasis on class-
mon program in different schools came together after school three
room interaction and on respone to literature; learning centers; and
times during the school year.
assessment based on portfolios rather than norm-referenced tests
(see Routman, 1991; Weaver, 1994), The 19 teachers who partici- In addition to these 66 classroom teachers, 28 Title 1 teachers
pated in the research version of IC worked with the project delivered one-to-one or small-group tutorials with 3 to 5 students
director—an experienced doctoral-level teacher-trainer who es- for 30 min each day. In these tutorials, the instructional method
poused whole-lanaguage methods—to define the whole-language either matched that of the classroom or was the district's standard
philosophy behind their approach: tutorial based on Clay's (1991) method. Because the standard
tutorial was an IC approach, there was no mismatch condition for
Whole language is a child centered philosophy of learning and children in the IC-S and IC-R groups.
instruction, the implementation of which results in a risk-free,
supportive, language-rich environment. This environment is Measures and Procedures
ever-changing; changing to meet the needs of all participants,
teachers and students alike. Within this whole language Teacher compliance and attitudes. During summer training,
philosophy, students are given a wide variety of opportunities
to read, write, learn, and construct meaning within a meaning- the teachers in each instructional group and the research staff
ful context. In this interactive, student-friendly learning developed a list of instructional components to be used for
atmosphere, learning is not only active and meaningful, but bimonthly monitoring of instruction (see Appendix B for the list of
also fun, with the ultimate goal being to instill the desire for each instructional group). The teachers agreed that the monitoring
life-long learning. would take place during the 30-min section of the 90-min language
arts block, when the focus would be on the reading lesson (which
Because of the IC belief in children as readers and writers, even addressed at least the first four components of each instructional
at this "emergent" phase of first and second grades, the emphasis approach listed in Appendix B). Occasional visits were made
was on learning to foster a competence rather than on learning to during other times in the language arts block to see how writing and
perform a skill (see, e.g., Dahl & Freppon, 1995). The use of spelling activities progressed and, in the case of the IC-R group,
predictable books and emphasis on writing in this IC approach were integrated with reading.
appear similar to those in the EC approach described previously. In addition to the checklist used for monitoring, lesson plans
However, in the EC approach, the teachers used a systematic list of were copied, kept, and reviewed as part of compliance. For the
spelling patterns to teach an analogy strategy for decoding words. monitoring checklist, independent raters were used, with extremely
In the IC approach, in contrast, the teacher used shared- and high interrater reliability (^.80 for all raters). At the end of the
guided-reading activities to draw children's attention to specific year, we asked the teachers to respond to five questions about their
words or word forms, letters, sounds, patterns, meanings, making instructional program (see Appendix C for the actual questions).
predictions, listening for rhymes, and exploring the use of strate- Using a scale ranging from 1 (definitely yes) to 5 (definitely no),
gies, grammar, language use, spellings, or key ideas in the text. teachers responded to the first four questions asking whether they
Thus, the opportunity to learn the alphabetic code was incidental to would recommend the continued use of this approach to instruc-
the act of making meaning from print. tion. The fifth question asked about the match between the
In this study, there were 19 IC-R teachers, 20 EC teachers, 14 instructional approach delivered and the teacher's beliefs about
DC teachers, and 13 IC-S teachers, all of whom volunteered to how to teach children to read; response options ranged from an
participate. The IC-S teachers delivered the district's standard exact match to not similar at all.
instructional method and were trained and supervised by district Measures given to estimate growth. Changes in vocabulary,
personnel. Teachers delivering IC-R, EC, and DC were trained phonological processing, and word-reading skills were assessed
during 1 week of summer in-service (30 hr) followed by retraining four times during the year, in October, December, February, and
and demonstration lessons 1 month into the school year. Training April. To assess growth in receptive vocabulary, we administered
 ROLE OF INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING TO READ 41
the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R; Dunn & statement is true or not true about themselves and then decide
Dunn, 1981) four times a year. Both forms (LandM) were used and whether the statement is sort of true or very true. For example, the
were alternated in two different sequences. To assess changes in first item on the reading attitudes measure is "This child [pointing
reading skills over the course of the intervention, we asked the to figure on examiner's left] likes people to read to him/her. This
children individually to read 50 words aloud that were presented child [pointing to figure on examiner's right] doesn't like people to
one at a time on 4 X 6-in. cards. The words were matched for read to him/her. Which child is most like you? [Child chooses.] Is
frequency of occurrence (Carroll, Davies, & Richman, 1971), were this child a lot like you or just sort of like you?" Orientation of
representative of a diversity of linguistic features, and spanned positive and negative stems of questions and accompanying stick
first- through third-grade level of difficulty. Scores were based on figures varies randomly across items. Items on both the Harter and
the number of words read aloud correctly out of 50. Reliability for the reading attitude measures are scored from 1 to 4.
the word list was excellent (internal consistency estimate of .9). Teacher evaluations. The Multigrade Inventory for Teachers
Concurrent and predictive validities for the word list were also (MIT; Agronin, Holahan, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 1992) provided a
high, as evidenced by correlations exceeding .8 with the Letter mechanism for the child's classroom teacher to record observations
Word and Word Attack subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho- on a rating scale that includes precise descriptions of a full range of
educational Battery-Revised (WJ-R; Woodcock & Johnson, 1989) behavioral styles reflecting the child's processing capabilities,
collected at the end of the year in our normative sample (Foorman adaptability, behavior, language, fine motor, and academic profi-
etal.,1996). ciency. At the same time, the teacher is able to provide an overall
Phonological processing was measured by the synthesis and impression of that child's academic strengths and weaknesses and
analysis tests in the Torgesen-Wagner battery (Wagner, Torgesen, also indicate concerns. The MIT includes 60 items coded by the
& Rashotte, 1994; see also Foorman et al., 1996, 1997b). The teacher on a scale ranging from 0 {never) to 4 {often). There are six
synthesis tests consisted of blending onset rime (m-ouse), blending scales: Academic, Activity, Language, Dexterity, Behavior, and
phonemes in real words (f-a-t), and blending phonemes in non- Attention.
words (m-i-b). The analysis tests consisted of (a) first sound The teacher also completed an end-of-year evaluation, recording
comparison (in which children were asked to point to the one the results of pupil placement team meetings and indicating any
picture of three that started with the same sound as a target picture); special services received by the child, recommendations for the
(b) elision (dropping the initial, final, or middle sound of a spoken next class placement, and recommendations for special services.
word); (c) sound categorization (naming the nonrhyming word Grades, absences, tardiness, and results of hearing and visual
from a set of four spoken words); and (d) segmentation of a spoken screening were also recorded. The teacher identified children
word into phonemes. Each test consisted of demonstration items thought to have emotional, behavioral, or family problems.
and 15 test items. In this report we used estimated factor scores that
ranged continuously from 0 to 4. Factor score weights were derived Analysis
from data on a large normative sample from the same school
district (Foorman et al., 1996). We used individual growth curves methodology to analyze
End-of-year achievement and intellectual tests. At the end of changes in phonological processing, word reading, and vocabulary.
the year, we individually administered the Wechsler Intelligence These methods permit the estimation of (a) the mean rate of change
Scale for Children-Revised (Wechsler, 1974) and standardized and an estimate of the extent to which the individual's growth
reading and spelling tests. For the reading tests, we used the WJ-R differs from this mean rate, and (b) correlates of change, which in
(Woodcock & Johnson, 1989) to measure decoding (using the this investigation focused on effects resulting from the four
Letter-Word Identification and Word Attack subtests) and reading instructional groups but also included covariates of verbal IQ, age,
comprehension (using the Passage Comprehension subtest). We and ethnicity. In the analysis of growth in word reading, we also
used the Formal Reading Inventory (FRI; Wiederholt, 1986) to examined the effects of initial level of phonological processing as a
measure comprehension of narrative and expository text. For correlate of growth and a moderator of instructional effects.
spelling we used the Spelling Dictation subtest from the Kaufman Individual growth parameters and correlates of change were
Test of Educational Achievement (KTEA; Kaufman & Kaufman, estimated using Hierarchical Linear Models-3 (HLM-3; Bryk &
1985). We did not administer a standardized reading test at the Raudenbush, 1987, 1992; see Francis, Fletcher, Stuebing, David-
beginning of the year because tests such as the WJ-R lack a son, & Thompson, 1991; Francis et al., 1996; Rogosa, Brandt, &
sufficient number of items to discriminate initial reading levels for Zimowski, 1982, for information on the application of individual
beginning readers and are not adequately sensitive to change over growth models in psychology and education). In addition to time
short time intervals. being nested within individuals, students were nested within
Attitude—experience. In addition to these measures of growth teacher, providing for a three-level model (time, student, teacher).
in cognitive skills, academic outcomes, and intellectual abilities, Although teachers are also nested within school, there was an
we also collected school attendance data and measures of self- insufficient number of schools to model school-level variability, so
esteem, reading attitudes and experience, behavior, and environmen- this factor was ignored in the analyses.
tal information in the spring. We assessed self-esteem with a In analyzing instructional effects, we were first interested in
pictorial version of Harter's (1982) Perceived Competence Scale knowing whether IC-R (representing research-trained and moni-
(Harter & Pike, 1984). The five domains of self-esteem assessed tored instruction) differed from the district's standard (representing
were scholastic competence, athletic competence, social accep- district-trained and supervised instruction), tested atp < .05. Then,
tance, physical appearance, and behavior or conduct. Children's to control for Type I error, we conducted Bonferroni-adjusted
attitude toward reading was assessed with 11 questions about the pairwise comparisons among the three experimental approaches to
extent to which the child enjoyed reading (drawn from the work of instruction with an alpha level of .0167 (or .05/3). In modeling
Juel, 1988) and 8 questions about whether the child engaged in a academic outcomes, we have ignored differences between IC-S and
variety of literacy experiences. Both the Harter scales and this DC and between IC-S and EC, because these curricula differ from
reading attitude-experience measure use a structure alternative IC-S both in the explicitness of code instruction and in the training
format to minimize the likelihood of the child making the socially of teachers to deliver the instruction. Comparison of IC-S to IC-R
desirable response. For each item, children first decide whether the provides information about the importance of the teacher-training
42 FOORMAN, FRANCIS, FLETCHER, SCHATSCHNEIDER, AND MEHTA

