Article: Pugh, A., Kearns, D. M., & Hiebert, E. H. (2023). Text types and their relation to efficacy in beginning reading interventions. Reading Research Quarterly, 58 (4), 710–732.
Full text of article: https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.513
Purpose
Supporting early readers means not only selecting texts at an appropriate level but also selecting texts of the appropriate text type. Decodable texts, in which phonetic patterns are limited to those that have been taught, are a necessary aspect of beginning reading instruction that bolster associations of sounds with spellings. But while necessary, decodable texts may not be sufficient for the full development of reading skills. Texts without phonetic control—non-decodable texts—may also provide a benefit either when used in instruction without decodable texts or when used in combination with decodable texts.
“Text types and their relation to efficacy in beginning reading interventions” is a type of study known as a meta-analysis, in which the authors compared the results of over 100 existing studies of reading interventions for elementary students with reading difficulty. These interventions included only decodable texts, only non-decodable texts, both, or none (that is, focused on word reading instead of connected text). The goal was to determine how the effects of reading instruction differed by the text type used in reading interventions.
Findings
The effect of providing an intervention with either only decodable texts or only non-decodable texts was about the same when compared to interventions that used no connected text. Although there were only a few studies in which interventions included both decodable and non-decodable texts, the results suggested that using both types of texts could be more beneficial than using a single text type, especially for foundational skills such as word recognition.
Applications
- Teachers of students with reading challenges should ensure that classroom libraries have a mix of level-appropriate decodable and non-decodable texts.
- Instruction for struggling readers should include supported and independent reading of decodable texts and supported reading of nondecodable texts.
- For readers struggling with foundational skills, teachers may want to deliver interventions that focus on word and sentence reading as opposed to or alongside those with connected text.