component of the study, whereas comparisons among IC-R, DC, 2 were in IC-R, 1 in DC, and 1 in EC. In all four cases, the
and EC provide the critical information about instructional differ- teachers were teaching reading but were not using the
ences controlling for teacher training. In modeling changes over research approach for which they had been trained. The DC
time, we centered age around the last occasion of measurement for and EC teachers were doing the district standard IC-S, as
each child so that the intercept represented expected performance in they had been doing for years. The two IC-R teachers were
April. Because we expected older children to outperform younger
decontextualizing phonics and spelling instruction with
children, age differences between children at the final assessment
were measured as deviations from mean age and were used to work sheets they had purchased. Attempts to retrain and
predict expected performance and change in performance. redirect these four teachers met with repeated resistance. We
To characterize the pattern of change over time, we fit models to retained these teachers and their students' data in our
determine (a) whether growth was linear or curvilinear and (b) analyses because they are representative of the range of
which of the growth parameters varied across children. This teaching behaviors encountered in a study of this sort In
process involved fitting at least the following models: (a) straight short, compliance of 49 of 53 classroom teachers was
line growth with random intercepts and fixed slopes; (b) straight excellent.
line growth with random intercepts and slopes; (c) curvilinear In addition to high compliance with instructional practice,
growth with random intercepts and fixed slopes and quadratic teachers also had positive atttitudes toward their instruc-
terms; (d) curvilinear growth with random intercepts and slopes
and fixed quadratic terms; and (e) curvilinear growth with random tional method. The distribution of responses for the teacher
intercepts, slopes, and quadratic terms. In all models, errors are attitude data for 48 of the 53 research-trained teachers are
assumed to be independently and normally distributed with equal presented in Table 2 (2 DC, 2 EC, and 1 IC-R teachers did
variance over time. Afixedparameter has a value that does not vary not return the survey). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) using
across participants, whereas a random parameter has a value that the Kruskal-Wallis test showed significant instructional
differs across participants. If the mean value for a parameter was group differences on the following two questions: "If you
not different from zero, and there was no evidence that the were responsible for curriculum decisions in your district,
parameter differed across participants, then the parameter was would you recommend that resources (materials, staff devel-
dropped from the model. Growth curve analyses for reading, opment, etc.) be provided for this instructional approach in
vocabulary, and phonological processing showed that change could the future?", F(2, 44) - 3.58, p - .036; and "Would you
be best modeled with linear and quadratic effects and random recommend the instructional approach you are using to a
slopes and intercepts.
colleague?", F(2, 44) = 5.23, p = 009. Pairwise contrasts

Results
Table 2
Tutoring Effects Frequency Distributions for Teacher Attitude
We examined the size of the tutoring unit (one-to-one or Survey Data (%)
small group, i.e., 3-5 students with one teacher) and the Frequency distributions
nature of the content of the tutorial (whether it matched or Definitely Endorse Definitely
did not match classroom instruction). The mismatch condi- yes — no
tion was available only for the two code-emphasis groups Question 1 2 3 4 5
because the district's standard tutorial—Reading Empower- 1. Recommend to district
ment based on Clay's (1991) method—was matched with DC 64 36 —
the IC approach. Unfortunately, it was impossible to retain EC 22 50 17 11 —
the initial assignment to ratios of one-to-one or one-to-many IC-R 44 39 17 — —
because the teachers needed to rearrange groupings to deal 2. Recommend to colleague
with behavioral and learning problems. Thus, we calculated DC 73 27 —
the average number of days a student was in a 1:1 or 1 :many EC 22 50 11 17 —
ratio condition. This variable did not significantly predict IC-R 28 50 17 — —
reading growth or outcomes. There was also no significant 3. Recommend for all children
DC 55 27 18 — —
effect of matched or mismatched tutorial content. Because of EC 28 39 17 11 6
the lack of tutoring effects, tutoring was ignored in subse- IC-R 33 39 28 —
quent analyses. 4. Recommend for special needs
DC 45 27 27 — —
EC 50 28 11 11 —
Compliance and Attitudes tC-R 17 44 28 11 —
Compliance data consisted of each teacher's total percent- Exactly Very !Somewhat Not similar
age of compliance in delivering the instructional practices match similar similar at all
appropriate to her instructional group, as determined from 5. Matches my beliefs
the research staff's monitoring data. Among the 53 class- DC 9 82 9 0
room teachers monitored (excluding the 13 IC-S teachers, EC — 61 39 0
who were not monitored), compliance was generally very IC-R 22 50 28 0
high, a median of 80%, with a significant negative skew to Note. DC = direct code; EC = embedded code; IC-R = implicit
the distribution of scores. Four teachers had 0% compliance: code-research.
 ROLE OF INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING TO READ 43

revealed that DC teachers were more likely than EC teachers to using a t statistic and p value derived from the unit normal
recommend their instruction to tiie district, F ( l , 44) = 6.95,/? < distribution. As a measure of the effect of the instructional
.012. Additionally, DC teachers were more likely than either EC group variable, we report A/?2, which is the proportion of
or IC-R teachers to recommend their instruction to a colleague, true, between-teacher variance (Level 3) in a growth param-
F(l, 44) = 9.71, p < .003 and F(l, 44) = 6.80, p = .012, eter that is accounted for by the instructional group variable
respectively. Teachers in the DC, EC, and IC-R groups did not after controlling for all covariates (Bryk & Raudenbush,
differ in their attitude about recommending their approaches for 1987; Francis et al., 1991). This measure indicates how
all children or for children with special needs or in the degree to much of the true, between-teacher variance in slopes and
which the instruction they delivered matched their beliefs about intercepts is uniquely attributable to the instructional meth-
how to teach children to read. ods employed by the teachers. In addition, Cohen's standard-
ized effect size, / (Maxwell & Delaney, 1990), was com-
puted for curriculum effects as follows. For overall effects of
Analyses of Baseline Differences in October the instructional group variable, we computed the effect (ay)
Means and standard deviations for phonological process- for each group, where a; is the difference between the mean
ing and word-reading scores at each wave of data collection value of a parameter (e.g., slope or intercept) in that
are presented in Tables 3 and 4, respectively, for each instructional group and the overall grand mean value for that
instructional group according to grade. Correlations between parameter, taking into account all covariates. The average
phonological analysis and synthesis factors were greater squared effect was then expressed relative to the HLM-3
than .9 at each of the four time points. Therefore, we have estimated error variability in that parameter. This estimate is
elected to present only the results for phonological analysis not printed directly by HLM-3 but can be computed from
here (subsequently to be referred to as phonological process- HLM-3's estimate of the reliability of the parameter and of
ing). ANOVA on October baseline scores in word reading the systematic variance in the parameter. To estimate the
and in phonological processing (with age as a covariate) error variance in the instructional group mean growth
showed no significant differences between instructional parameters, we calculated [(1 — R)T]/R, where R is the
groups, F(3, 272) = .33, p = .81, for word reading; and F(3, estimated reliability of the random parameter and T is the
271) = 1.87, p = .14, for phonological processing. estimated systematic variability in the parameter. These two
estimates were taken from the growth curve models that
included all covariates but did not include the instructional
Growth Curve Analyses group variable. The square root of this ratio (average
squared effect/error variance) gives the standardized effect
The second graders had minimal reading skills, necessita- size,/. Effect sizes are also reported for differences in growth
ting the use of first-grade instructional materials with them. parameters between specific curricula. These were com-
Because all children were receiving the same grade-level puted by taking the mean parameter difference between the
curriculum, analyses were conducted with age rather than two curricula and dividing by the square root of the error
grade as a factor. Exploratory analyses showed that there variability, as just described. Effect sizes for end-of-year
was no remaining variability in outcomes resulting from outcomes were derived from SAS PROC MIXED (SAS
grade once age effects were controlled. Institute, 1997) two-level random-effects models using a
Growth curve analyses were conducted using a three-level similar approach. However, in these cases, error variability
model: time within child within classroom. All growth curve was estimated as the residual variance in an unconditional
analyses were conducted using HLM-3 software (Bryk & model divided by the average sample size per classroom.
Raudenbush, 1992). HLM-3 reports tests of fixed effects

Table 3
Factor Score Means, Standard Deviations, and Sample Sizes for Phonological Processing
at Each Wave of Data Collection
October December February April
Instructional
group M SD n M SD n M SD n M SD n
Direct code
Grade 1 0.68 0.54 44 1.34 0.69 42 1.87 0.74 39 2.16 0.83 41
Grade2 1.74 0.80 14 2.06 0.47 14 2.25 0.69 14 2.51 0.60 14
Embedded code
Grade 1 0.37 0.36 49 0/72 0.60 46 1.07 0.69 41 1.59 0.77 39
Grade 2 1.38 0.74 36 1.61 0.62 35 1.89 0.71 29 2.18 0.71 28
Implicit code-research
Grade 1 0.51 0.55 57 0.93 0.74 57 1.23 0.87 55 1.53 0.88 53
Grade 2 1.58 0.62 28 1.89 0.72 28 2.17 0.79 27 2.21 0.73 25
Implicit code-standard
Grade 1 0.43 0.50 24 0.90 0.84 24 1.02 0.75 23 1.22 0.86 23
Grade 2 1.48 0.70 24 1.76 0.79 24 1.72 0.63 23 1.90 0.64 22
44 FOORMAN, FRANCIS, FLETCHER, SCHATSCHNEIDER, AND MEHTA

Table 4
Raw Score Means, Standard Deviation, and Sample Sizes for Word Reading at Each Wave
of Data Collection
October December February April
Instructional
group M SD n M SD n M SD n M SD n
Direct code
Grade 1 0.20 0.51 AA 2.17 2.95 42 6.44 7.13 39 12.68 10.21 41
Grade 2 5.73 6.66 15 8.57 7.69 14 12.71 9.60 14 19.43 10.03 14
Embedded code
Grade 1 0.18 0.88 49 0.72 1.61 46 1.90 2.77 41 5.00 8.15 39
Grade 2 4.75 4.92 36 7.46 6.77 35 12.86 11.04 29 18.29 12.02 28
Implicit code-research
Grade 1 0.07 0.32 57 0.57 1.20 58 1.20 2,30 55 5.23 7.20 53
Grade 2 5.12 5.24 28 7.96 6.97 28 10.93 9.83 38 16.16 14.32 25
Implicit code-standard
Grade 1 0.13 0.61 24 0.21 1.02 24 0.57 1.59 23 1.91 2.81 23
Grade 2 3.17 4.90 24 5.36 7.31 24 9.13 7.87 23 14.27 9.35 22

Analysis of growth in phonological processing. In the Analysis of growth in word reading. Growth in word
analysis of phonological processing, there were significant reading was best described by a quadratic model. In the
differences between ethnic groups and individual differences conditional models, there were no significant effects of
in age and verbal IQ. African American children had ethnicity (p > .05), and the effects of age and verbal IQ
significantly lower expected scores in April than the sample were similar to those found for phonological processing.
average (t = 2.90, p = .004) but did not differ in slope or in Specifically, age at last assessment was a significant predic-
the quadratic trend (p > .05). Age at the final assessment tor of expected performance in April (i.e., the intercept)
was a significant predictor of expected score in April (t = 4.41, p < .001) and the rate of change (i.e., slope;
(/ = 4.75, p < .001) and slope (t = 3.01, p = .003). This t = 2.49, p = .013). Verbal IQ was also a significant predic-
means that older children had higher April scores but tor of intercept and slope (t = 3.70, p < .001 and t = 4.15,
improved at a slower rate compared with younger children. p < .001).
Verbal IQ was a significant predictor of expected score in Differences between the IC-R and IC-S groups on April
April, slope, and the quadratic effect (t = 6.86, p < .001; performance (p > . 0 5 , / = 0.16) and growth in word read-
t = 2.81, p = .005; and t = 4.05, p < .001, respectively). ing {p > . 0 5 , / = 0.01) were neither statistically nor practi-
Thus, higher IQ children tended to have higher phonological cally significant. However, there were clear differences
processing scores in April, but their rate of learning tended among the instructional groups (overall A/?2 = .35,/= 0.46
to taper off in the latter part of the school year. for intercepts and Ai?2 = . 5 4 , / = 0.24 for slopes). Control-
There were significant differences in growth in phonologi- ling for individual differences in age and verbal IQ as well as
cal processing among the four instructional groups, control- for ethnicity, DC children improved in word reading at a
ling for ethnicity and for individual differences in age and faster rate than IC-R children (t = 2.80, p = .006,/= 0.58)
verbal IQ. The overall effect of instructional group was large and EC children (f = 2.25, p = .024,/ = 0.46), although the
on both intercepts (&R2 = . 8 8 , / = 0.69) and slopes (A/?2 = DC-EC difference is not significant at the Bonferroni-
.86,/= 1.13). More specifically, children receiving DC had adjusted criterion. Relative to the DC group, the IC-R
significantly higher scores in April than EC students group's rate of improvement in April was 10.7 fewer words
(t = 2.99, p < .003,/= 1.06), and students receiving IC-R per year on the 50-word list, whereas the EC group's rate of
(t = 4.58, p < .001,/ = 1.61). Instructional groups differed improvement was 8.6 fewer words per year. The shape of the
significantly in their learning curves. These differences are growth curves depicted in Figure 2 indicates a pattern of
shown in Figure 1 both for raw scores in the top panel (i.e., increasing differences over time, and is evidenced by the
observed data) and predicted scores in the bottom panel (i.e., higher rate of change in April for the DC group. DC children
estimates based on the fitted growth model). As is apparent also had higher expected word-reading scores (mean inter-
from the predicted scores (panel b), the rate of change in cept) in April than IC-R children (t = 2.26, p = .024,
phonological processing scores for the EC group differed / = 1.03), although this difference is slightly above the
significantly from that of the IC-R group and DC groups Bonferroni-adjusted level of alpha (i.e., .024 vs. .0167). This
(t - 3.35, p = .001, / = 2.64, and t = 1.99, p = .045, was a 5.1-word difference between the DC and IC-R groups
/ = 1.06, respectively), although the EC-DC difference is in April. These differences are shown in the raw and
not significant at the Bonferroni-adjusted critical value. In predicted scores plotted in Figure 2.
general, the EC group was characterized by a relatively To further examine possible group differences in word
constant rate of change, whereas the IC-R group showed a reading at the end of the school year, a two-level random-
slowing of growth at the end of the year. effects model was run on April word-reading scores using
 ROLE OF INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING TO READ 45

Growth in Phonological Processing Raw Scores By

Curriculum

4 j -*- Dime! Code hetrucfon

-*- Embedded Code hstnetlon
-a- knplcil Code - Research instruction
3.5-- —- Impficit Code • Standard Instruction

3 -•

2.5-

2 -

1.5 -

1
0.5 +
0
October December February April

B Predicted Growth In Phonological Processing By

Curriculum

- Direct Code hstouctkm

- Embedded Code kvtrucHon
- Implicit Code - Research Instruction
- Implicit Code - Standard Instructor

October December February

School Year

Figure 1. Growth in phonological processing raw scores by curriculum (panel a) and predicted
growth in phonological processing by curriculum (panel b).

HLM-2 (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). We included covari- seen in the frequency distributions of growth estimates in
ates of age, verbal IQ, ethnicity, and October word-reading word reading shown in Figure 3, approximately 46% of the
scores. This analysis revealed that the DC group outper- IC-R children, 44% of the EC children, and 38% of the IC-S
formed the IC-R group, F(l, 165) = 10.06, p = .002,/ = children learned at a rate of 2.5 words or less per school year
1.53, as well as the EC group, F(l, 165) = 5.34, p = .022, on the 50-word list compared with only 16% in the DC
f - 1.12, with no differences between the IC-R and EC group. For DC children, growth in word reading does not
groups (p = .37,/ =0.41). have a large positive skew, indicating small amounts of
The practical significance of the slope and intercept growth characteristic of the other instructional groups.
differences is clearly apparent when examining individual To evaluate these patterns further, we used logistic
cases. A relatively large percentage of children in the IC-R, regression to calculate the probability of a child having a
IC-S, and EC curricula did not exhibit growth. As can be predicted word-reading score in April greater than one.
46 FOORMAN, FRANCIS, FLETCHER, SCHATSCHNEEDER, AND MEHTA

A Growth In Word Reading Raw Scores By Curriculum

16 T
-•- Direct Code Instmction
-*- Embedded CodB hstnrHon
-s- implcit Code - Research Instruction
-m- krvldt Code - Standard hetruclon

I
•s
E
z

December February
School Year

B Predicted Growth In Word Reading Scores By Curriculum

16
- Dl red Code Instruction
- Embedded Code hBtnrHon
14 -- -implcitCodB-Research hsfcuction
-ImpScitCode-StandBKlhstRictton
12 -

10

JS
E
z

October December February

School Year

Figure 2. Growth in word reading raw scores by curriculum (panel a) and predicted growth in
word-reading scores by curriculum (panel b).

given that in October they read zero words. Included in the times more likely to be reading at that level than IC-R
analysis were covariates of age and ethnicity. The results children, x 2 d» N ** 182) = 12.74,.p < .001 (95% CI = 2.17,
showed that DC children were 3.6 times more likely to be 14.33), and 5.2 times more likely than EC children, x2(l»
reading more than one word at the end of the year than IC-R N = 182) = 11.60,/? = .0007 (95% CI = 2.014,13.45).
children, XHh N = 182) - 6.48,p = .011 (95% confidence To evaluate the possible role of initial status in phonologi-
interval [CI] = 1.34, 9.49), and 5.2 times more likely than cal processing in growth in word reading, October scores in
EC children, X20> # = 182) = 10.79, p = .001 (95% phonological processing were included in a three-level
CI — 1.94, 13.80). If the criterion was two words read analysis of word reading using HLM-3. Controlling for
accurately at the end of the year, then DC children were 5.6 effects resulting from ethnicity, the phonological covariate
 ROLE OF INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING TO READ 47

u
3
_c
1
ode

c
CO O
CD
DC S
"S 5
•s
8
o
c .3
sz
I n
N
p
Si
in
I-
o
i-
io a

o2
dnaig |o weojvd

•o

CL
o o
CO 35
O
c
,g
•-» c 3
1*1
u
00 s
tCode- Res

b
uency

a- "3
CD
X—
a
LL

dnaig io iiKawd
48 FOORMAN, FRANCIS, FLETCHER, SCHATSCHNEIDER, AND MEHTA

significantly predicted rate of growth as well as April scores for all groups. More importantly, Figure 4 shows that
in word reading (t = 6.41 and 8.54, respectively, p < .001). children who start the year with the lowest levels of
The effects of initial phonological processing differed phonological processing skill exhibit the lowest growth in
across instructional groups. Nevertheless, instructional group word reading in all groups except the DC group. Indeed,
differences were similar to the model of word reading some children who start the year with low phonological
without the phonological covariate. IC-R and IC-S groups scores still manage to exhibit considerable growth in reading
did not differ in slope or intercept (p > .05, / = 0.40 for words. These children were largely in the DC instructional
intercepts,/= 0.09 for slopes); however, there were differ- group, as evidenced by the vertical spread in the data points
ences among the three experimental groups. With respect to in the left side of the panel for DC and the lack of spread in
the intercept, DC children continued to have significantly the left side of the remaining three panels. The lines in the
higher expected scores in April than the IC-R children panels depict the least squares regression line relating
(t = 2.38, p = .017, / = 0.92). With respect to slope, DC reading growth to initial phonological processing. Although
children continued to improve in word-reading skills at a the overall test of slope differences among instructional
faster rate than the IC-R children (t = 2.93, p = .004, groups was statistically significant, x 2 (3, N = 252) = 7.90,
/ = 0.54), whereas the difference between DC and EC, p = .048, none of the pairwise comparisons met the Bonfer-
which was previously not significant at the Bonferroni- roni-adjusted critical value. Nevertheless, the generally
adjusted criterion, now failed to reach significance at flatter line for the DC group is precisely what one would
conventional levels (t = 1.13,p = .261,/= 0.33). expect if phonological processing is a determinant of growth
The differential effect of initial phonological skill on in word reading and DC is effective in improving phonologi-
individual differences in growth of word reading is depicted cal processing. We would expect initial phonological process-
in Figure 4, in which individual October scores in phonologi- ing to be less related to outcome in DC because more
cal processing are plotted separately for each group against explicit instruction in the alphabetic code is more effective
predicted growth estimates in word reading. Generally, in developing phonological processing skill in all children,
higher initial scores in phonological processing coincide which thereby minimizes the importance of the level of this
with higher growth in word reading, and this pattern holds skill that children bring to the classroom in the fall.

en
o

o
en
CD

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0

INITIAL PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING SCORE

Figure 4. Plots of individual growth estimates in word reading by initial phonological processing
scores and instructional group.
 ROLE OF INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING TO READ 49

Analysis of growth in vocabulary. In the anlaysis of school year), which shows that the effect of DC on cognitive
growth in vocabulary using the PPVT-R, there was no evidence skills was specific to reading and did notreflecta generic effect
for quadratic change. Rather, growth was linear (t = 11.22, of intervention. This growth in vocabulary is depicted in Figure 5
p < .001). In addition, there were significant effects of age in terms of raw (panel a) and predicted (panel b) scores.
(t = 8.13, p < .001) on expected vocabulary in April, and
Hispanic children had lower expected vocabulary scores in April
compared with the sample average (t = 4.86, p < .001). Most End-of- Year Achievement
important, there were no effects as a result of instructional group
(overall effect size/= 0.16, A/?2 - .01). Thus, 1C-R, IC-S, EC, Standard score means and standard deviations for the May
and DC children all developed to the same level and at the same achievement tests of reading and spelling are provided in
rate in vocabulary (i.e., about 6.5 items on the PFVT-R per Table 5 for each instructional group. The WJ-R Basic

Growth in PPVT Raw Scores By Curriculum

82
80
- Direct Code Instructor)
78 - Embedded Code totiuctlon
76 + - Implcit Code - Research M u t t o n
74 -impieitCode - Standard Instruction

| 72 +
2 70
68 -
66 --
64 4
62
60
58
56
54 +
52
October December February April
School Year

B Predicted Growth in PPVT Raw Scores By Curriculum

82
80 - Direct Code Instruction
78 - Embedded Code Instruction
76 - Impidt Code - Research Instruction
- Implicit Code - Standard Instruction
74

October December February

School Year

Figure 5. Growth in Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised (PPVT-R) raw scores by

curriculum (panel a) and predicted growth in PPVT-R scores by curriculum (panel b).
50 FOORMAN, FRANCIS, FLETCHER, SCHATSCHNEIDER, AND MEHTA

Table 5 0.76. Although these differences on Passage Comprehension

Standard Score Means, Standard Deviation, and Sample did not meet critical alpha values, the direction of the
Sizes on May Achievement Tests of Reading and Spelling differences is clear and the magnitude of the effects is large
for Four Instructional Groups by typical standards. There were no instructional group
differences on the KTEA Spelling or on the FRI (p > .05,
WJ-R Reading
overall fo = 0.38 and 0.20, A/?2 - .22 and undefined,
Passage FRI respectively). The FRI was too difficult for these children, as
compre- KTEA compre- is apparent from the low means of Table 6 and the fact that a
Instructional group Basic hension spelling hension sizable number of children in each group (i.e., 14% of DC
Direct code and about 24% of the other groups) were not administered
M 96.1 96.7 85.7 81.8 the FRI because they did not meet the criterion of scoring at least
SD 14.6 15.9 12.2 9.4 5 raw score points on the WJ-R Passage Comprehension.
n 58 58 58 50
Embedded code We used logistic regression to calculate the probability of
M 88.6 91.4 82.0 80.8 a child having a May WJ-R decoding score below the 25th
SD 11.2 12.7 8.2 8.3 percentile, a usual diagnostic criteria for a reading disability
n 82 82 82 62 (Fletcher et al., 1994). IC-S and IC-R children did not differ
Implicit code-research from each other. However, IC-R children were 2.4 times as
M 89.6 92.0 81.6 81.5 likely as DC children to score below the 25th percentile,
SD 12.7 14.8 9.1 8.7 X2<1, N « 262) - 5.21, p = .02 (95% CI - 1.3, 4.1), and
n 78 78 77 61 EC children were 3.1 times as likely as DC children to score
Implicit code-standard below the 25th percentile, xHh N « 262) = 10.09,/? = .002
M 84.5 89.0 81.7 83.1 (95% Q = 1.5,6.4).
SD 9.7 12.1 7.6 6.9
n 45 45 45 34
Note. WJ-R - Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery- Analyses ofAttendance, Perceived Self-Competence,
Revised (Woodcock & Johnson, 1989); KTEA - Kaufman Test of Attitudes, Behavior, and Environmental Variables
Educational Achievement (Kaufinan & Kaufman, 1985); FRI -
Formal Reading Inventory (WIederholt, 1986). The FRI was not Instructional groups did not differ in school attendance, in
administered to children who scored less than 5 points on the WJ-R
Passage Comprehension. perceived self-competence on the Harter scales, or in teacher
identification of emotional, behavioral, or family problems
on the end-of-year evaluation. However, instructional groups
Reading cluster is the average of the Letter-Word Identifica- significantly differed in reading attitudes (but not experi-
tion and Word Attack (pseudoword) subtests and represents ence), F{3,257) = 4.29, p = .006. The IC-R group had more
a measure of decoding. Passage Comprehension is a cloze positive attitudes toward reading than the DC group, F(l,
test at the sentence level, and the FRI is a multiple-choice 257) = 6.29, p = .013, and the IC-S group, F(l, 257) =
test based on silent narrative and expository text reading. On 11.12,/? = .001. Questions related to the degree to which the
the basis of our previous research (Foorman et al., 1996), we child likes people to read to him or her, likes or does not like
did not administer the FRI to children who scored less than 5 to read books by him or herself, thinks learning to read is
raw score points on the WJ-R Passage Comprehension to hard or easy, likes or does not like school, likes or does not
avoid frustrating the children on the more difficult FRI. like to watch television, and has a parent, grandparent,
A two-level hierarchical linear models approach using guardian, or sibling who likes or does not like to read.
SAS PROC MIXED (SAS Institute, 1997), nesting student Means and standard deviations are provided in Table 6 for
within teacher, was utilized to investigate instructional the six scales of the MIT, ANOVAs on the six scales
group differences in the May achievement scores. Signifi- revealed instructional group differences on all scales but the
cant effects of instructional group were followed up with the Attention scale. Using Bonferroni adjustment for alpha
three post hoc contrasts of interest, using Bonferroni correc- (.05/6 scales = .0083), pairwise post hoc contrasts revealed
tions to control the alpha level at p < .0167. Significant the IC-S group to be significantly different from the other
instructional group effects were found for the WJ-R Basic groups. With respect to the activity scale, the IC-S group had
Reading cluster, F(3, 197) * 6.03, p = .008, / = 0.67, significantly higher activity ratings (e.g., out of chair,
M 2 = .48 and the WJ-R Passage Comprehension subtest, restless, distractible) than the IC-R group, F(l, 271) - 8.81,
F(3, 197) = 2.15, p = .044,/= 0.40, AR2 = .64. Post hoc p = .003, and the DC group, F(l, 271) = 7.95, p = .005.
tests of the instructional effect revealed that the DC group The IC-S group had significantly poorer Adaptability scores
had higher mean decoding scores than either the EC group, (e.g., gets upset and cannot tolerate changes, transition
F(h 197) = 9.41, p = .003,/ = 1.17, or the IC-R group, problems, long time to settle down) compared with the IC-R
F(l, 197) = 7.00,/? = . 0 0 9 , / " 1.22, respectively. Likewise, group, F ( l , 271) = 14.05,p = .0002, and the EC group, F(l,
the DC group had higher mean Passage Comprehension 271) - 8.66,/? = .004. The IC-S group also had significantly
scores than the EC group, F(l, 197) - 4.76, p = .030,/ = poorer Social scores (e.g., calls out in class, easily frus-
0.72, but this difference was not significant at the Bonfeironi- trated) relative to the IC-R group, F(l, 271) = 11.08, p <
adjusted criterion. The difference between the DC and IC-R .001. On the Academic scale, the IC-S group had signifi-
groups was not significant, F(l, 197) = 3.68,/? = .056,/ = cantly lower academic ratings relative to the EC group, F(l,
 ROLE OF INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING TO READ 51
Table 6
Means, Standard Deviations, andp Values for the Six Scales of the Multi-Grade
Inventory for Teachers for Four Instructional Groups
Direct code Embedded code Implicit code-research Implicit code-standard
Scales M SD n M SD n M SD n M SD n P
Academic 3.26 0.41 60 3.11 0.41 86 3.26 0.42 85 3.39 0.33 47 .002
Activity 2.96 1.51 60 3.14 1.48 86 2.97 1.47 85 3.77 1.42 47 .020
Adaptability 2,89 0.77 60 2.82 0.93 86 2.70 0.80 85 3.28 0.89 47 .003
Attention 3.58 0.85 60 3.59 0.79 86 3.38 0.84 85 3.65 0.77 47 .189
Language 2.86 0.78 60 2.85 0.72 86 2.68 0.67 85 3.09 0.56 47 .020
Social 3.27 0.47 60 3.25 0.54 86 3.14 0.59 85 3.47 0.56 47 .010

271) = 14.49, p = .0002. With respect to the Language skills than children with low phonological processing scores
scale, the IC-S group had significantly more problems (e.g., in the other instructional groups. Hence, the fact that the DC
trouble expressing thought, difficult to understand) com- approach used in this study included explicit instruction in
pared with the IC-R group, F(l, 271) = 10.43, p < .001, phonemic awareness appeared to facilitate word-reading
respectively. Thus, the IC-S teachers perceived that their development for children who started the year with low
students had significantly more behavioral and academic scores in this crucial precursor skill to reading. This shows
problems compared with the IC-R, DC, and EC teachers. not only that problems with phonological processing are
related to poor reading skills in these culturally and linguisti-
Discussion cally diverse children, but that greater changes in phonologi-
cal processing skills and word-reading ability occurred when
The results of this research clearly indicate that early these children were provided a curriculum that included
instructional intervention makes a difference for the develop- explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle. The finding
ment and outcomes of reading skills in first- and second- that phonological processing moderated growth in word
grade children at risk for reading failure. However, the reading suggests that the changes were due to the nature of
results also demonstrate that not all instructional approaches the instruction and not to the greater scripting of the DC
have the same impact. Children who were directly instructed approach. Nevertheless, future studies should compare the
in the alphabetic principle improved in word-reading skill at DC program used in this study with other DC programs that
a significantly faster rate than children indirectly instructed
vary in the degree of scriptedness to evaluate this possibility.
in the alphabetic principle through exposure to literature.
Also, the onset-rime component of the EC intervention was
Furthermore, 46% of the children in the IC research group
scripted in the sense that spelling patterns were systemati-
and 44% of the EC group exhibited no demonstrable growth
in word reading compared with only 16% in the DC group. cally presented. Hence, it is not surprising that performance
of the EC group tended to fall between that of the DC and IC
These performance differences were due to instruction, groups.
not to behavioral or affective differences among these
groups. The only differences on the behavioral measures Instructional group differences in end-of-year achieve-
involved the IC-S condition, not a surprising finding given ment after the first year were clearly apparent: The direct
that the vast majority of IC-S children came from one school instruction group approached national average on decoding
described as 'Hough." Because this school was the "unseen (43rd percentile) and passage comprehension (45th percen-
control," we did not monitor classroom reading instruction tile) compared with the IC-R group's means of 29th
and, therefore, cannot determine the extent to which these percentile and 35th percentile, respectively. (EC group
perceived behavioral and academic problems may have been means were 27th percentile and 33rd percentile, respec-
a consequence of poor classroom instruction. There were no tively). Although the differences in decoding skills were
behavioral differences among the three research conditions. robust, mean differences on the Passage Comprehension test
Similarly, although outcomes varied across classrooms, did not meet the critical value of alpha adopted for this study.
measured characteristics of the teachers did not relate However, our approach was designed to minimize Type I
significantly to outcome. Generally, teachers' attitude to- errors and was conservative. The mean differences on this
ward and compliance with instructional practices were very measure of reading comprehension were large; effect sizes
good across instructional groups, and the amount of time were also large, favoring the DC group. Furthermore,
devoted to reading and language arts instruction was logistic regression revealed that children in the IC-R and EC
comparable. groups were much more likely to score below the 25th
Children in all instructional groups with higher initial percentile on the standardized decoding test than children in
status in phonological processing skills in October exhibited the DC instruction group. Scores below the 25th percentile
growth in word-reading skills. However, children in the DC are often used to indicate reading disability on the basis of
group who had low initial status in phonological processing traditional diagnostic criteria (Fletcher et al., 1994).
skills also appeared to show more growth in word-reading In this study, there were no effects of student-teacher ratio
52 FOORMAN, FRANCIS, FLETCHER, SCHATSCHNEIDER, AND MEHTA

or nature of content in the tutoring component. However, the greater transfer of word-reading skills to the text reading in
student-teacher ratio was not a constant 1:1 or small group measures such as the FRI as well as measures such as the
variable because of teachers' need to reconstitute groups to WJ-R Passage Comprehension. Finally, 90 children who
adjust for behavioral or learning differences. Therefore, we were eligible for Title 1 and who received the classroom
do not see our results as inconsistent with the research intervention were not included in these analyses because
supporting the benefits of one-on-one tutoring (e.g., Wasik they did not receive tutorial services. These children were
& Slavin, 1993). Future research should continue to study better readers than the children in these analyses at baseline.
the benefits of having tutorial content match or not match Analyses that included these 90 children did not alter the
classroom instruction. Having the content of tutorial match pattern of results.
the curriculum facilitates communication between class- It is also important to keep in mind that the classroom
room teacher and tutor and ensures continuity of treatment curricula used in this study took place in a print-rich
for the child (see Slavin et al., 1996). However, many environment with a significant literature base. Instructional
tutoring programs are springing up around the United States programs that provided only phonological awareness or
in response to the America Reads challenge, and these
phonics lessions were not used because it was not likely that
programs entail training that is divorced from classroom
such training would generalize to actual reading and spelling
instruction. Disconnected instructional programs have been
skills. In the DC condition, as in other intervention studies
shown to be ineffective for high-risk students (Allington,
1991). with demonstrable efficacy with poor readers (Torgesen,
1997; Vellutino et al., 1996), explicit instruction in the
As with any other intervention study, longer term fol- alphabetic principle was separated from the literature compo-
low-up with these children is clearly indicated to assess nent, but both components were provided. The opportunity
whether the gains in decoding skills continue to accelerate in to apply what is learned in this component is most likely
DC instruction and whether there are longer term effects in critical for ensuring that the instruction generalizes.
other aspects of the reading process. For example, in spite of The results of this study underscore the value of research
differences in decoding skills, the IC group had more informed by contemporary hypotheses regarding the intercon-
positive attitudes toward reading, a finding consistent with nection between language and reading. Previous research
other research (e.g., Stahl, McKenna, & Pagnucco, 1994). It has demonstrated the effectiveness of direct instruction in
is possible that these positive attitudes toward reading, the alphabetic principle with beginning readers from middle-
although not associated with higher reading performance in class schools (Foorman, 1995a, 1995b; Foorman, Francis,
beginning reading, may sustain motivation to improve
Novy, & Liberman, 1991; Vellutino et al., 1996) as well as
reading skill as the student matures. Another interesting
with disabled readers (Torgesen, 1997; Vellutino et al.,
question is whether the sequence of instructional method
1996). Although the effects of tutorial interventions in this
makes a difference in growth and outcomes in reading. For
example, do children who receive explicit instruction in the study were overshadowed by the strong effects of classroom
alphabetic principle in Grade 1 and subsequent implicit instruction, other research with severely disabled readers
instruction show greater gains than children who continue in indicates the merits of intensive one-to-one intervention
explicit instruction? Similarly, can direct instruction in with students (Torgesen, 1997; Vellutino et al., 1996). Future
alphabetic and orthographic rules in Grade 2 ameliorate the studies should also evaluate entire classrooms, not just Title
lack of growth in reading experienced in Grade 1 by children 1 children, and compare the DC program in this study with
who received either of the IC approaches? The effects of EC other curricula providing DC. Depending on the results, it
instruction may require a longer period of time for benefits may well be possible to prevent reading failure for large
to be realized. The large individual differences in the EC numbers of children if beginning instruction explicitly
group support findings from previous research (e.g., Ehri & teaches the alphabetic principle.
Robbing, 1992; Foorman, 1995a) that some decoding skill is
needed before known orthographic rimes are spontaneously
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Appendix A

Spelling Patterns for Embedded Code Instruction (Sequenced From Left to Right)

Sequence for Grade 1 Sequence for Grade 2

_at _ad _an _ap ath uff -OSS _ess -all
_on -op _ot _og Jd JU _ell _ax _act _alt
-*g Jt _in _ap _an _and _amp _anf _ast _anch
_ug _at _ad _et -ed _ang _ank _ask _atch _ox
_en -ep _go, no _ain _aint _oft _ond ~ong _onk _ook
_ait _ay _ame _ake _ade oot _oom _ood oon ix
_ate _ale _ave _ane -.ace Jft _ink ^int _ilt Jlk
_me _my _ee _eed _eam Jst _isp Jng _irst _itch
_ean ease _eet _ea _ead _ump _BSt _imt _ulp unch
_csl eel _een ^p -.cat _uag _unk _ept end _elt
_each _aU Jte ile Jne _ench est -.elp eft _elf
_ive _ice _jme _ike Jde _ent _oil ~.eive _idf _ar
_ome _oke ose _ope Jgh _arm _arn _orm _orn _ern
Jght _old _ue _oa Jc _ird _urn
_oad _oat _ie _ow _own
 ROLE OF INSTRUCTION IN LEARNING TO READ 55

Appendix B

Instructional Components Used as Criteria for Compliance

Direct code components

1. Phonemic awareness 5. Writing
2. Use of anthology 6. Spelling dictation
3. Phonics, phonics review 7. Workshop
4. Guided and independent exploration 8. Use of workbook materials
Embedded code components
1. Make-and-break activities 5. Writing (shared, independent)
2. Reading (shared, choral-echo, guided, 6. Morning message, daily edit
readers' circle, independent) 7 Running record
3. Strategy instruction 8. Home reading
4. Frame target word, extend pattern, review
phonemic awareness
Implicit code components
1. Shared reading 5. Writing workshop, process
2. Guided reading 6. Integrated curriculum
3. Responses to and extensions of literature 7. Print-rich environment
4. Phonics instruction in context 8. Spelling instruction, workshop based on
strategies and meaningful context

Appendix C

Teacher Attitude Survey

1. If you were responsible for curriculum decisions in your district, would 5. How close is the match between the intervention you are delivering and
you recommend that resources (materials, staff development, etc.) be your own beliefs about how to teach children to read?
provided for this intervention in the future? a. An exact match. This is the way I already teach.
2. Would you recommend the intervention you are using to a colleague? b. Very similar. I agree with most aspects of the intervention.
3. Would you recommend the intervention for use with all age-appropriate c. Somewhat similar. I agree with some aspects of the intervention.
children? d. Not similar at all. My beliefs about the teaching of reading are con-
4. Would you recommend die intervention for children with special needs? tradictory to those of the intervention.
Note. Responses to the first four questions were based on a scale ranging from 1 {definitely yes) to 5 (definitely no).

Received February 6,1997

Revision received July 1,1997
Accepted September 16,1997

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